Washington, D.C. – On Thursday, U.S. Senator Markwayne Mullin (R-OK), a member of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, emphasized the importance of seeing Native issues through a nonpartisan lens at the nomination hearing to consider Mr. William Kirkland to be President Trump’s Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs within the Department of the Interior.
In his remarks, Senator Mullin discussed his experience as a member of Cherokee Nation, Mr. Kirkland’s background, and the crucial responsibility members of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs have to honor America’s federal obligation to Indian Country. Highlights below.
Sen. Mullin’s full remarks can be found here.
On being a member of Cherokee Nation and serving in the U.S. Senate:
“I’m Cherokee, and I never knew I was special for being Cherokee until I came to D.C., because where I’m from, everybody’s Indian or wants to be. And when I came up here, Tom Cole was the first one that came up to me and said, ‘Congratulations, we just doubled the size of our Native American Caucus.’ That was back in 2013. I was like, ‘What do you mean?’ He’s like, ‘Well, I’m Chickasaw and you’re Cherokee.’ And I said, ‘Yeah, we taught you how to read and write.’ No, I’m kidding. And we joked about it, because sometimes there’s a misunderstanding.”
On those not from Indian Country misunderstanding Tribal issues:
“But what they don’t understand about Indian Country, and tell me if I’m wrong, is we don’t look at the world through an ‘R’ or ‘D’ lens. We look at it from our heritage perspective… And sometimes people that aren’t from Indian Country and they’re not Native, they don’t understand it. They don’t get it. Because politics is their world… Tribal issues, it’s a federal responsibility we have, and so you can separate the politics out of it, because we have an obligation.”
On Mr. Kirkland’s background:
“All our Tribes in Oklahoma are going to be different from the Tribes in the Midwest. And I think one of the coolest things that you have the ability to do is you get to learn all those different needs. And when you go in there with a with a background like yourself, and with Native people at the front of your mind and any decision you make, you have an opportunity to actually get to know them and get to know what their unique challenges are.”
On the responsibility of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs:
“I just hope in this committee, that we try to leave the politics out of it and just put Indian Country first. That’s what our responsibility is here. That’s why I think this committee is unique because if there’s ever a committee that works in a real bipartisan manner, it’s this committee, and we have to be careful that we don’t we don’t separate that because, as I repeat myself again, we have a federal obligation. And regardless if you’re a Native or you’re not, if we’re in this position of authority, if we’re in this position to actually affect that, we need to understand that and just all be in the same boat, working together.”
On Mr. Kirkland’s willingness to serve:
“So, thank you for standing up. Thank you for your family too, to going through this with you, because it’s a challenge and your ability to continue to stay in the fight for Indian Country is commendable. So, God bless you.”
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