The 51st State?

Thank you, Justice Neil Gorsuch, and a majority of the United States Supreme Court. You may have created the 51^st state.

Let's name it Reserve-Land, since the high court basically said in the three-year-old McGirt decision that original reservations of certain tribes ordered to be settled in what became Oklahoma still exist today and now it appears more than just major crimes carried out on them may be in play.

Things like paying state taxes, or traffic tickets, or meeting environmental rules or...well you get the drift.

About the eastern one-third of Oklahoma would be eligible under McGirt to become Reserve-Land, and I suggest the capital of it be Purcell because that's close to where I live which is over in No Man's Land, aka Cleveland County – specifically Lexington. But Purcell can be the capital because it is a part of the original Chickasaw Reservation. Purcell was settled in 1887, Lexington during the Land Run of 1889.

Now I recognize most readers have already given up understanding what I have written so far about McGirt, but if you think I'm not making much sense, try reading the Supreme Court decision itself penned primarily by Gorsuch, who I feel like I even know because his mother was in the Colorado Legislature while I served in ours. She later became the Environmental Protection Agency administrator under Ronald Reagan in 1981 but before that I did meet her several times. Very smart, very conservative and very short tempered.

Enough about that. There is actually at least a 50-50 chance that the semblance of a 51st state with environmental, energy, tax and other powers inherent in the current 50 states may slowly appear. I'm sure that sounds like a stretch but neither did McGirt when it was being crafted by our buddy Neil and four other Supremes because its scope, impact and outcomes are obviously still evolving.

Any finally, due to the fact Oklahoma has more Native American Tribes than any other state except Alaska, plus the worst relations between a state and the tribes who live within its borders thanks to Gov. Kevin Stitt, the job of resolving all the nuances and mandates of McGirt is going to be hard if not impossible for a lengthy period of time.

However, the “reservation” decision guiding McGirt traces back to the 19th century before there was a Oklahoma and followed the results of the Trail of Tears imposition of the 1830s.

Thinking about that maybe we're just getting started on creating Reserve-Land.