Indian Group Files Congressional Ethics Complaint Against Congresswoman Watson
Congresswoman Watson has overstated and overstepped her elected authority and moral obligation with house bill 2824.
United Native America has filed a congressional ethics complaint against California congresswoman Diane Watson before the U.S. House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct. The group is also drafting a letter of ethics violations against Watson to be sent to the California Democrat Party and National Democrat Party leadership.
Congresswoman Watson has overstated and overstepped her elected authority and moral obligation with house bill 2824. She has misrepresented the Oklahoma Cherokee Nation and it's citizens to include verbal and written public statements that dehumanize citizens of the Cherokee Nation. Our Indian sons and daughters today are fighting terrorism world wide to save our nation. Native Americans are united in calling for Congresswoman Watson's resignation.
From the time Congresswoman Watson introduced house bill 2824 in June of this year calling for the termination of federal recognition of the Oklahoma Cherokee Nation over it's citizenship requirement vote held in March, 2007 she has embarked on a polical extremist nationwide crusade against the citizens of the Cherokee Nation by distorting their true history. In an October press report titled "Jim Crow in Indian Country", Watson further shows her willingness to distort the Cherokee Nations history. Watson's public statements are in clear violation of congressional ethics standerds and elected responsibility to represent all of her constituents equaly.
Watson's uncalled for actions against the American Indian community has clearly brought disgrace and shame on her office and the congressional governing body, that in itself calls for censorship of the representative covering ethics violations. Congresswoman Watson's personal actions against the Cherokee Nation and its’ citizens clearly shows Americans that her bill 2824 is a blue print of the "U.S. Jim Crow Laws" used against Indians.
The origins of the anti Indian Jim Crow system of U.S. laws was born in the Northern U.S. states. Laws were passed by states and cities restricting Indians from crossing state borders and interring cities all across America. Indians breaking any of these laws faced being lynched or imprisonment for life. The Jim Crow laws between 1866 to 1887 forbid marriage between whites and Indians or African Americans.
Walter Ashby Plecker, in charge of Virginias Bureau of Vital Statistics in 1912 set out to eliminate the Indian race population on state record books by striking out the wood "Indian" and replacing it with "Negro" or "Colored." Plecker intimidated mid-wives not to document the word Indian on state records to include training an entire generation of county clerks and health service workers in his raciest methods toward Indians. Plecker's anti Indian Jim Crow laws ruled far after his retirement and subsequent death in 1946.
Congresswoman Watson is also aware that the federal government In 1954 through it's Indian citizenship termination policy brought about the Ute Partition Act that removed the names of 490 Uinta Band Indians with less than 50 percent Ute blood from tribal rolls, the majority of them were children. In the late 1800s to mid-1950s, the federal government was terminating citizenships in all Indian tribes. Although that policy was reversed in the 1970s, and many terminated tribes were reinstated, that is not the case for the Uinta Band Indians of Utah to date.
The Northern Ute Tribe was the only tribe in the nation to have just a portion of their total enrolled members terminated'. Utah's Arthur Watkins, a Mormon U.S. Senator, used Indians in his home state as a model for the federal Indian termination program he sponsored. The federal government today is still fighting in federal court not to honor promises made to disenrolled Uinta Band Indians, in fact federal officials have pushed to have their case dismissed. Congresswoman Watson has seen fit to turn her back on the disenrolled Uinta Band Indians to include disenrolled Indians in her own state of California that clearly have tribal documented blood quantum to their tribal nation.
Congresswoman Watson is in her own little world in thinking she is immune to public voter scrutiny over her house bill 2824. The Cherokees are just one of many Indian Nations that were forced by President Jackson and the Union Army to relocate West of the Mississippi River. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Worcester vs. Georgia (1832) declared the forced removal of the Cherokee Nation to be illegal. President Andrew Jackson, who had the executive responsibility of enforcement of the laws stated, "Supreme Court member John Marshall has made his decision; let him enforce it now if he can."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Removal
President Jackson illegally ordered the Union Army to forcibly remove Indians from their Eastern homelands. That event now called, The Trail Of Tears dwarfs the loss of human life on 9-11 from foreign terrorists. Indian babies were lined up by Union Troops and kicked in the head killing them, while saying they would not survive the forced removal. Many legal promises were made to "Indian people" like the treaty of 1866; none were honored by the federal government, to include taking their land now called the state of Oklahoma.
http://digital.library.okstate.edu/KAPPLER/VOL2/treaties/che0942.htm
Americans today are getting a first hand view of how some of our federal representatives are still willing to introduce legislation that wound have devastating effects on all Native Americans in our country through Congresswoman Watson's house bill 2824. Americans today are learning about past public press statements in the LA Times Newspaper, where Watson made statements regarding Ward Connerly, an African American, in an interracial marriage: "He's married to a white woman. He wants a colorless society. He has no ethnic pride. He doesn't want to be black." Watson said.
http://multiracial.com/site/content/view/103/27/
Congresswoman Watson is also a member of the U.S. Congressional Black Caucus who fully supports Watson's Indian termination bill 2824, members of the caucus have issued press statements supporting Watson's bill. In review of past and present house legislation covering Native Americans, the Caucus has not showed a united front with the Native community by singing on as cosponsors of those's bills.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0107/2389.html
Congresswoman Watson continues to state, "the Cherokee Nation is not honoring the 1866 treaty". Watson is fully aware that the federal government not only dishonored the treaty from the beginning, it abandoned the 1866 treaty. Watson is not making that issue part of her house bill 2824. The National Congress Of American Indians representing over three hundred Indian Nations supports the Cherokee Nation in it's sovereign government rights to determine it's citizenship requirements without political retaliation from other governments.
Congress members should place house bill 2824 in the congressional hall of sham beside a long list of past anti Indian legislation. Our U.S. Congress members today our more concerned with building a stronger government to government relationship with American Indians than reliving the dark day's of Jim Crow Indian termination laws .
Information sites listed below covering House Bill 2824:
Mike Graham is a citizen of the Oklahoma Cherokee Nation, a retired service connected disabled Army veteran. Founded United Native America in 1993 to form a national group to take action on American Indian issues. The groups main issue is to bring about a federal national holiday for Native Americans. United Native America's motto is, "Standing up for America and the American Indian community."
Graham has been a guest speaker on national and international radio talk shows to include television programs concerning Indian community issues, his reports on Indian issues have been published in newspapers all over America. He has traveled across the country discussing issues with Indian nation leaders, he has presented Indian issues at college's and high schools.
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