An Interview with Delegate Kimberly Teehee

Kimberly Teehee is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation. She is Director of Government Relations for Cherokee Nation and Senior Vice President of Government Relations for Cherokee Nation Businesses.

In 2019, Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. named her the tribe’s first delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives, as guaranteed in multiple federal treaties and outlined in the Cherokee Nation Constitution. She was also named a visiting Sequoyah Fellow at her alma mater, Northeastern State University, in 2019 and 2020.

Prior to returning home to the Cherokee Nation, she served as Partner for Mapetsi Policy Group, a Washington, D.C. based federal advocacy group representing Indian tribes and tribal organizations.

She previously served under President Barack Obama as the first-ever Senior Policy Advisor for Native American Affairs in the White House Domestic Policy Council for three years. Kim worked with federal agencies to develop and implement policies focused on environmental justice, tribal consultation, tribal self-determination, economic growth, public safety, health care, and education and to resolve longstanding disputes.

Kim also served as Senior Advisor to the U.S. House of Representatives Native American Caucus Co-Chair, Rep. Dale Kildee (D-MI). Serving the bipartisan Caucus for nearly 12 years, she established an impressive record of accomplishments on a wide array of Native American issues.

She grew up in Claremore, Oklahoma, and held various positions at Cherokee Nation prior to working in Washington, D.C. Kim received her B.A. in Political Science from Northeastern State University and her J.D. from the University of Iowa, College of Law.

Gina Lazaro: Delegate Teehee, thank you so much for meeting with us today. So that our readers can get to know you better, please tell us who and what influenced your career in activism and politics?

Kimberly Teehee: I put my influences into three categories. First, my parents and family, because our lives are so intertwined with federal law and policies from the removal era to allotments to assimilation to today. My ancestors were forcibly removed from the East to what is now Oklahoma. I grew up going to a church that was founded in 1839 by those forcibly removed. My family is buried in a cemetery there, which is so precious to me. I recently visited my grandparents’ graves and there is an area of old headstones. It reminds me that my family came here when forcibly removed, survived, and ultimately died here in Oklahoma.

My parents grew up on their Cherokee land allotments. Those policies were designed to break down communal properties and land holdings of the tribes by doling them out into individual land allotments. That is where the biggest land grab occurred. I was born in Chicago because there was a federal policy designed in the 1950s/60s to take Indians from their rural settings and put them into urban areas to assimilate and acculturate them into mainstream society. I am a product of assimilation and its failure because the government underestimated the connection that Indians have to their communities. My parents went back to Oklahoma when I was in fourth grade.

The second key influencer in my life was Wilma Mankiller, the first female Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation. I was her intern while in college and I learned my work ethic from her. She taught me by example how to work with dignitaries and to treat everybody with dignity and respect. It did not matter if she was meeting the Queen of England or the janitor, she treated everyone with the same respect, and she was a great listener. I was allowed into the room where she was negotiating to observe. She recognized people wanted to be in her presence, but she did not want you there if you were not contributing in some way.

Third, the other influencers in my life are Dale Kildee, the former member of Congress, and President Obama. They are the ones who exposed me to national policy and laws of Indian Country and gave me the authorities necessary to advance the needs of Indian Country on a national level.

Mary Jo Meisner: Thank you so much Delegate for the privilege of hearing about this because for many of our readers the Native American experience and history is something that they may not yet know much about. Would you provide more connection about moving from the East to the West, and about being born in Chicago? Was your family originally from the East Coast and came to the Midwest, and you also mentioned Oklahoma? It would be helpful to understand those connections.

Teehee: In the 18th and 19th centuries, the Cherokee Nation occupied a vast amount of the eastern part of the United States. North Carolina is the area typically associated with Cherokees but early on, we had treaties that extended beyond the Carolinas. Through treaties and land cessions those lands shrunk in the 19th century. The Federal Government had a policy of removal with the discovery of gold. In Georgia, the discovery meant that Georgia wanted the United States to use its treaty authorities to move the Cherokees out of the land that the Cherokees occupied because of the discovery of gold.

The Cherokee Nation fought removal, while President Andrew Jackson supported Indian removal policies. The Cherokees had a sophisticated government. We were successful economically, had a high literacy rate and a newspaper that was in Cherokee and English. We were not in teepees. We were not poor, uneducated people. We used the legal system to advance our removal fight, and we ultimately prevailed in the courts. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Georgia’s laws had no force and effect within the boundaries of the Cherokee Nation, 30 U.S. 1 (1831). Unfortunately, Andrew Jackson infamously said the Court and John Marshall made its decision, and now let them enforce it, knowing that the judiciary branch had no enforceability authority. Shortly after that court decision, an illegal faction of the Cherokee Nation signed a treaty with the United States in 1835 agreeing to the removal of the Cherokee Nation from where it occupied on the eastern part of United States to today’s Indian territory.

The implementation of that treaty in 1838 led to the forced removal of Cherokees from the East to the West. It is known as the “Trail of Tears” where a quarter of our population, between 3,000 to 4,000 people including the most vulnerable elderly and children, perished on that trail.

Because of the forced removal, my family has been in Oklahoma since the late 1830s. My father went to Chicago under the federal relocation program. Once he got settled, he sent for my mother, and I was born in Chicago in 1968. By the way, Chicago has one of largest urban Indian centers.

Lazaro: You mentioned President Obama as one of your influencers, and you made significant contributions while serving on his White House Domestic Policy Council. We would love to hear about highlights of your accomplishments during that time, as the first senior policy advisor for Native Americans.

Teehee: President Obama made sure that Native Americans were reflected on his domestic policy team. We never had anyone in a senior level position whose sole job was to create and execute policies for Indian Country. President Obama gave me the authority, the tools, and the seniority necessary to achieve meaningful accomplishments. I made sure, to the extent that I could, that the administration reflected the diversity of America including Indians in significant appointments, not just the appointments that Indians always get such as the Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs or Chairman of the National Indian Gaming Commission. We had the first Native American -- Hilary Tompkins, a member of the Navajo Nation -- serve as solicitor for the Department of the Interior. Keith Harper, who is a Cherokee Nation citizen, became the first Native American to be a U.S. Ambassador, and Diane Humetewa became the first Native American woman to serve on the federal bench. Justice Humetewa is a Republican, so bipartisanship was key to these successes.

I also worked across the federal government family to ensure that tribes were not omitted from policy. By the time I left the White House, at least eight agencies established senior advisors to oversee tribal issues at the agency secretary level. Those appointments were discretionary, so most of those positions went away after the Obama administration, but we had agencies cooperating at record levels on Native American policies.

Another success was having the annual Tribal Nations conferences. We had one big announcement at each conference with the first being a tribal consultation. There was an executive order on tribal consultation when President Clinton was in office -- Executive Order 13175, but it lay dormant in the years leading to the Obama administration. We issued a presidential memorandum at the first Tribal Nations conference committing to Indian Country that policy decisions that directly impact their communities will be made through consultations with the Tribal Nations at the highest level of the federal government and across the federal families.

In the second conference, I tried to ride the coattails of what was going on nationally to make sure that we had Indian Country included in policies. There were big efforts underway merging education with the economy, so we signed an Executive Order that refined our commitment to Indian education and tribal colleges.

At the third Tribal Nations conference, Secretary of State Clinton enhanced the United States’ engagement with the international community since we had tribes asking to support the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. We were working in the space where internationally, there was this instrument that directly hit at the heart of respecting indigenous people's rights. During the third Tribal Nations conference, President Obama announced support for the international declaration.

Other successful accomplishments include working with the agencies to end protracted and costly litigation that shadowed the relationship between tribes and the United States. We successfully ended the Cobell litigation regarding the Interior department’s misuse of federal resources owned by tribes. Also, the President signed the Tribal Law and Order Act which paved the way for the administration’s support of provisions to address a jurisdictional gap in the Violence Against Women Act of 2013, which became law.

Lazaro: In September 2019, you were appointed as the first Cherokee Nation delegate to the House of Representatives. Could you tell us more about this position and its historical significance? We would also like to understand the next steps on your appointment. Once seated, what are your goals in this role?

Teehee: I spoke earlier about the Treaty that forced removal. In that same treaty is a provision that states that the Cherokee Nation shall be entitled to a delegate in the U.S. House of Representatives and that treaty has never been abrogated. It is still the law of the land approved by the Senate and signed into law by President Andrew Jackson. The origins of a delegate did not begin there. We actually had an earlier treaty from 1785 that authorized a deputy of our choice to Congress. 1866 was our last treaty with the United States and in that Treaty is a provision that says it validates all prior treaties that are not inconsistent with its provisions.

In 2017, over an entirely different matter, the 1866 treaty was examined, and the courts said the Cherokee Nation must honor and fulfill its treaty obligations. That got the current Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr., who was then Cherokee Nation Secretary of State, to think that if the Cherokee Nation must fulfill its treaty obligations and responsibilities, then so should the United States honor its treaty obligations and seat a delegate. Importantly the chief of the Cherokee Nation did not have the legal authority to appoint a delegate until the 2000s when our new Constitution allowed for that. Our Constitution authorizes the chief to appoint a delegate and for the Tribal Council, which is our legislative body, to confirm. I was appointed by Chief Hoskin and then unanimously confirmed by the Council. The historical significance is this is treaty based. There is no other delegate in Congress that is treaty based. There are U.S. territory delegate seats that are authorized by Acts of Congress that require both chambers to vote on them and for the president to sign into law. In my case, our 1835 treaty was already ratified by the Senate and signed by the president, so today only requires House action.

The House has the authority to seat the delegate, and when we met with Speaker Pelosi pre-COVID in March 2020 she was supportive. However, we had to pivot toward COVID needs, then the election occurred, then the insurrection, and then one of our champions in the House for this effort, the only Democratic member in the Oklahoma delegation lost her seat. We had asked Secretary Haaland to be the new champion, and then she became Secretary of the Interior. Right now, we are working with Speaker Pelosi’s office and committee staff to create the best approach as it is a precedent. There are two other treaties involving other tribes that could follow in our footsteps. The 1778 treaty with the Delaware, 7 Stat. 13, and the 1830 treaty that applies to the Chickasaw and the Choctaw, 7 Stat. 333. There is also language in the 1785 pre-removal treaty. All of the other language is not as clear as our 1835 Treaty.

In terms of goals once seated, appropriations are critical. We have always advocated for mandatory or forward funding, especially for those critically needed services like the Indian Health Service, public safety, and things that help the needy, including food distribution on Indian reservations, which are discretionarily funded, so in the time of disruption in government those funds stop. In contrast, SNAP, the food stamp program for which Indians are eligible, is mandatorily funded, so it does not matter if the government shuts down, it maintains funding. In 2020 with the pandemic, we were dependent on ongoing continuing resolutions (CRs) with imminent shutdowns possibly occurring. Tribes had to make contingency plans on whether or not a shutdown would affect funding, and how to shift resources prioritizing health care, health care workers, food distribution, and police. Forward funding would resolve those uncertainties during times of government disruption. I was so happy to see that President Biden’s budget request for FY22 that was submitted to Congress includes forward funding for the Indian Health Service, so that basically covers funding for two fiscal years.

Other goals are to get reauthorizations underway and to make permanent some of these reauthorizations regarding the Violence Against Women Act, and the Native American Housing Self-Determination Act, the foundational law that authorizes tribal housing programs. In addition, it is making sure that we continue to have access to federal dollars to help us with the great needs of our communities during the pandemic. Then infrastructure, COVID has unveiled what we have always known in Indian Country, which is that great gaps, such as broadband gaps, exist because of the rural location of our communities. We had to stop in-person learning at our schools, go to distance learning and then figure out ways to give temporary access to our students who had no internet access. We got creative and put wi-fi mobile hotspots in our communities and provided people wi-fi devices that we partnered with AT&T and other entities. But that does not give us comprehensive connectivity lines, so we need to address this issue permanently. We also need to address water, other infrastructure projects such as roads, as well as better partnering opportunities with the communities.

Lazaro: You mentioned Secretary Deb Haaland. What is the impact of her appointment as the first Native American to serve as a cabinet secretary -- to the Native American community and also to the overall U.S. population?

Teehee: Her cabinet appointment was historic and unprecedented. We never had a Native American cabinet secretary before, and this matters especially having a secretary to lead the Interior Department, which has its roots in the war department and was responsible for implementing the sometimes devastating policies of the United States. At one time, policies were designed to terminate tribal political existence. When Secretary Haaland accepted her nomination, she commented on how her appointment is a clear example of the failure of the policy designed to exterminate people like her. Her role is significant because she was also recently named the new Chair of the White House Native American Affairs Council, which like the Domestic Policy Council, cross-cuts all federal agencies but addresses exclusively Indian issues and gives her the opportunity to engage at the highest level nationally on a secretary to secretary level.

As a member of Congress, Secretary Haaland worked effectively on a bipartisan basis. I think she holds the record of the most bills by a freshmen representative that have been signed into law. She did not introduce bills for the sake of just fulfilling a commitment to a constituent, rather she did it with the goal to get it across the finish line. She knew she needed bipartisan support. That mentality will help her accomplish the priorities of this administration. She is well known and has already worked so successfully on Native American issues across the federal government. The Secretary’s priorities align a lot with Cherokee Nation’s priorities. She is passionate about murdered and missing indigenous women's issues, and about environmental issues, consistent with Indian Country’s belief in protecting Mother Earth and being great stewards of this nation's vast resources.

The most important part for me is that she is a role model for young kids -- girls and boys. When they see her, a Native American, achieve at the highest level, it is so rewarding and impactful to a community that does not always have role models at that level, and she is so much like us. I mean Secretary Haaland was once homeless, and she has been upfront about her challenges with substance abuse and not having a savings account going into Congress. She is a genuine person and a genuine representative of our community. She is fierce.

Meisner: Thank you so much Delegate for expressing that kind of significance to help us understand this appointment and the overall state of affairs for Native Americans and the issues that are facing your people, and how we all need to understand this better to understand these issues and the impact that people like you and Secretary Haaland can have.

Teehee: Our constituency is so small, at the end of the day visibility is an issue. The fact that we are in 2021 and just now have our first cabinet Secretary, we have only had two Native American federal justices, and we have never had a U.S. Supreme Court Justice. We have the most Native Americans in Congress at any one time prior to Secretary Haaland’s departure was a total of six, now that is five. We suffer in this country from a visibility problem, and from a public school system that is not designed to teach about who we really are as a people. Look we just had former Senator Santorum from Pennsylvania talk about how little impact Native Americans had to the culture of this country. He is from a state that housed the very first Native American boarding school, the Carlisle Indian school, and there is a city named after Jim Thorpe, who was from Oklahoma, in his state. The fact that he does not know nor appreciate what is on his front steps is telling.

We are sovereign governments. We should always be expressly included in policy. But we are often forgotten, and the federal agencies often do not know whether or not provisions apply to Indian Tribes. Why, because it deals with this greater problem of visibility. There is still a lot of work to be done to educate this country’s policymakers and decision makers on Indian Country. Big steps in the right direction occurred when President Obama and President Biden made Native Americans a priority and when candidate Biden introduced the most comprehensive Native American policy paper (also called Tribal Nations Plan) of any presidential candidate. It is a guide that any agency can use to make a real impact for Indian Country. Progress is the fact that this president nominated a Native American to his cabinet, and that Indian Country is being looked at as flipping Arizona during the election. Despite our small numbers as a whole, we are not so small in terms of impact in that state.

We need more education and more alliances with other communities. With the Violence Against Women Act and the jurisdictional provisions, tribes partnered with women's advocacy organizations and non-Indian communities in order to get that accomplished. It does require partnering because we need to join forces with others to have our issues heard. I believe that if the Black Lives Matter movement did not happen and corporations remained indifferent, the Washington Redskins would still be called “redskins.” Black Lives Matters elevated people of color overall and helped elevate the sensitivities of the Native American community to what that name represented. Corporate sponsors like Nike finally took a firm stand to provide disincentives if the name did not change. We are still a small constituency at the end of the day, and it requires someone who believes that the relationship with Indian tribes is valuable and worthy of support in order to get things done. It can just as easily go away by having a leader who does not believe as strongly as this president does.

Lazaro: How do you rate the Biden-Harris administration’s first 100 days, which included $31 billion of the American Rescue Plan allocated to Tribal Nations. What do these early actions reveal about what to expect from the rest of the term?

Teehee: President Biden has been so aggressive with his executive actions out of the gate. He is dealing with the pandemic and the policy priorities of the economy, climate change, racial equity, and he does not forget Native Americans. We are included expressly in all of these plans. I rate this President, right now, at 100%. He has more to accomplish, and I do not expect him to get everything done right away in his Tribal Nations Plan as it is very comprehensive. Over time it will get there, and we have already seen his commitment to consultation and to make historic appointments. I did not get into the White House until the summer of President Obama’s first year in office. President Biden had Native Americans in office from day one. I do not even know how many anymore, I’ve lost count. They are across different agencies in senior level positions, so President Biden is making sure that as he addresses equity in this country that those goals also include Native Americans. I commend him for submitting a budget to Congress, his first presidential budget, that supports forward funding for the Indian Health Service. My hope is that we get more forward funding for other programs.

President Biden also rolled back many of the previous administration’s actions such as revoking the Keystone XL pipeline, revisiting the Bears Ears National Monument and protecting our national treasures, and committing to reducing carbon emissions; all of these actions are significant to Indian Country. Also, the Affordable Care Act, which was recently upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in California v Texas as constitutional, included a provision that permanently authorizes the Indian Health Care Improvement Act, the foundational law that authorizes tribal health care delivery systems. If the Affordable Care Act had been declared unconstitutional, in Indian Country we would have had to quickly pivot to provide a legislative response for reauthorization. It is significant that, in this new administration, the Department of Justice stated that they believed the Affordable Care Act was constitutional prior to the Supreme Court ruling.

Lazaro: Secretary Haaland remarked that “addressing the systemic inequities that impact indigenous peoples is the responsibility of every federal agency that will require an all-of-government approach across the administration.” Recognizing that there is much to do, what are the priorities for Native Americans from your perspective?

Teehee: As a former policymaker, I always look at the president's policies for the country, and I talked about the big four areas earlier: pandemic, economy, climate change, and equity. We need to make sure that Native Americans are expressly included in national policy. So far, we have been and if not, then Indian Country will yell loudly, and President Biden will listen.

Next, you look at the President’s Tribal Nations Plan as those are firm commitments that every agency should review as they develop their policies. And Secretary Haaland as the Chair of the White House Native American Affairs Council will use this position to make sure that she can deliver real changes that will impact our communities. I would like to see support for expanded self-determination opportunities. Tribes are the recipients of significant federal dollars, and history shows that the policies that promote self-determination, where we are the decision maker and deploy resources in our communities as we see fit, have the best outcomes. We need only look at the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Indian Health Service for existing examples on how this self-determination and self-governance models work. This is not funding without strings attached. We still have obligations to compliance and data calls to the federal agencies to make sure we are spending correctly. We are just able to use funds in the best way possible, based upon our own assessment of our needs in our individual communities.

Meisner: Delegate, your commentary and knowledge are extraordinary. Would you like to make some final comments about how you see the Biden-Harris administration going forward and the possibilities that lie ahead?

Teehee: I’m very optimistic for our community. Now we are starting to see the possibilities by appointing the cabinet secretary, and nominating Lauren King, a Native American from Washington state, to be the first federal district judge.

I have been mentoring a young lady who works for the Chief because she has rock star potential and scored well on the LSAT. I'm encouraging her to go to an Ivy League, and I’ve told her that my generation of Native lawyers focused on getting law degrees and we were the first generation with more than a handful of Native Americans who were eligible to take on senior positions in the administration. I feel with her generation legal warriors will be even more competitive than my generation was and that there will be more people, Ivy League educated, who will be even more qualified to serve in many different roles. I want us to get to the place where we have Native Americans serving as justices, as HHS Secretary, as USDA Secretary and secretary of any other agency. I would love to see Native Americans being considered not just for Indian specific positions within the federal agencies, but for other positions. President Biden has shown he feels strongly about our community and in making sure that we are not forgotten. That is very significant given the high unemployment rates and high suicide rates in our communities. It matters when the federal government is telling you through its actions that you matter as a people and there are resources behind promises to ensure your mental health is taken care of, you have safe homes and clean environments, you have the tools to learn, and that healthcare is right around the corner through telehealth or other means.

In that world there is a commitment to invest in Native Americans so that we are rising with the technology and advancements, and not just catching the crumbs. I see a lot of possibility in this administration, this country and Congress. We currently have the most diverse Congress in our lifetime, with a quarter of this Congress identifying as racial or ethnic minorities, and there are 144 women in Congress right now. There are five Native Americans, including one Native Hawaiian. Overall, I feel as long as our young people can see that the decision makers of this country really and truly reflect them, then it is going to benefit us because they are incentivized to achieve those same roles for themselves someday.

Meisner: Such an incredible way to end. Thank you, Madam Delegate.

Lazaro: Thank you very much for sharing your story, history and educating our readers. We look forward to hearing and seeing many more great things from you.

Teehee: Thank you both.

About the Authors:

Gina Lazaro is a 2021 Harvard Advanced Leadership Initiative Fellow. She has a background in global consumer products marketing with her last role as Chief Marketing Officer at FGX International, a subsidiary of Essilor. Gina serves on the advisory council of HighSight, a non-profit focused on educational opportunities for low-income African American and Latino youth, as well as on the board of The Canales Project, a non-profit arts and advocacy organization.

Mary Jo Meisner is a senior business executive specializing in communications, media, government relations, and public policy. Over the course of a 30-year career, Mary Jo has been a journalist, a newspaper and business executive, and was the architect of a groundbreaking civic leadership arm of the Boston Foundation. After spending a year as a 2017 Advanced Leadership Initiative fellow at Harvard University, Mary Jo formed MJM Advisory Services, a bespoke consulting firm that advises senior leaders in the private sector on their social impact initiatives.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.