PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • April 14, 2022
The House voted to advance a bill to restore sovereignty to Maine tribes, whose power to self-govern has been limited since 1980, when they signed a land settlement agreement with the state. After more than two hours of floor speeches, the bill, four years in the making, was approved on a mostly party-line vote, 81-55. The Senate has yet to take up the bill, and Gov. Janet Mills has expressed concerns about its scope. Maine tribes have fewer rights than all of the 570 other federally recognized tribes in the United States because of the settlement acts, a pair of federal and state laws passed in 1980 to settle a tribal land claim to two-thirds of the territory of the state of Maine.