Six Cherokee Freedmen have filed for an injunction to halt federal funding to the Cherokees and stop recognizing any Cherokee election.

The filing in the federal court for the District of Columbia also asks the court to prohibit Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne and the Department of Interior from recognizing the government-to-government relationship with the Cherokee Nation until the Nation restores Freedmen to full citizenship.

The Freedmen request the court to prohibit the upcoming June 23 election of Cherokee officials until the Freedmen can vote and run for office pursuant to the terms of the Treaty of 1866.

That treaty states the Freedmen are granted “all the rights of native Cherokees” and that Cherokee Nation shall enact no law “inconsistent with the Constitution of the United States, or laws of Congress, or existing treaty stipulations with the United States.”

“I just think this is a suit that’s not winnable (for the Cherokee Nation) on the issues at hand,” Cherokee Nation Councilor Linda O’Leary, chair of the Executive and Finance Committee, said Wednesday.

“When we’re talking about civil liberties, then we are on the losing end of the stick here.”

O’Leary said Principal Chief Chad Smith was the main supporter of the special election to disenfranchise Freedmen.

“Chad did this for political reasons to keep the Freedmen from voting (in the upcoming election) — and the Cherokee Nation will have to spend millions of dollars in legal funds,” O’Leary said.

Cherokee Nation spokesman Mike Miller said the Cherokee Nation is being sued.

“It’s not our choice whether we spend money to defend ourselves or not,” Miller said. “It was not a lawsuit we filed, but a lawsuit filed against us.”

Freedmen attorney Jon Velie said less than 3 percent of the Cherokee Nation voted to oust the Freedmen in a March 3 election.

Miller said the vote on the Freedmen came after more than 3,000 Cherokee people signed a petition to bring it about. O’Leary said that although the tribe’s highest court said the petition was legal, some justices did not agree.

Miller said the court ruled the petition legal and “we don’t get to pick and choose which court decisions we agree with. We abide by them all.”

The Freedmen not being allowed to vote in the Cherokee Nation election was a violation of the Treaty of 1866 and the 13th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, Velie said.