Since the summer, two Mississippi men whom President Donald Trump nominated to serve as federal judges and two whom he nominated to serve as federal prosecutors have been left waiting after a vote to confirm them stalled in the Republican-led U.S. Senate.
That delay is nothing compared to the 137 years that the Lumbee, a North Carolina-based indigenous tribe, have waited for federal recognition—and all the benefits and rights, including sovereignty and self-governance, that it entails.
Now, Republican U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina is using Trump’s Mississippi nominees as leverage in a gambit to compel Republican U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi to help the tribe finally achieve federal recognition.
“Roger’s one of my favorite people here, and, you know, it’s just a matter of using the leverage people use every day here,” Tillis told NOTUS, which, along with Mississippi Today, was the first to report why he blocked the Mississippi nominees on Nov. 12.
Tillis is a member of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, which holds hearings for federal judicial nominees and can choose whether or not to advance nominees to the full Senate body for a confirmation vote. He has been holding up the committee’s votes on the four Mississippi nominees because he wants to have negotiating power to sway Wicker, who is the chairman of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee.
The Armed Services Committee drafts the National Defense Authorization Act. Since Tillis is not seeking reelection, he is using his remaining time lobbying Wicker to add federal recognition of the Lumbee Tribe to the annual NDAA. Lawmakers are aiming to have the bill finalized by the end of this week.
Mississippi Nominees Await a Vote
In July, Trump nominated Scott Leary to serve as U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Mississippi and James “Baxter” Kruger to be the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Mississippi.
Trump nominated Mississippi Supreme Court Justices James Maxwell and Robert Chamberlin to serve as judges in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi in August.
Sen. Thom Tillis is one of 12 Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which also has 10 Democrats, and his vote is key to moving the nomination process out of the committee and onto the Senate floor for consideration among all senators.
The nominations of all four Mississippi candidates have been noted in the Senate Judiciary Committee’s agenda, but the committee has not recorded any for the appointments.
The Mississippi Free Press reached out to Sen. Roger Wicker and Tillis with questions for this story, but did not hear back from either by press time.
The judicial opening Maxwell has been nominated to fill has remained open after U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Miss., blocked the U.S. Senate from even considering former President Joe Biden’s nomination of Scott Colom, a northeast Mississippi district attorney, to serve as U.S. District Court Judge for the Northern District of Mississippi.
Despite Wicker’s blessing, Hyde-Smith was able to block Biden’s pick and hold the seat open for years using the Senate’s “blue slip” process, where deference is given to senators on approving or rejecting nominees for federal judicial posts in their home state.
Eastern Cherokee Tribe Opposes Bill
In order for an indigenous tribe to gain federal recognition under the normal process under the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the tribe must have existed before the establishment of the United States; been recognized as Native American before 1900; operated as an independent entity; and shown, through members’ genetics, Native ancestry and ties to formerly recognized tribes. The Lumbee could bypass that arduous bureaucratic process, though, if Congress chooses to recognize the tribe through legislation.
The State of North Carolina recognized the Lumbee tribe as a “Croatan Indian” tribe in 1885. President Dwight Eisenhower signed the Lumbee Act into law in 1956, which acknowledged the Lumbee as the “Lumbee Indians of North Carolina.” But the act did not grant the tribe full federal recognition nor full federal benefits.
The Lumbee Tribe reports now that it has more than 55,000 members and is the largest tribe east of the Mississippi River and the ninth largest in the U.S.
“The Lumbee are the amalgamation of various Siouan, Algonquian, and Iroquoian speaking tribes,” the tribe says on its website. “The earliest document showing Indian communities in the area of Drowning Creek is a map prepared by John Herbert, the commissioner of Indian trade for the Wineau Factory on the Black River, in 1725. Herbert identifies the four Siouan-speaking communities as the Saraws, Pedee, Scavanos, and Wacomas.”
The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, which is currently the only federally recognized tribe in North Carolina, has long opposed the Lumbees’ effort to achieve federal recognition through Congress, rather than the rigorous but more difficult administrative process established by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
Smoky Mountain News reported that, during a U.S. House hearing in 2020, EBCI Principal Chief Richard Sneed said that while the Cherokee tribe “supports the Lumbees having a fair chance at recognition” through the administrative process, “the historical record raises very serious questions about the tribal and individual identity of the Lumbees.”
If the Lumbee do become a federally recognized tribe, the tribe would become eligible for services under the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Indian Health Service. Sneed said in 2020 that “federal recognition of a group this size would have a financial impact on every federally recognized tribe,” even as some smaller tribes “live in abject poverty and don’t have the resources to come before (congressional) subcommittees and be a voice.”
U.S. House Passed the Lumbee Fairness Act
Trump issued a memorandum to U.S. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum to federally recognize the Lumbee tribe in a White House presidential action statement on Jan. 23. In the letter, the president instructed the secretary to review information concerning the recognition of “Indian tribes” and consult with the leadership of the North Carolina Lumbee Tribe to create a plan to help the tribe gain federal recognition “through legislation or other available mechanisms, including the right to receive full Federal benefits.”
“The plan shall include consideration and analysis of each potential legal pathway to effectuate full Federal recognition of the Lumbee Tribe, including through an act of the Congress, judicial action, or the Procedures for Federal Acknowledgement of Indian Tribes set forth in (the Code of Federal Regulations Title 25 Part 83),” the White House Jan. 23 presidential statement says.
Lumbee Tribal Chairman John L. Lowery gave an update on May 9 that said “the Department of Interior did properly consult with us in a very professional and timely manner.”
“I understand the report was completed ahead of the April 23rd deadline and sent over to the White House for review,” he wrote. “It is my understanding that the report is currently in the White House Counsel’s Office, which is a usual standard practice for documents before they are publicly released. I do not know when it will be made public, but like many of you, I am anticipating the release of the report and I look forward to working with congressional leaders on the next steps regarding the Lumbee Fairness Act.”
The tribe could gain federal recognition under the act, which is a provision in the U.S. House’s annual military budget bill that it passed in September. The legislation is now in the hands of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, chaired by Roger Wicker.