Leaders applaud passage of bill ending blood-quantum requirement

Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation Bill John Baker stops to chat with visitors while touring the Cherokee Nation W.W. Hastings Hospital in Tahlequah, Okla., taken on March 1, 2016. Cherokee Nation is building new multimillion-dollar tribal health-care center in a partnership with the federal government with feds providing at least $80 million a year for 20 years or longer. JAMES GIBBARD/Tulsa World

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) – Oklahoma tribal leaders and members of Congress are applauding the final passage of bill that will end a blood-quantum requirement they have long considered discriminatory.

The Stigler Act Amendments of 2018 were given final approval in the U.S. House last week, and the bill is now awaiting President Donald Trump’s signature. The legislation applies to citizens of five Oklahoma tribes: the Chickasaw, Cherokee, Choctaw, Muscogee (Creek) and Seminole nations. It ends a requirement for holders of tribal allotment land from those tribes to have a certain percentage of tribal blood.

The Oklahoman reports the bill was sponsored by U.S. Rep. Tom Cole, a Moore Republican and Chickasaw Nation citizen. The rest of Oklahoma’s GOP delegation co-sponsored the measure.

Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Bill John Baker also praised the bill’s passage.