Cowan Watts, Walkingstick share vision for future of Cherokee Nation

Cherokee Nation Principal Chief candidate Cara Cowan Watts and Deputy Chief Candidate David Walkingstick held their first campaign rally for the June election in Sequoyah County last Thursday at the Sequoyah County Fairgrounds Building.

The Cherokee Nation elections will be held from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on June 3 at various polling locations throughout the tribe’s 14-county jurisdiction.

Cowan Watts served on the Cherokee Nation Council from August 2003 to August 2015. Walkingstick was elected as Cherokee Nation District 3 Council representative in 2011. He served in that capacity until 2019 when he ran for chief but was disqualified to run. Cowan Watts addressed the crowd of about 60 by introducing members of her family, who reside in Sequoyah County. Cowan Watts said her father, Clarence “Curly” Cowan is a 1959 graduate of Sallisaw High School. She also has other relatives who live “outside of Gans” and in Roland.

Some of the topics included in her address were concerns about the current administration hiring “non-Cherokees” especially in their Cherokee Nation Business corporate offices which conducts business for the casinos and related businesses. Cowan Watts said the tribe has become a business or a corporation.

“The three pillars of the Cherokee Nation government will always be education, health care and housing,” she said.

“Our national priority must be the preservation and future of our shared language and culture. To support our Cherokee families, 10 immediate actions rise to the top. Much must be done above and beyond this list as a tribal government to support Cherokees now and the next seven generations,” she said.

The 10 she mentioned and included in her platform and “vision for the future” of the Cherokee Nation are:

1. Restore a priority, focus on our Cherokee families, Cherokee families first;

2. Increase government transparency, accountability and justice by ending corruption and pay-to-play politics;

3. Preserve individual liberty for all;

4. Restore a culture of trust and respect throughout the Cherokee Nation and our neighbors;

5. Bring customer service back to the agencies of the Cherokee Nation;

6. Fill our empty clinics with world-class medical staff;

7. Achieve certainty about Mc-Girt so Cherokees can safely live and invest confidently, including Murdered Missing Indigenous Women (MMIW) issues;

8. Defend our people, communities, lands, waters and sovereignty;

9. Invest at home to build a stable and diversified Cherokee economy; and

10. Respect our elders by meeting essential medical, housing and food security needs.

“Our Cherokee families are hurting as politicians in Tahlequah line their pockets,” reads a statement from Cowan Watts and Walkingstick’s platform stating both want to “refocus the resources of the Cherokee Nation back to the needs of our Cherokee families to create self-sufficiency among our people.”

“By taking back, the pay raises the chief and Tribal Council gave themselves when no one was looking and selling the Chief’s mansion in Tahlequah, we will return those tribal dollars to our Cherokee people through new programs and restore funding to existing programs cut over the 12 past years,” she said.

The two also want to increase scholarship dollars.

“This begins by fully funding future medical school tuition for Cherokee students who want to work in the 14 counties,” Cowan Watts said.

For accountability, Cowan Watts said, “The current administration has demonstrated poor financial priorities on multiple occasions including the $50 million in Cherokee casino money spent on the Oklahoma governor’s race in 2022, the approximately $1 million per year for former Cherokee Nation Chief Bill John Baker’s political position at Cherokee Nation Businesses which set him over the current administration must be stopped.”

Other platform plans addressed by Cowan Watts and Walkingstick include restoring the Whistleblowers Act and providing protection for the employees, contractors and citizens to bring forward any possible wrongdoing inside the Cherokee Nation.

Cowan Watts also said “even before the McGirt decision, the Cherokee Nation was responsible for being a good steward of our resources. Good stewardship means building healthy, strong relationships with our neighbors such the city, county and state governments and elected officials. The current relationship with the governor of Oklahoma is unacceptable. Although we cannot control the governor, we expect more from our Cherokee Nation leadership.”

Cowan Watts said spending millions on the governor’s race against Stitt is “unacceptable.”

She also said she and Walkingstick want to “return to non-partisanship” and focus on building solid relationships with others to conduct the Cherokee people’s business.

“Political party affiliation should not matter,” she said.

She also said housing, healthcare, education and tribal citizenship registration and every department inside the Cherokee Nation is there to serve the people.

“Cherokees should not have to take a vacation to go to Tahlequah to obtain their Cherokee Photo ID.” Cowan Watts said she and Walkingstick will focus on “automating services with texting apps, cell phone apps, online portal tools, automatic mail programs and more to bring the Cherokee Nation into the 21st century.”

She also noted the need for more doctors and plans, if elected, to recruit and retain top talent.

“We must have more competitive pay, treat our staff with respect and always strive for transparency and fairness in policies and the treatment of others,” she said.

Cowan Watts spoke about the recent move from the present administration in which $450 million plus of Cherokee money was spent “on a failing casino in Tunica, Miss., which they do not own and thus, failed our families and those seeking careers at home inside the Cherokee Nation,” Cowan Watts said.

“In addition to the tribe not owning the building or any visible assets, it must also pay $39 million in annual rent on top of the cost of immediate and extensive remodeling of some else’s asset,” she said.

“However, Tunica is not a onetime occurrence. Cherokee Nation funded an amendment to the Arkansas State constitution in 2018 to add new casinos for Pope County. Since then, the Arkansas casino debacle has been chaotic, resulting in four years of litigation without success.”

Walkingstick and Cowan Watts said they want to “bridge the gap” between social security and inflation for the elders by providing an elder stipend and build Cherokee Nation nursing homes to assist families in caring for Cherokee elders in a culturally competent, safe environment.

The two expressed the need for special call centers and well-trained staff to work one-on-one with the elders and their families to explore and understand all of the tribal and non-tribal options at their disposal.

“No more unreturned phone calls or office phones that are unanswered. We want to implement automated texting, call centers staffed by local Cherokees who know their positions, online website tools, phone apps and live Cherokee people in local offices to serve our elders,” she said.

“We served on the council together and we were on opposite sides of the fence,” Walkingstick said.

“But it only took about two or three years to see the direction they were headed, I didn’t go along with most of it. So on June 3, we’re asking for the Cherokee peoples’ vote,” Walkingstick said.

“Voting for Cara Cowan Watts and David Walkingstick is voting for our Cherokee Nation and our Cherokee people being valued and prioritized for the long-term strength and longevity of the Cherokee Nation.”

Watts elaborates all 10 “immediate” actions mentioned above and more on the websites cara4chief@gmail.com or walkingstick80@gmail.com To learn more, go to caracowanwatts.com or call 918-9285760 or Walkingstick at 918-207-8456.