Six of the seven members of the Oklahoma delegation in Washington, D.C. voted to keep the U.S. government operating in the most recent federal budget deal.

They sustained the status quo, blocking return of the lands at and around historic Fort Reno in Canadian County to the Cheyenne and Arapaho (C&A) Tribes. The “deal” kept the government open.

It passed just before Christmas.

It keeps the U.S. Agriculture Department in control over the C&A land -- which two Republican presidents of the 18th century promised would be returned to the two tribes when the area was no longer needed for U.S. military use.

U.S. Sens. Markwayne Mullin and James Lankford joined U.S. Reps. Kevin Hern of Tulsa, Stephanie Bice of Oklahoma City, Frank Lucas of Cheyenne and Tom Cole of Moore to vote yes and support the status quo, keeping the land away from the C&A.

The status quo has been enforced through the efforts of many, including Lucas and Cole for more than three decades.

The final budget “deal” got consent from even Donald Trump.

Well over 100 years ago, Presidents U.S. Grant and Chester A. Arthur promised in executive orders that the C&A land would go back to the two tribes once it was no longer needed for military purposes.

Members of both major political parties have engaged in shenanigans to keep that return from happening. The shenanigans have been bi-partisan, right up through the latest budget imbroglio.

So for now at least, those thwarting the promise of justice for the C&A continue to hold sway in the federal ring of power.

Prior federal spending deals in 2024, with thousands of pages of specifics failed, but somehow in a “bare-bones” 116-page measure to keep the government open, Lucas and Cole got their way in specifying their objective -- keeping the land from returning to the C&A.

Every news organization around the nation should study and ask how a greenhouse at Fort Reno was worth risking a government shutdown.

That $1.3 million appropriation is apparently essential for national survival?

How is that possible?

Serious people in the last three presidential administrations -- Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden -- understood that the land should go back to the two tribes.

But the right action remains lacking.

So it goes, again and again, in Washington, D.C., sometimes deemed “the Swamp.”

Obama came close, but no cigar. In fact, late in his presidency, his motorcade drove right past the C&A tribal members who had gathered along the route by the old fort, hoping for a brief encounter with the president.

Perchance Trump will move for this just end result early in this second non-consecutive term.

Cole, the House Appropriations Committee chairman, and Lucas, senior House Agriculture Committee member, have been in power for decades. They hold the ring of power because the House is so closely divided.

Cole and Lucas like the status quo on C&A land just fine. They won’t let any smaller tribes ace out larger tribes.

With some exceptions, officials in Oklahoma, members of both parties, have become dependent on the campaign contributions of the state’s largest tribal nations. Lucas keeps telling members of Congress in both parties that the C&A were “already paid” for the land. But his narrative is selective and exclusionary – ignoring both a notably authoritative memorandum, the Leshy analysis from the Department of Interior in 1999, and an appeals court ruling that stated the record does not document surrender of the tribes claim.

Over decades, the bureaucracy at the federal Agriculture and Interior Departments have become accustomed to doing whatever Big Tribe donors and allies nationwide want because ... well, let’s just say the Big Tribes have enough money to make sure they usually get their way with the bureaucracy, the legislatures, the courts and the political class, in both parties.

Reggie Wassana, elected governor for the Cheyenne & Arapaho Tribes, crafted an economic development plan that would create jobs for area residents. More than 70 percent of the C&A workforce is comprised of non-tribal members. 

Gov. Wassana’s reward at the federal level, however, has been a stiff-arm from Cole and Lucas.

One exception to the Conventional Wisdom that Big Tribes are good, while Small Tribes are mostly bad was “budget hawk” Josh Brecheen, a member of the Choctaw Nation and the best member of the Oklahoma Congressional Delegation.

For as long as the wind blows, the rivers run, the sun rises and the moon glows, the C&A merit the return of their land. They have played by the rules of politics and civil discourse.

Critics of the two tribes and their land claims are wrong. Past, present and future: Deals that sustain denial of return of the C&A lands are wrong.

Late Justice is better than Justice Denied.

Note: Pat McGuigan is an award-winning reporter and commentator. He has covered politics in Oklahoma for more than 40 years.