Maine’s Indian tribes are seeking to change the federal law that established their status, so their sovereignty is recognized and they have more authority over gaming, fishing and the courts on their reservations.
The tribes want the change the wording of the state law that derives from the federal Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act of 1980. That act settled tribal claims to 12 million acres, but contained a fatal flaw in their view: language that allows the state to treat them like municipalities rather than sovereign Indian nations, as tribes in most other states are treated.
The Maine Indian Claims Task Force includes five legislators, chiefs of seven Maine tribes, a representative of Maine’s governor, Janet Mills, a representative of the state attorney general and the Maine Indian Tribal-State Commission. Tribal members hope to strike language in the 1980 act that allowed the state to put tribes on the level of cities.
The change would give them more authority over fishing and gaming rights and remove restrictions on the jurisdiction of tribal courts.
Chief Kirk Francis of the Penobscot Tribe said during a meeting of the task force: “People have this misperception that we went from having nothing to being given everything to where we exist today.” He said the courts have always maintained that tribes have inherent sovereign rights. “This is about the restoration of those rights, not the granting of them.”
One sore point with the tribes is that Maine’s Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife can conduct wildlife and fishing surveys on reservations without permission. Another is that reservations are taxed like municipalities.
Chief Clarissa Sabattis of the Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians said allowing tribal gaming would allow for more spending on health care and social services on the reservation.
Governor Janet Mills has delayed action on one bill that tribes support that would have given the Penobscot Nation and the Passamaquoddy Tribe the right to prosecute non-Indians for crimes committed on tribal lands.
The Maine Supreme Court has refused to offer an opinion on the constitutionality of tribal gaming. Tribal efforts to offer more than bingo on their reservations have been defeated at the ballot box and in the legislature. Relations between tribes and the state government reached a new low in 2015 when two of the four non-voting tribal representatives to the legislature withdrew them, saying their rights were being ignored.
Mills also has a history with the tribes that dates to her time as attorney general. Last year she backed the state of Washington in a fight over federal water regulations and represented the state against the tribes in a dispute over whether tribes could regulate waters that cross their reservation.
When she took office as governor, Mills vowed to repair relations with tribes. She supported and signed a bill banning the use of tribal mascots at public schools.
