When police pull a car over for even a minor infraction, it can quickly escalate into a life-or-death situation for the officer. In those situations, knowing to whom a car is registered—and if the owner or the car has been associated with serious crimes—is crucial to police.

But in Oklahoma, police do not have that information when they pull over many cars with tags issued by Native American tribes.

Gov. Kevin Stitt is urging Oklahoma’s tribes to provide full reporting and transparency to protect the lives of Oklahoma police officers, noting that the Chickasaw and Choctaw nations have signed state compacts that provide that information to state and local law-enforcement officials through a shared registry.

“Our law enforcement, I just can’t say enough good things about them,” Stitt said. “And I want to do everything I can to give them the tools to keep them safe as they’re keeping us safe in the state of Oklahoma. And those compacts are just one easy way to get that done. It makes no sense to me how we can have tags that the state of Oklahoma and our law enforcement doesn’t know who they are.”

Stitt noted that Chickasaw and Choctaw license plates are reported to the state of Oklahoma under those tribes’ compact agreements.

But that’s not true of Cherokee tags under that tribe’s compact, which is set to expire soon. And it’s definitely not true of tags issued by any other tribes, since none of the remaining tribes have signed compacts with the state. Technically, vehicles with car tags issued by non-compacting tribes cannot be driven legally on state roads outside of the historic reservation boundaries of the tribe issuing the plate.

“If you talk to law enforcement, when they’re pulling over a vehicle, that is the most dangerous part for a law-enforcement (officer) is not knowing who is in that vehicle, who it belongs to, is it stolen,” Stitt said. “We have no visibility into that.”

Stitt’s comments echo those of state law enforcement leaders.

In July 2023, the head of the Oklahoma Department of Public Safety told state lawmakers that the lack of registration information on many tribal tags placed law-enforcement officials in danger during traffic stops and that organized crime figures were starting to exploit the registration loophole.

Unlike the Chickasaw and Choctaw tribes, the Cherokee and other tribes are also evading payment of tolls on state turnpikes because there is no record provided to the state on ownership of those vehicles. In the past eight months alone, Stitt noted, cars with Cherokee tags have run up a collective $5.63 million in unpaid tolls.

Those costs are ultimately shifted onto other drivers through higher tolls.

Stitt said the Cherokee Nation has been offered a one-year extension and a 10-year extension of its state-tribal compact on car tags under terms largely identical to those embraced by the Chickasaw and Choctaw nations.

He also urged other tribes to come to the table and engage in compact talks.

So far, Cherokee leaders have balked at signing a state-tribal compact that would increase transparency.

In an April 30 interview with KBOB 89.9 radio, Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin, Jr., dismissed Stitt’s concerns as the governor having a “fundamental disagreement with whether tribes really should exist as sovereigns.”

Stitt is Cherokee.

Hoskin said he does not want to sign an agreement with provisions like those in the Chickasaw and Choctaw compacts since those two tribes run their tags through state government offices, while the Cherokees handle tags in-house. Hoskin referred to tribal tags as a “big revenue source” for the tribe.

Hoskin also suggested the Cherokee Nation may simply allow its compact to expire and continue issuing tags, although he conceded the tags would no longer be legal for Cherokee members who live outside the tribe’s historic reservation area in eastern Oklahoma.

Currently, the tribe issues tags to registered Cherokees living anywhere in Oklahoma.

“If we said, ‘Look, we can’t reach an agreement; we’re fundamentally at odds,’” Hoskin said, “we could have no compact, issue car tags within our reservation.”