Once again, Governor Janet Mills has stopped a bill to extend rights to the Wabanaki nations in Maine. Earlier this month, the House of Representatives sustained the governor's veto of LD 2004, a bill to grant the tribes in Maine the benefits of federal laws that apply to all other federally recognized tribes in the country. Although the bill initially passed in the legislature in June with enough votes to override a veto, 13 House members switched their votes on July 6, resulting in a 84-57 vote for the bill, which did not meet the two-thirds support needed to override the veto. Last year, the governor had threatened to veto a tribal sovereignty bill, which caused it to stall in the legislature.
      Regarding the Democratic and Republican legislators who switched their initial votes in support of LD 2004 to back the governor, Passamaquoddy Rep. Aaron Dana said, "I am thankful to my Democratic and Republican colleagues who had the courage to vote their conscience and not succumb to the incessant calls by the governor and her staff to strong arm them into voting against what they know is good policy for Maine."
      Chief Rena Newell of the Passamaquoddy Tribe at Sipayik echoed those thoughts, stating that she was grateful to those legislators who "voted to begin the process of placing the tribes in Maine on the same footing as the other 570 federally recognized tribes across the country. It's extremely disappointing that the governor insists on keeping her thumb on the tribes and the legislature."
      Another tribal chief, Kirk Francis of the Penobscot Nation, noted, "This legislation was merely one step forward. Yet the governor won't come to the table to make small progress on the settlement act. The governor is out of touch." He was confident, though, that the tribes would gain greater support in coming years. Another bill, LD 2007, which proposes substantial changes to the 1980 Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act, has been carried over to the next legislative session.
      In her veto letter, Governor Mills stated that while a Suffolk University Boston report identified 151 federal laws that were enacted after the settlement act, her office determined that nearly all of those federal laws do apply to the tribes in Maine. "Only a handful of federal laws -- such as the Stafford Act, the Indian Healthcare Improvement Act and the Clean Water Act -- do not apply." She said she was willing to work with the tribes to develop federal legislation to make those laws apply to the Wabanaki nations.
      However, Chief Francis previously objected to this case-by-case basis approach. "We strongly disagree with this viewpoint because it continues to maintain the current restrictions in the settlement acts, which require that the Wabanaki nations be specifically written into federal legislation if the law would impact the state's jurisdiction. This status quo places an undue burden on the Wabanaki nations and promotes inequality." He maintained, "The governor's suggested approach continues to give the state virtual veto power over the application of any federal law to the Wabanaki nations and perpetuates the lack of clarity we have around the applicability of such laws, because the state can raise a jurisdictional objection at any time with no meaning."
      The governor's arguments for objecting to the bill also include that state laws cannot override federal laws and that the bill's imprecise language would lead to litigation and create uncertainty for Maine people, businesses and municipalities. The bill would effectively repeal "a broad swath of Maine laws governing public health, safety and welfare in all Wabanaki nations territory" that is scattered across the state. The laws cover fish and game regulations, water quality and law use regulations, air quality standards, labor laws, fire safety, school funding and education requirements, healthcare regulations and more. While the bill does include an "environmental carve-out" to exempt federal environmental laws for the bill's scope, Mills maintains that the carve-out would not actually apply to any federal statutes.
      Finally, the governor argued that the bill would operate like a binding contract, with the changes irreversible, and she objected that there was little opportunity for public comment, as the bill was printed only one day before the legislative hearing on it.
      LD 2004 was based on one consensus recommendation of 22 from the 2019 bipartisan Task Force on Changes to the Maine Indian Claims Settlement Implementing Act. The bill would have begun the process of placing the Wabanaki tribes in Maine on the same footing as the other tribes across the country. Currently, the tribes in Maine must ask to be specifically written into federal laws that all other tribes can automatically access. LD 2004 would have flipped this paradigm by allowing the Wabanaki to access federal laws unless those federal laws expressly exclude them. However, it would not include the Clean Water Act, Indian Mineral Development Act and the Water Quality Act. Also, it would not impact gaming or the operation of casinos in Maine, as it states that the Wabanaki nations may only conduct gaming activities in accordance with the laws of Maine and may not conduct gaming under the authority of the federal Indian Gaming Regulatory Act.
      The legislation goes further than federal legislation that Maine Congressman Jared Golden put forward unsuccessfully last year that would have allowed the four tribes to benefit from any new federal tribal legislation, as the measure would apply retroactively to existing federal laws as well as future legislation.