Bipartisan lawmakers, Wabanaki leaders propose next change to Settlement Act

by Emma Davis
Fri, April 4, 2025

"A bipartisan group of lawmakers presented legislation on Friday to prevent the state from being able to seize #Wabanaki land for public use without consultation.

"For the past several Legislative sessions, leaders of the Wabanaki Nations have worked with lawmakers to try to overhaul the 1980 #MaineIndianClaimsSettlementAct that has resulted in the tribes being treated more akin to municipalities than #SovereignNations.

"So far, sweeping change has failed due to opposition from Gov. #JanetMills, but the executive, lawmakers and Wabanaki leaders have successfully made some targeted adjustments, including expanding tribal authority to prosecute crimes last year.

"#LD958 represents the next area of focus, although an omnibus bill is still expected to be considered during the second regular session of the Legislature next year.

"Sponsored by House Minority leader Billy Bob Faulkingham (R-Winter Harbor) and bipartisan co-sponsors, LD 958 would amend the #SettlementAct and the 2023 #MikmaqNationRestorationAct — as the Mi’kmaq Nation hadn’t been included in the earlier act — to prohibit eminent domain, a protection already afforded to almost all other federally recognized tribes.

" 'Much of our land contains irreplaceable cultural, spiritual and ecological resources,' said #Passamaquoddy Tribal Rep. Aaron Dana, a co-sponsor of the bill who sits on the Judiciary Committee. 'This bill ensures those places are safeguarded and are not subject to #destruction or #appropriation. Too often in our history, our #TribalLands have been taken, divided and exploited under the guise of progress.'

"The U.S. government can seize private property for public use, known as eminent domain, however that authority is restricted by the #FifthAmendment U.S. Constitution, which requires just compensation for land taken, as well as some federal laws.

"Rep. Rachel Henderson (R-Rumford), a co-sponsor who sits on the Judiciary Committee, questioned whether the bill is in conflict with the Constitution. It is not, Faulkingham, tribal leaders and attorneys explained, because the Constitution outlines when eminent domain can be exercised but not that it can’t be further restricted.

" 'There’s nothing in the Fifth Amendment that prohibits a state from enacting laws that says we won’t do that,' Faulkingham said.

"LD 958 applies to land protected under federal law — trust and reservation land — but fee lands — private property for which the owner owns the title — would still be subject to state power of eminent domain. A constitutional amendment allows states to condemn individually owned plots within tribal reservations.

"Maine has seized Wabanaki land from the start of their intertwined histories, as the state territory today had first been inhabited by the Wabanaki people."

Read more:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/bipartisan-lawmakers-wabanaki-leaders-propose-204713964.html

#MaineSettlementAct #FirstNations #WabanakiConfederancy
#MaineFirstNations #Maine #MainePol #NativeAmericanNews #LandTheft
#PenobscotNation #PassamaquoddyTribe #HoultonBand of #Maliseets #MikmaqNation #Dawnland #TribalSovereignty

This article from the March 2024 issue of #DownEastMagazine has a lot of background behind the Maine Settlement Act. A must read!!!

What Would #TribalSovereignty Mean for the #Wabanaki?

For more than 40 years, the tribes in Maine have had to play by different rules than other indigenous groups across the country, and they have suffered in tangible ways as a result. Now, a push for greater tribal autonomy has come to a head

"18th-century treaties were never intended to deed away land. Like many American #Indigenous groups, the #Wabanaki viewed stewardship as a communal undertaking — they didn’t share European conceptions of private land ownership. Unattuned to this foreign mindset, the Wabanaki signed treaties assuming the documents outlined land use, not ownership."

By Rachel Slade
March, 2024

"The #HoultonBandOfMaliseets’ administrative headquarters, built to resemble a log cabin, sits on a small tract of tribal land in Aroostook County, just north of where I-95 intersects the Canadian border. A few steps away, the #MeduxnekeagRiver roars past, the sound of rushing water a reminder of the harm done by 19th-century log drives, when clearing the river of obstacles turned the flow fast and shallow. A decade ago, the Maliseets took it upon themselves to start a #restoration project, partnering with federal and state agencies and nonprofit groups to add boulders and bends to the Meduxnekeag. To date, they have covered a four-mile stretch, recreating conditions that will cool and oxygenate the water, in order to help insects, birds, and fish thrive. The work requires patience. So does much else. The river is hardly the only historical damage tribal leaders around the state have been attempting to repair.

"One of the four remaining Wabanaki tribes whose forebears arrived in Maine more than 10,000 years ago, the Maliseets inhabited an area now split between the United States and Canada long before the existence of an international border. Chief #ClarissaSabattis, who wears her heather-brown hair in two long, thick braids that drape over her shoulders, was elected to lead the #Maliseets in #Maine in 2017. Since then, she says, she has struggled daily with the complex legal relationships the tribes have with the state government, dictated by the 1980 #MaineIndianClaimsSettlementAct.

"The terms of the settlement were the result of a decade of legal wrangling (and centuries of fraught dealings before that) that resulted in the state wielding unprecedented power over tribal affairs. The tribes have come to find the arrangement both burdensome and unjust. 'Our tribal council is our governing body,' Sabattis said when I met her at the Maliseet administrative offices. 'We should have full authority to make the laws and serve our people without interference from other governments.'

"Several years ago, the Maliseets, Mi’kmaq, #Passamaquoddy, and #PenobscotNation banded together and formed #WabanakiAlliance to collectively push for #TribalSovereignty. Most of the country’s 570 other federally recognized tribes are sovereign, which in the context of tribal affairs implies a sort of quasi-independence: through a direct nation-to-nation relationship with the federal government, indigenous groups can run their own communities. They administer their law enforcement, courts, schools, health care, and civil infrastructure on their reserved lands with federal assistance and funding — and, unlike in Maine, can do so without state-level interference. Sovereignty also means that if the tribes believe the state has violated their federally protected rights, they have recourse both through federal agencies and courts. It’s a system under which tribes across the nation have begun to flourish in recent decades."

Read more:
https://downeast.com/issues-politics/what-would-tribal-sovereignty-mean-for-the-wabanaki/