WASHINGTON – Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Carl J. Artman today announced he has named E. Sequoyah Simermeyer as Counsel to the Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs. Simermeyer, an enrolled member of the Coharie IntraTribal Council, Inc., of North Carolina who also shares ancestry with the Navajo Nation of Arizona, previously served as a Government Affairs Group Associate with the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI), an association of American Indian and Alaska Native tribes in Washington, D.C. His appointment became effective on August 20, 2007.
“I am pleased that Sequoyah Simermeyer has joined my staff as counsel,” Artman said. “With his experience and background, he will be an important member of my team.”
A graduate of Cornell University’s School of Law with a juris doctorate, Simermeyer has extensive legal, leadership and community experience. His work for the NCAI involved providing legal and legislative advocacy for tribal governments in the areas of taxation, land-into-trust, the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act and tribal-state relations. He provided legal consultation and issue analysis on federal congressional, administrative and judicial action impacting federal Indian policy for federal recognition, gaming, taxation, trust reform, energy, environment and land use. He also managed projects at the NCAI on intergovernmental relations between states and tribes and on international issues involving the rights of Indigenous Peoples in partnership with the United Nations, the Organization of American States and the Assembly of First Nations, a Canadian based tribal organization.
“I want to thank Assistant Secretary Artman for the opportunity to serve as his counsel for Indian Affairs,” Simermeyer said. “Accepting this new position is, for me, an affirmation of my commitment to Indian people, which has been the hallmark of my career.”
In 2003, Simermeyer also held a judicial externship under Judge Arthur L. Burnett of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia as a participant in the Cornell Law School’s student externship program and worked as a law clerk at the firm of Hobbs, Straus, Dean & Walker, LLP in Washington, D.C.
Simermeyer’s prior experience includes serving as a teaching assistant at the American Indian Law Center in Albuquerque, N.M. (2002); Directing the Akwe:kon Center, Cornell University’s American Indian center in Ithaca, N.Y. (1998-2001); and serving as a research consultant with the Johns Hopkins’ School of Public Health Center for American Indian and Alaska Native Health in Baltimore, Md. (1998). He also held positions with Native Coffees, Inc., a company promoting organically cultivated coffee from South American indigenous communities, as an environmental marketing representative (1996) and with Battle Mountain Gold, Inc., in San Luis, Colo., as an environmental analyst (1995).
Simermeyer has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Environmental Studies and Chemistry with a minor in Native American studies from Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H. (1997) and a Master of Study in Environmental Law from Vermont Law School in South Royalton, Vt. (1998). His academic experience also includes serving as an adjunct professor at the American University in Washington, D.C.
