North Carolina law prohibits anyone from serving in two elected positions—a county commissioner, for example, can’t also be a state senator.
So some voters might wonder why John Lowery, chairman of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina since 2022, can serve in the N.C. House.
Lowery was appointed to the District 47 seat in October to replace his brother, who resigned from the General Assembly for a position with the U.S. Department of the Interior. Lowery filed on December 1 for the 2026 election to keep the seat, which represents most of Robeson County.
Questions about whether a Lumbee chairman can simultaneously hold another elected office have come up before. The state attorney general’s office rendered an “advisory opinion” 25 years ago when then-Pembroke Mayor Milton Hunt was elected to serve as the tribe’s first chairperson.
The Lumbee tribe adopted a constitution and formal government, made up of an elected chairperson and district representatives, in 2000 partly to advance its efforts for full federal recognition that would bring millions of dollars a year for education, health care, and other initiatives.
Ronnie Sutton, who represented Hoke and Robeson counties in the N.C. House at the time, asked the state attorney general’s office to weigh in on whether Hunt could serve in both roles without violating state law.
In an opinion issued 10 days after the tribal election, the attorney general’s office said Hunt could do both. “We conclude that the position of Tribal Chairman is neither an elective nor an appointive office subject to the dual office holding prohibitions of the North Carolina Constitution and related statutes,” Ann Reed, a senior deputy attorney general, and Susan K. Nichols, special deputy attorney general, wrote.
Their reasoning: The Lumbee chair “exercises no sovereign powers of either the State of North Carolina or of the United States.”
“The test of whether a position is an elective or appointive office is whether part of the sovereignty of the State or national government attaches to the position,” according to the opinion.
Rachel Capen, a spokesperson for Lowery’s campaign, told the Border Belt Independent that the attorney general’s office provided a legal opinion explaining that the Lumbee chairman can also serve in the N.C. House. She did not respond to follow-up questions about whether she was referring to the opinion from 2000.
“The NC General Assembly standards would not have seated him if it was not permissible by law,” Capen said in an email.
Nazneen Ahmed, a spokesperson for Attorney General Jeff Jackson’s office, said the office did not provide a legal opinion specifically about Lowery.
Third Lumbee to Hold Seat
Lowery was reelected tribal chairman in late 2024 and was sworn in to serve a second three-year term last January.
Capen did not respond to an inquiry asking if Lowery plans to seek tribal reelection in 2027.
It’s unclear who will challenge Lowery for the District 47 seat. No one else had filed for candidacy as of Monday morning.
Lowery is at least the third Lumbee to hold the seat. Charles Graham, a Democrat, was first elected in 2010 and served for 12 years before launching an unsuccessful bid for Congress. Then came the Lowery brothers, Republicans who some say elevated the tribe’s political influence.
Generations of voters in Robeson County, where the Lumbee tribe has its headquarters, reliably picked Democratic candidates. But the GOP has seen significant success there in the past decade. Barack Obama won the county twice, then Donald Trump won three times.
Jarrod Lowery won the House seat three years ago as part of a continued red wave in rural southeastern North Carolina. He has said the Democratic Party no longer aligns with the socially conservative views of many voters in Robeson County, where nearly 40% of residents are Native American.
John Lowery has previously said he shied away from partisan politics because of the tribe’s quest for full federal recognition. North Carolina recognized the Lumbee, whose 55,000 members make up the largest Native American tribe on the East Coast, in 1885. Congress granted the tribe partial recognition in 1956 but denied it the full designation.
Trump and Kamala Harris both said on the campaign trail last year that they supported full federal recognition for the Lumbee.
Following Trump’s victory, the president directed the Interior Department to outline potential paths to full recognition. The department’s report suggested the tribe continue to ask Congress to pass legislation, which the Lumbee people have been doing for decades.
The U.S. House has passed recognition bills several times, but the Senate has continually failed to vote on the measure—much to the dismay of Senators Thom Tillis and Ted Budd of North Carolina. Some other tribes, including the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, say the Lumbee people lack a shared history and should have to seek recognition through lengthy bureaucratic channels.
‘Robeson County is My Home’
Meanwhile, many local Tuscarora people say the Lumbees’ influence is hindering their efforts to gain state recognition. The North Carolina Commission of Indian Affairs denied the Tuscarora in 2019, calling them a “splinter group” of the Lumbee tribe.
John Lowery serves as vice chairman of the state House committee on Federal Relations and American Indian Affairs.
A spokesperson for the Tuscarora Indians of Kahtenuaka Territories, a newly formed tribal government, said members will “continue to engage constructively” with state lawmakers.
“Regardless of who occupies the District 47 seat, the Tuscarora people make up a significant portion of the district’s constituency,” the spokesperson, Chris Sinclair, said in an email to the Border Belt Independent. “We expect our elected representative to work respectfully and collaboratively with our government and uphold the responsibility of representing all of the district’s Native nations.”
John Lowery, a former civics teacher who has worked at the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the N.C. Department of Commerce, said in a statement on December 1 that he wanted to “keep fighting for a safer, stronger, and more prosperous Robeson County.”
“Robeson County is my home,” he said, “and every decision I make begins and ends with what’s best for the families in our communities.”
