Tired of waiting, Tulsa mayor proposes discussions with tribes to resolve jurisdiction questions

“I believe the best way for us to resolve all of this is for the tribal nations to recognize the city of Tulsa as part of their nations — the same way the state of Oklahoma recognizes us,” Bynum said during his annual State of the City address. “The state of Oklahoma delegates self-government to the city of Tulsa on any issue they don’t claim for themselves.

“If the tribal nations would be willing to do the same, we could move beyond the litigation that has been a source of antagonism for the last three years and shift our focus to building that international center of Native American excellence right here.”

The Muscogee, Cherokee, and Osage reservations intersect in Tulsa, Bynum noted, making it the largest city on reservation land in the country — something that he said should be celebrated.

But recent court rulings have “thrown all of the systems of governmental interaction which were developed since statehood into confusion,” Bynum said.

Congress has failed to do anything to address the issue, he added, and the state government is fixated on litigation.

“I have spent three years waiting for them to do something, and they haven’t. So we are going to do as much as we can on our own,” Bynum said.

Speaking after his address, Bynum provided an example of the practical implications of the existing legal arrangement and how a new governing framework could work.

“Right now, none of the tribal governments have a zoning code that applies to Tulsa. None of them have a building code or an electrical code that applies to Tulsa,” the mayor said. “And so we can either, under the appellate court's decision in Hooper, have one set of zoning laws that applies to one group of people and one set that doesn't apply to other groups of people or we can sit down and work through all those issues together, the city and the tribes, and resolve any concerns.”

Bynum said the City Council adopts new ordinances nearly every week, some of great significance, some not.

“We wouldn't want to have to then, every budget amendment we have, send it to the tribal councils of three different tribes to see if it applies there,” he said. “And the easy way to work through all of that is just for the tribes to recognize Tulsa the same way the state of Oklahoma does.

“By the way, if the state of Oklahoma has a power that they think is better vested in them than in the local government, they have the ability to preempt us. They do that all the time. We have no problem with the tribal governments taking that same stance. We respect their sovereignty and their authority.

“But I think 99% of this can be solved by them simply recognizing Tulsa as part of their nations and delegating to us the right of local self-governance.”

Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. said he was very encouraged by the mayor’s remarks.

“At the end of the day, the Cherokee Nation wants the same outcomes as the city of Tulsa — protecting the public, helping victims of crimes, providing justice for those who offend, and serving our citizens as good friends and neighbors,” Hoskin said in a statement. “We thank the mayor for recognizing our tribal reservation and committing to work alongside us.”

The city of Tulsa is a defendant in a federal civil lawsuit brought by a Choctaw tribal citizen who is challenging the city’s authority to cite him for a traffic violation in 2018, based on the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark McGirt decision.

The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals determined in a June ruling that the city of Tulsa could not rely upon the Curtis Act, passed in 1898, to give it jurisdiction to cite Justin Hooper for speeding despite his tribal membership status.

The ruling follows the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2020 McGirt decision, which determined that the state of Oklahoma did not have criminal jurisdiction in a child sex-abuse case because the crime occurred within the historic boundaries of the Muscogee Nation, which includes portions of Tulsa generally south of Admiral Boulevard.

States generally do not have criminal jurisdiction over tribal members for crimes occurring within an established reservation.

Since Congress never disestablished the Muscogee Nation reservation, Hooper argues that the city of Tulsa has no criminal jurisdiction over tribal citizens such as himself for traffic citations, in addition to major crimes as outlined in the McGirt decision.

The Hooper case has since been sent back to Tulsa federal court for additional litigation.

Tulsa World reporter Curtis Killman contributed to this story.

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