As the summer heat tries to bake you out of your boots, the 2025 tribal election cycle has rolled onward, with elections concluding in the Choctaw, Seminole, Cherokee, Quapaw and Caddo nations of late. For the third time in eight years, voters in the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma have declined to reelect an incumbent chief.
Meanwhile, the Stitt family’s Thanksgiving table is getting more fodder for discussion, as Marvin Keith Stitt’s petition for the U.S. Supreme Court to hear his traffic ticket case is being opposed by the City of Tulsa, which suggests potential collusion between Keith and Gov. Kevin Stitt.
Out west, the City of Hinton and the Delaware Nation are now in court over the provision of water, sewer and public safety services at Casino Oklahoma.
Learn about all of those items and more in this tribal roundup.
City of Tulsa asks SCOTUS to deny Keith Stitt petition
Tulsa City Attorney Jack Blair responded to Marvin Keith Stitt’s petition to the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing the “petition for writ of certiorari should be denied.” Stitt, Gov. Kevin Stitt’s brother and a Cherokee Nation citizen, petitioned the nation’s highest court to review his traffic ticket conviction in Tulsa Municipal Court for an offense that occurred within the Muscogee Reservation.
Owing to a pending settlement agreement between the City of Tulsa and the Muscogee Nation struck in June, Blair argued the City of Tulsa and the Muscogee Nation are no longer “adversarial” and encouraged the court to deny Stitt’s petition.
“The City of Tulsa and the Muscogee Nation have entered into a cooperative agreement and the city is no longer in a position adversarial to the Muscogee Nation’s exercise of sovereign authority to prosecute Indian defendants, including petitioner,” Blair wrote. “Yet, rather than applying for post-conviction relief in municipal court based on the terms of the settlement agreement, petitioner has sought this court’s review of the broader jurisdictional question, over which the city and the Muscogee Nation have agreed to stop fighting. The question presented by this case is important, but the City of Tulsa is no longer in a position adversarial to the Muscogee Nation’s exercise of sovereign authority to prosecute Indian defendants, including the petitioner.”
Keith Stitt received a speeding ticket from the City of Tulsa in February 2021. After being convicted and fined $250, he appealed to the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals, arguing the city lacked criminal jurisdiction over him because he is a Cherokee Nation citizen. The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals disagreed, finding Tulsa had concurrent jurisdiction with the Muscogee Nation over Stitt’s case. In July, Stitt appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, asking it to further clarify its 2020 ruling in McGirt v. Oklahoma, which functionally affirmed eastern Oklahoma as a series of Indian Country reservations.
In the city’s response, Blair noted that Keith Stitt received a second speeding ticket from the city Jan. 6, 2023, which was dismissed and referred to the Muscogee Nation for prosecution after the inauguration of Mayor Monroe Nichols. The Muscogee Nation filed a charge against Stitt for that speeding ticket in April.
A footnote in the City of Tulsa’s response also questions whether Keith Stitt and his brother collaborated to bring the challenge before the court.
“Petitioner’s adversarial position in this case has also been questioned,” Blair wrote, before quoting a NonDoc article. “The governor scoffed at speculation that he and his brother have coordinated the unusual court case to prove a point about the July 2020 McGirt v. Oklahoma U.S. Supreme Court decision.”
City of Hinton threatens Delaware Nation casino, nations sues
The Delaware Nation filed a lawsuit July 22 against the City of Hinton in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma, alleging the city is attempting to administer an illegal “tax” on the nation’s casino within city limits and is threatening to shut off water and sewer service to the casino unless the nation pays the city. The suit appears to be on hold until October based on the mutual agreement of the parties.
Legal background
The complex jurisdictional rules for Indian Country, a legal term of art with applications that have created several controversies on eastern Oklahoma reservations, also apply to land held in trust for a tribe by the United States government.
In 2012, the Delaware Nation opened Casino Oklahoma in Hinton on a piece of land held in trust for the tribe by the United States. The Delaware Nation signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the city in 2012 and agreed to pay the city $25,000 annually, cover one-third of the cost of traffic signal upgrades near the casino and pay $500 per call to the Hinton Police Department from the casino. An updated MOU in 2018 dropped the $500-per-call fee, but it raised the annual payment to $40,000.
Both the 2012 and 2018 MOU promised that the city would maintain water and sewer services to the facility “even after the expiration or non-renewal of this agreement.” In 2024, the Delaware Nation informed the city it did not intend to renew the MOU, and attorney Kim Spady replied on the city’s behalf informing the nation that, without an MOU, the city would not provide police or fire services to the casino.
“Both the Hinton Police Department and the Hinton Fire Department regularly respond to calls and provide non-emergency aid to Casino Oklahoma and its patrons. Effective Jan. 1, 2025, Hinton will no longer respond to calls at Casino Oklahoma,” Spady wrote in December. “In sum, beginning Jan. 1, 2025, Hinton will not assist or provide services to the Delaware Nation/Lenape, or on the Casino Oklahoma premises, other than water and wastewater at current levels.”
On June 10, the Board of Trustees of the City of Hinton — Mayor Brandon Hill, Vice Mayor Casey McLoud, Brian Sweany, Josh Toho and Charles Basse — sent a letter to Delaware Nation President Deborah Dotson and Lenape Entertainment Chairwoman Sonnie Allen informing them the city intended to “discontinue all municipal services, including water and sewer services, to the Casino Oklahoma property at 12 a.m. on Aug. 1, 2025.”
The letter implied that the casino, which is within Hinton’s city limits, is “outside the municipal boundaries” and outside of Hinton jurisdiction because it sits on land held in trust by the federal government. The Delaware Nation filed for a temporary restraining order against the city July 22, but it struck the motion two days later in another filing that indicated Hinton agreed to continue providing the casino water and sewer services temporarily in exchange for delaying the lawsuit until October.
Seminole Nation voters oust chief, assistant chief
For the third time in eight years, a challenger defeated the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma’s incumbent chief. In a runoff election Saturday, Aug. 9, Sena Yesslith received 545 votes (51.2 percent), narrowly ousting Chief Lewis Johnson, according to unofficial election results posted to the nation’s Facebook page. Johnson received 520 votes (48.8 percent).
Voters also selected challenge Sheila Little-Harjo over incumbent Assistant Chief Brian Thomas Palmer.
In the July 12 primary election, Yesslith (208 votes) had finished second to Johnson (471 votes) in a six-candidate field for chief. Voter turnout was remarkably similar one month later. While 1,069 Seminole Nation citizens voted in the July chief primary, 1,065 voted in Saturday’s runoff.
While electoral turnover can be rare for some tribes — no one has even filed to challenge an incumbent for two cycles in the Chickasaw Nation — Saturday’s election marks the third straight time that Seminole voters have chosen change at the top. In 2021, Johnson received 59.5 precent support to defeat Yesslith and incumbent Chief Greg Chilcoat. In 2017, Chilcoat had defeated two-term incumbent Leonard M. Harjo in a runoff.
On Saturday, although Johnson received 49 more votes than he did in the primary, he received 499 fewer than he did in the 2021 primary that he won outright. Compared to 2021, about 38 percent fewer voters participated in this year’s Seminole Nation elections.
Yesslith’s victory will make her the second female chief of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma. The last female chief, Alice Brown Davis, served from 1922 to 1935.
In a Facebook post prior to the election, Yesslith committed to holding herself accountable if elected chief, while not playing into division among the General Council, on which she served for eight years.
“After all, it is the people who hold their representatives accountable and direct them how to vote or what questions to ask,” Yesslith wrote. “It is the council who is to tell the chief what is needed for the nation.”
Yesslith served as a representative of the Mekusukey Band to the General Council from 2013 to 2021. She also worked in child welfare at Eastern Oklahoma Youth Services Inc. and the Indian Child Welfare Department of the Absentee Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma.
Johnson had served as assistant chief from 2013 until he was elected chief in 2021. Throughout this year’s reelection campaign, Johnson pushed back on ideas that “nothing has been done” by his administration.
“Let me be clear: under this executive office, the Seminole Nation has secured more grant and contract funding than at any point in modern history — excluding COVID relief — through strategic leadership, relentless pursuit of opportunity, and a deep responsibility to our people,” Johnson wrote in a June 21 Facebook post. “These are not abstract numbers — these are lifelines to programs, services, and jobs for our tribal citizens.”
After the election, Johnson posted a statement on Facebook expressing gratitude to voters for allowing him to serve the nation.
“I wish to express my deepest gratitude to the members of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma for granting me the honor of serving you in many capacities over the past decades — a journey that began in the early 1990s under the guidance and blessing of our respected elders,” Johnson said. “Service to our nation has been a tradition and calling within my family for generations, and I am humbled to have carried that legacy forward.”
In the assistant chief race, Sheila Harjo received 548 votes (52 percent) compared to incumbent Brian Thomas Palmer’s 505 votes (48 percent).
Harjo posted on Facebook following the election, saying she was grateful and humbled to receive such support.
“Your faith in me is a tremendous honor. Tonight I will rest and recharge, preparing to tackle the challenges ahead with renewed energy,” Harjo said. “I extend my sincerest appreciation to you all, and I thank Assistant Chief Palmer for running his campaign with honor. We can only succeed as a nation by working together. I am honored to serve as your next assistant chief and excited to see what the next four years hold for us.”
In a Facebook post late Saturday, Palmer wished Yeslith and Harjo “the best” during their upcoming tenures.
“Serving our Seminole Nation of Oklahoma has been a blessing. My aunt Joanna once told me the Seminole Nation will take care of you until the day it doesn’t. Still trying to figure that one out but this moment feels like it, and I pray that God guide you and the promises to our people are fulfilled during the next term,” Palmer wrote. “Serving our people since January of 2007 until now has been a blessing and experience that has given me the opportunity to uplift our people and voice our concerns in spaces I dare not dreamed. From walking the halls of the Senate, Harvard, Dartmouth, and driving the back roads of home, all brought me the greatest sense of accomplishment. I was led to fill this position by so many reasons and have successfully fulfilled my oath of office.”
Palmer’s Facebook post also thanked Johnson and apologized to his supporters for having “failed you in retaining my position.” His post also referenced what had become tense social media turmoil over this year’s chief and assistant chief elections.
“The sentiment of Ephesians 5:11 comes to me along with this thought… Live in the light, for those that spread darkness in the form of rumor and lies shall be judged by the most revenging God for my revenge as judgement lies in his hands alone,” Palmer wrote. “To the voters of the Seminole Nation, your voice speaks, continue to speak at the band level for your participation is required more than during elections. To our ancestors and ancient ones, I hope I made you proud, your sacrifice is known to me in ways I wish every Seminole could know. Mvto.”
Ahead of the election, Harjo said in an interview with the Seminole Nation that her campaign was about fighting for what she believes in, drawing on her experience becoming the first female welding student at the Gordon Cooper Technology Center.
Prior to running for assistant chief, Harjo served eight years as a representative on the General Council. Harjo also previously served as a finance director for the Seminole Nation and the Chickasaw Nation. She also focused on the impact that President Donald Trump’s administration may have on tribal nations.
“The Seminole Nation is going to be facing some really critical times in the future,” Harjo said. “With the current administration in Washington, we have taken steps backwards a hundred years to Andrew Jackson’s time. I’m seeing things that Andrew Jackson and his cronies did happening now, and with the stroke of a pen, we could be wiped out of the Seminole Nation.”
Yesslith and Harjo are set to take their oaths of office Saturday, Sept. 6, at the Mekusukey Mission.
Turner wins Choctaw Nation District 5 runoff
Jennifer Turner defeated opponent Earl Smith in the Aug. 9 runoff election for the District 5 seat on the Choctaw Nation Tribal Council, according to unofficial election results.
Turner secured 563 votes (56.13 percent), while Smith earned 440 votes (43.87 percent) in the election. Voters could vote in person or by absentee ballot. Turner will represent the northeast corner of the Choctaw Nation Reservation, including parts of Haskell County and LeFlore County, joining 11 other council members responsible for establishing tribal law and overseeing the Choctaw Nation’s $2.8 billion budget.
Turner will serve the remainder of former councilmember Ron Perry’s four-year term, which began in 2023. Perry resigned from his District 5 seat April 1 after being charged with six counts of sexual battery.
Smith and Turner were the two highest vote earners of a seven-candidate field in the July 12 special election. In that election, Turner received 343 of the 1,001 total votes cast (34.27 percent support), while Smith received 201 votes (20.08 percent).
“This campaign has never been about me,” Turner wrote in a post ahead of the Aug. 9 runoff. “It’s about our shared values, our families, and our future. I’m committed to listening, working hard, and being a strong voice for our elders, our youth, and every member of our Choctaw family.”
3 candidates file for Muscogee Nation’s Mvskoke District
After no candidates initially filed July 9 for the Muscogee National Council’s Mvskoke District, the nation held a second candidate filing window for only that “B” seat July 16. The second round of filing drew three candidates: Jessina Marie Brown, Lora Ann Harjo-King and Sandra Elaine Parish.
Parish ran against the now-retiring incumbent, Joyce Deere, in 2021 and previously served on the council from 2002 to 2005. Brown and Harjo-King both previously ran to represent the district’s “A” seat in 2019, but lost to Mary Crawford.
The general election is set for Sept. 20, with the deadline to register to vote on Sept. 9. The election could be the first to include Muscogee Freedmen since the 1970s, dramatically altering the nation’s electoral landscape. While the Muscogee Nation Supreme Court ordered the nation’s citizenship board to enroll the descendants of Muscogee Freedmen, the board petitioned for the case to be reheard and accused the court of creating a constitutional crisis.
Every citizen in the Muscogee Nation votes for every district’s representative on the Muscogee National Council, meaning new voters will be eligible to vote for all eight of the district representatives up for election this year, regardless of where they live. Elections in the 2021 and 2023 election cycles have featured participation from a maximum of about 4,000 voters. It is unclear how many of the descendants of Freedmen may be admitted as citizens in time to register for the 2025 election.
Asked how many Muscogee Freedmen are likely eligible for citizenship after the Muscogee Nation Supreme Court’s decision, attorney Damario Solomon-Simmons said the “ball park” estimate is 100,000.
“Again, this is an estimate. We look (and see) that there are a 100,000 by blood, so we think there is probably 100,000 Creek Freedmen descendants,” Solomon-Simmons said. “Now that is just a rough estimate, but we do estimate here in the Tulsa-area probably about 10,000. So many people have Black Creek ancestry that you have no idea.”
Caddo Nation reelects chair, treasurer, replaces OKC rep.
The Caddo Nation Election Board announced the results of the nation’s July 12 election. The nation is governed by a tribal council consisting of a chairman, vice-chairman, treasurer, secretary and between four to 15 district representatives, according to the nation’s constitution. The tribe currently has four districts: Anadarko, Binger, Ft. Cobb and Oklahoma City. The chairman, treasurer, Oklahoma City district and Binger district appeared on the July ballot.
Incumbent Chairman Bobby Gonzales was reelected in a landslide with 158 votes to Michael Meeks’ 26 votes and Eric Guy’s 11 votes. Incumbent Treasurer Verna Castillo was elected by a similar margin, receiving 156 votes to Anthony Cotter’s 33 votes.
Lawyer Brittany Habbart won the Oklahoma City representative election by a margin of two votes over incumbent Rep. Jennifer Wilson. Habbart received 26 votes to Wilson’s 24. Arnita Pewewardy-Keyes ran unopposed for the tribe’s Hearing Board and received 157 votes. No candidate filed for the Binger representative seat. With no one filing for the elected position, the Caddo Constitution’s amendments allow the Tribal Council to appoint an interim officeholder until the next election. The nation’s website currently lists Braden Steven Noah as the interim representative for the Binger district.
Quapaw Nation reelects vice-chairman who tried to withdraw
Voters in the Quapaw Nation reelected their vice chairman and three members of the nation’s Business Committee with every incumbent holding their seat, despite the fact one attempted to withdraw the week before the election.
Quapaw Nation Vice Chairman Jesse McKibben II was reelected with 324 votes (80 percent), over his opponent Amy Panther-Kvistad, who received 79 votes. However, McKibben had attempted to withdraw before the election and announced during a July 19 Business Committee meeting that he was retiring to spend time with his family.
“I want to thank you all for the last year I was able to serve. I know I reapplied to run again, but next week if Frank, you guys, want to mark me off of those ballots. It’s been a privilege and an honor to serve you for this past year. My heart is still with the Quapaw Nation people, I love all of our Quapaw people. Since I’ve been in here, one of my main pushes has been increased accountability, and I think we’re better, but I think we need to still increase that accountability amongst everyone sitting up here,” McKibben said toward the end of the meeting. “I want to spend more time with my grandkids. I’m taking blood pressure medicine before this, and I’m not looking for any sympathy because that’s not me.”
If McKibben resigns instead of serving the new term he won, a special election would be called to fill his seat. The next Quapaw Nation Business Committee meeting, which likely must address McKibben’s situation, is scheduled for Saturday, Aug. 16.
Incumbent Business Committee members Joey Giveswater, Linda Davis and Larry Mercer were reelected in a top-three election featuring seven candidates. Davis topped the pack with 272 votes, while Giveswater also had a strong showing with 201 votes. Mercer was the closest to losing his seat, receiving 175 votes. The next closest candidate, Buddy Sharp, finished with 160 votes — 16 shy of unseating Mercer.
Other candidates who ran included Roman Kihega (133 votes), Sean Mathews (124 votes) and Virginia Mouse (122 votes).
Uriah Grass wins Cherokee Nation District 4 seat
According to unofficial election results from the Cherokee Nation, Uriah Grass defeated Janis Dearman in the July 26 runoff election for the District 4 Tribal Council seat.
Election results showed Grass receiving 359 votes (56.9 percent), with Dearman garnering 272 votes (43.1 percent). Grass will succeed incumbent Rep. Mike Dobbins, who was term-limited.
“I’m ready to dedicate the next four years to working hard and serving you — every community, every family, every voice in District 4,” Grass said in a Facebook post before Election Day. “I truly appreciate all the support you’ve shown me so far.”
