Early activities In the late 1960s, Lake entered politics. Between 1969 and 1976, Lake served as an appointed deputy attorney general for the state of
North Carolina. He served two terms in the
North Carolina Senate as a
Democrat. A
conservative, in his last session in the legislature he convinced the body to remove
segregation academies from state oversight.
1980 gubernatorial election In October 1979 Lake announced his intention to seek the
Republican nomination in the upcoming
1980 North Carolina gubernatorial election. A few days later he officially switched his partisan registration from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party. In 1992 Martin appointed Lake to the Supreme Court. He ran for election later that year but lost to
Sarah Parker. In 1994 Lake re-contested the seat and defeated Parker with 55 percent of the vote. Along with
Robert F. Orr, he became one of the first two Republicans elected to the bench. He was elected as the court's chief justice in 2000, defeating incumbent
Henry Frye. The two maintained cordial relations and occasionally golfed together. In April 2002 the court ruled that legislative districts drawn by Democratic legislative leaders violated North Carolina's constitution for not respecting county boundaries. Lake authored the majority opinion, writing that "Enforcement of the [whole counties provision] will, in all likelihood, foster improved voter morale, voter turnout, and public respect for state government, and specifically, the General Assembly, as an institution." While serving as chief justice, a series of high-profile
wrongful convictions in North Carolina came to his attention. He reviewed several of the cases with his clerk and resolved that the criminal justice system required reform. In 2002, he convened a commission including defense attorneys, prosecutors, law enforcement officers to review how innocent people were convicted and how to exonerate them. The body released a study which led to the creation of a new government agency, the N.C. Innocence Inquiry Commission, in 2006. It was designed to review convictions and release persons found innocent. By North Carolina law, he had to step down in 2006, after his 72nd birthday. He was succeeded by then-Associate Justice Sarah Parker. ==Electoral history==