Two influential senators are leading the push to get two Native American Tribes federal recognition. That would open the door for the MOWA Band of Choctaw Indians in Alabama and the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina to build casinos, something they are prohibited from doing without federal recognition. It also opens the purse-strings of the government who can receive millions of dollars in federal funding.
Alabama Senator Richard Shelby, the senior Republican on the Appropriations Committee, along with GOP Senator Richard Burr have introduced legislation that would give federal recognition to the two tribes. Both lawmakers are set to retire at the end of the year and are trying to push this legislation through.
For the MOWA Band, which is backed by Shelby, it has been a battle since 2012. Chief of the MOWA Band, Lebaron Byrd, told the Associated Press that he is hopeful they can be finally recognized by the U.S. government. Similar recognition bills have failed numerous times in the past.
“We always are optimists,” Byrd said. “We don’t give up hope.”
Byrd has maintained that getting a casino is not the first motive for being federally recognized. If they were to get that designation, it would provide the tribe with anywhere from $50 million to $100 million in funding that would go towards healthcare, education and economic development for the MOWA tribe.
Shelby told the AP that the MOWA bill is in the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, where it had a hearing in March. The status of Burr’s bill is unknown and his office didn’t respond to an email seeking comment.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, passage of Burr’s Lumbee bill would cost about $363 million in expected spending from 2024-2027.
Other tribes have come out to oppose both of the bills.
Both bills are opposed by a coalition of tribes, pointing out that the two tribes failed to qualify after going through a process by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which determines whether groups qualify as tribes through anthropological, genealogical and historical studies.
They claim the two tribes are trying to use politicians as a way to gain federal recognition.
“It is egregious when you can buy your way in,” said Margo Gray, chairwoman of the United Indian Nations of Oklahoma.
