District 8 Cherokee Councilmen Buel Anglen and Bill Johnson attended Collinsville's Victory Cherokee Organization meeting Tuesday and reported on the Tribal Council vote of 13-2 the previous night (June 12th) which will allow Cherokee citizens to vote on changing citizenship requirements. The proposed amendment to the 1999 Cherokee Nation Constitution would require Indian blood for citizenship and potentially remove tribal benefits from "Cherokee Freedman" who became eligible based on a recent court ruling.

The next Cherokee general election will be in June 2007. A vote by the tribal council (7-8) Monday failed to approve an earlier special election. An initiative petion is in circulation to call for that same special election could still put the issue to a vote by the end 2006 (at the earliest) if approximately 2081 qualified Cherokee voter request it.

Councilman Anglen also reported that now that the 1999 constitution had replaced the 1975 constitution there would be plenty of adjustments to be made in representation and district alignments. There will be 2 new at-large councilman and the 15 districts will be realigned for equal population in each. Another change will be a Cherokee Nation delegate to the U.S. Congress. This is considered a treaty right and the reaction in the congress is eagerly anticipated. Buel joked "we will elect this delegate and send them to Congress and then see if they can find a seat."