A version of this article was originally published in The Daily Brief, our Maine politics newsletter. Sign up here for daily news and insight from politics editor Michael Shepherd.
Tribal officials and allies held a large State House rally on Monday that intersected with news of Gov. Janet Mills seeking a meeting with chiefs whom she has been at loggerheads with in recent months.
It is a fascinating time for state-tribal relations that are at a turning point. Mills vetoed a sweeping tribal sovereignty bill this year, but the losing side won a clear majority of lawmakers and many Republicans in that arduous process.
This makes it very likely that Maine’s next Democratic governor will almost fully support the tribes. The next Republican governor could as well. Historically, this is almost unthinkable. The last few years have shown a major change in public sentiment toward tribes opposed by most Mainers not long ago.
Key context: The relationship between Maine and the tribes was strained when Mills took over. Her first year or so was marked by mostly symbolic steps including designating Indigenous Peoples’ Day and issuing a posthumous pardon to a tribal lawyer. She and the tribes have made progress with compromises on water quality, mobile sports betting and many other issues.
But they are still mostly at odds, as evidenced by the governor’s resistance to a sovereignty overhaul that would allow tribes to benefit from more federal laws. It isn’t just that. Through her top lawyer, Mills vociferously opposed a constitutional amendment on Maine’s ballot this year that would restore state treaty obligations to the tribes to printed versions of the Constitution.
In doing all this, she is at odds with virtually all prominent Democrats in Maine from centrist U.S. Rep. Jared Golden of the 2nd District to the more progressive crop of legislative leaders. House Minority Leader Billy Bob Faulkingham, R-Winter Harbor, is a champion of sovereignty as well.
He could not win over enough Republicans on the issue this year. But it still showed the party was a long way from the viewpoint of former Gov. Paul LePage, who campaigned for his old office unsuccessfully last year while saying he would not have engaged the tribes in negotiations at all.
The history: On this issue and almost all others, Mills and LePage are a lot different. But they are looking more like the old guard on tribal rights. This should not be a surprise. Both of them are in their 70s. Mills got into politics while working for Attorney General Joe Brennan in the 1970s after tribes made the land claims that led to the landmark 1980 settlement they want to change now.
Brennan was called “Indian Fighter Joe” by some around that time, winning the 1978 gubernatorial election while promising “not one inch and not one dollar” to the tribes, according to a Bates College professor’s 2016 history. Campaigns were won and lost in part because of popular sentiment against tribal rights, though a compromise involving the federal government was reached.
What’s next: In the eyes of the tribes, that bargain has not held up. They want wholesale change, while Mills has been open to making alterations one by one. But it looks like things are changing on this issue. The next governor may be open to an even bigger break with Maine’s history.