Ahead of their runoff election for the Okmulke District “B” seat on the Muscogee National Council, incumbent Rep. Nelson Harjo Sr. and former Rep. William Lowe both say they are running to strengthen sovereignty and improve communication among branches of the government, but they take slightly different stances on what has become a controversial topic: a recent court decision determining the descendants of Muscogee Freedmen should be entitled to tribal citizenship.
Both men advanced to the Nov. 8 runoff after finishing atop a three-man race in the Sept. 20 general election. Seeking a return to the National Council, Lowe received 41.7 percent support (1,548 votes) with Harjo receiving 32.6 percent support (1,210 votes). Joshua Randall Wind finished in third place with 25.7 percent support (954 votes).
The Okmulke District includes the communities of Okmulgee, Henryetta and Beggs in eastern Oklahoma, although all registered Muscogee voters can cast ballots in the race. (Future Muscogee National Council elections will limit voter participation to the district in which they are registered following the approval of a constitutional amendment in September.)
Neither Lowe nor Harjo responded to multiple interview requests ahead of the Nov. 8 runoff, but each participated in interviews with Mvskoke Media prior to the general election.
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Harjo, 62, was first elected to the Okmulke District “B” seat in 2021 and has served more than 20 years with the Muscogee Nation in various positions. He holds a degree in robotics from Oklahoma State University and is of the Wind Clan, with Little Cussetah Methodist as his church/ceremonial ground.
Speaking to Mvskoke Media, Harjo said his campaign is about finishing what he started, and his focus remains on cooperation and communication between the nation’s three branches of government.
“There are really a lot of things that I have been working on that I don’t really want to (be) left undone, and I’m wanting to see us, hopefully, to open up the communications between the three branches that exist within our tribe,” Harjo said. “That way we can pull what you would call almost like a power play and start moving our tribe forward and writing new laws to accommodate new things that need to be coming our way, and just really being proactive.”
Lowe, 51, is a former speaker of the Muscogee National Council who previously served the Okmulke District in Seat “A” before losing his 2023 reelection bid. A U.S. Marine Corps veteran, Lowe holds a master’s of business administration degree from Grand Canyon University. His clan is the Bird Clan, with Nuyaka as his tribal town.
Lowe told Mvskoke Media he hopes to return to the National Council because he is a “servant leader who misses helping people.
“Even though we’re not on the council, we still get calls daily, and, you know, I’ll help three or four people today, just doing different things,” Lowe said. “And it’s not big, drastic things. It’s just giving them the proper resources that they are looking for or giving them that answer that they probably aren’t understanding.”
Candidates weigh in on Freedmen ruling
In July, the Muscogee Nation Supreme Court ruled without dissent that the descendants of former slaves must be admitted as citizens under the tribe’s treaty with the federal government. Muscogee Nation citizens have largely criticized the decision, with some attempting to circulate a recall petition against the justices, although details about whether the petition has even been formally filed remain unclear.
In August, Principal Chief David Hill issued an executive order that no citizenship applications for Freedmen be approved “until all law and policy have been fully reviewed and amended to meet the qualification requirements under Article II of the Treaty of 1866.”
Functionally, Hill’s order delayed enrollment of Muscogee Freedmen until after the 2025 election cycle, but it has also spurred a legal challenge from the plaintiffs — Rhonda Grayson and Jeffrey Kennedy — who said “Hill’s obstructionist order undermines this court’s authority and violates the separation of powers.”
In his Sept. 15 interview Mvskoke Media, Harjo said he personally disagreed with the court’s ruling, but that he supported the government’s obligation to follow it and Hill’s order.
“I’m going to vote for the action that we have to take, considering, you know, even though I don’t agree what the ruling was, I’m going to do whatever I can to support whatever action our departments have to take for the tribe,” Harjo said. “They say these policies aren’t in place and things aren’t updated. But then we absolutely can’t just operate just on the whim, we have to have something that guide us.”
He agreed the Freedman issue is a “constitutional crisis” for the nation and said he had no issue signing a petition asking for the impeachment of the Muscogee Supreme Court justices.
“I don’t have issue with signing that,” Harjo said. “Because, you know, although I may be an elected official, I’m also a citizen of this tribe, which allowed me to be an elected official, so I have that capability as a citizen.”
In a 2023 interview with NonDoc, Lowe said that as a council member, he took an oath to uphold the Muscogee Nation Constitution following a Muscogee Nation district judge’s ruling in favor of Freedmen. (That decision was appealed to the nation’s Supreme Court and led to the court’s July decision.)
“Our constitution does say ‘citizen by blood,’ and that’s where I stand, and that’s where I will always stand until there’s something that changes in our constitution where they’re put in there as amended citizens,” Lowe said in 2023.
During his Aug. 15, 2025 interview with Mvskoke Media, Lowe did not say whether he personally agreed with the Supreme Court’s decision, and he focused instead on addressing the tribe’s finances to account for new citizens — a reference to conversations about taxation decisions faced by the Muscogee Nation.
“Ultimately, the bigger thing is, if the Supreme Court says they’re citizens, then we need to be able to adapt and control and change our budgets, because budget season is here and we’re going to have to increase our budget for those citizens coming in,” Lowe said.
Lowe has appeared on African and Indian Table Talk with Eli Grayson of KBOB 89.9 at least twice, and in a recent episode Lowe brought up the purported impeachment petition, but did not say whether he would sign. He emphasized the independence of different branches of Muscogee government.
“The Supreme Court made their decision,” Lowe said.
‘It’s about working together’: Harjo calls for inter-branch unity
In his September interview with Mvskoke Media, Harjo framed sovereignty as both a political and cultural safeguard that demands forward thinking in case the federal government ever decides to remove recognition of the nation.
“We got to be prepared for that, and that’s why I challenge the status quo. That means the three branches. It’s not about blurring the lines, but it’s about working together so we can progressively move this tribe forward,” he said.
Similar to Harjo, Lowe said his plan to strengthen tribal sovereignty involves closer coordination among government branches.
“We do a great job. We are in the right direction, we’re progressing,” Lowe said.  “I just want to work with the National Council, the executive branch and the judicial branch to tighten that better and to get it going a lot better — our tribal sovereignty.”
Lowe said sovereignty depends not just on government independence, but on expanding opportunity for citizens through business growth and access to services.
Tribal services and the jurisdictional question
In his Aug. 15 interview with Mvskoke Media, Lowe said citizens frequently tell him they are denied services because they live just outside reservation boundaries or earn slightly more than income limits allow.
“We hear different things and different reasons why someone didn’t get help, no matter what [the help] could be — housing, health, or anything else,” Lowe said. “Some way they were two inches out of the jurisdiction, or they made two cents more than what is allowed. So, that’s something I think we could all really sit down, work together and find a way to figure it out. Because, you know, the bigger picture is we don’t understand just yet how big the federal cuts are going to be, and that’s something we really need to be cognizant of.”
Lowe also said he supports maintaining two representatives per district but believes an at-large seat should be added to represent citizens living off the reservation. That would push the National Council’s membership from 16 to 17.
In his Mvskoke Media interview, Harjo said he wants to increase allocations for school clothing and emergency hardship programs while being cautious about expanding elder assistance until federal funding becomes more reliable. He also called for renewed investment in food sovereignty through seed-saving programs and community gardens.
“I wish we could get back to making gardens again, or even if it was a community garden that would help people to support that,” Harjo said.
Oct. 28 is the deadline for Muscogee Nation voters to register for the Nov. 8 runoff election. Early voting will be held on Nov. 5 and Nov. 6 ahead of the Nov. 8 in-person election.
