The Committee on Territories again rejected Weaver's bill, but approved a compromise measure that opened the Unassigned Lands, Cherokee Outlet, and Neutral Strip to settlement. Congress debated the bill over several months, while the tribes announced their resistance to their lands becoming a territory; according to an 1884 Supreme Court decision, Elk v. Wilkins, Native Americans were not citizens, and thus would have no voting rights in the new territory. When Weaver returned to Iowa to campaign for re-election, the bill was still in limbo. Running again on a Democratic–Greenback fusion ticket, Weaver was re-elected to the House in 1886 with a 618-vote majority.
The Committee on Territories again rejected Weaver's bill, but approved a compromise measure that opened the Unassigned Lands, Cherokee Outlet, and Neutral Strip to settlement. Congress debated the bill over several months, while the tribes announced their resistance to their lands becoming a territory; according to an 1884 Supreme Court decision, Elk v. Wilkins, Native Americans were not citizens, and thus would have no voting rights in the new territory. When Weaver returned to Iowa to campaign for re-election, the bill was still in limbo. Running again on a Democratic–Greenback fusion ticket, Weaver was re-elected to the House in 1886 with a 618-vote majority.