An ordinance seeking to broaden the ability to protest decisions of Tribal Council is under discussion, with Tribal Council narrowly voting to table it when it was introduced during a Dec. 6 meeting. 

After months of work sessions, tabled votes and debate, Cherokee has an updated election law. 

The Cherokee Tribal Council took the first step toward dissolving the Qualla Housing Authority with a resolution passed Thursday, Dec. 6. 

Efforts to overhaul Cherokee’s election ordinance will come down to the wire following Tribal Council’s unanimous decision to table a vote on the legislation at its meeting Thursday, Dec. 6.

For centuries and even millennia, the early spring greens of the sochan plant have served as a celebration of spring for the Cherokee people. If a proposal now out for public comment meets approval, in a few months tribal members could hold that celebration with greens harvested in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. 

“Our culture is not linear. It’s more circular, and going back to places like the park, to where we once inhabited and lived and collected, it takes on a different meaning of spirituality,” said Tommy Cabe, forest resource specialist for the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and a sochan gatherer himself. “It takes on a different meaning of who we are as Cherokee.”

Tribal members received the largest per capita distribution ever released from casino profits when payments of $7,007 were released Monday, Dec. 3, bringing the yearly distribution for 2018 to $12,559 before taxes. 

Patrick Lambert was removed from office following a controversial impeachment process in 2017, but with the 2019 election season underway he’s saying that the impeachment shouldn’t stop him from running again. 

Cherokee has lost its second honored member in the space of a month with the Nov. 24 death of Amanda Swimmer, 97. 

An environmental assessment for a rule that would allow members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians to gather sochan in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park is out for comment through Thursday, Dec. 13. 

The early spring leaves of sochan, also known as the green-headed coneflower, have traditionally been an important food source for Cherokee people, whose large territory used to encompass the area now covered by the park. The Qualla Boundary currently abuts the park boundary, but gathering any type of plant or plant part is uniformly prohibited in the Smokies. 

A man claiming the courts misled him when accepting his guilty plea. A woman with a disability contending termination from her job amounted to unlawful discrimination. A man convicted of murder in 1976 arguing that new facts show that he is innocent.