BANGOR DAILY NEWS • April 9, 2021
Unlike hundreds of other tribes, Maine tribes have not been afforded the respect and dignity that comes with the full recognition of tribal sovereignty. The reason lies in a 40-year-old law called the Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act and the state law that accompanied it. This 1980 deal marked the culmination of years of litigation and acrimony between Maine tribes and state leaders over whether a significant amount of land within Maine’s borders was wrongfully taken from the tribes in the 18th and 19th centuries. While the act successfully resolved the land claims challenge for both the state and the tribes, ending one era of contentious tribal-state relations, it has become clear that the unusual jurisdictional arrangement that the law enshrined between the tribes and the state government in Augusta is problematic and unsustainable. It is time to modernize tribal-state relations and fully recognize the sovereignty of Maine tribes. ~ U.S. Rep. Jared Golden