Maine Governor Janet Mills Vetoes Tribes Sovereign Gaming Rights Bill

Maine Governor Janet Robert Mills vetoed a vizor on Midweek that would experience allowed the state’s four federally recognized tribes to proffer gaming on their monarch reservations.

The bill, passed by lawmakers in Augusta cobbler's last month, would get presumption the tribes the same rights as to the highest degree tribes in other states.

Democrat Mills said she vetoed the bank note because it was “flawed.” In a letter to the law-makers explaining the decision, she said she had made improving tribal-state dealings a priority, but she could non sanction the language of the bank note as it stood.

“This eyeshade provides no more predictability or meaningful limitations on where tribal gaming may occur, or on the size of each facility,” she wrote.

“The tribal gaming facilities that the legislation would pass could follow large or small, anything from a grand casino to a few slot machines inward a convenience store, and the State and adjacent non-tribal communities would have minuscule or no act upon o'er their placement.”

Raw Deal for ME Tribes

Under the federal Amerindic Gaming Regulation Act, 1988 (IGRA), tribes are in general allowed to bid Class II gaming without tell approval, provided these games are effectual elsewhere inward the state. Class II gaming is outlined as bingo and non-banked card games the likes of poker.

But Maine’s tribes got a new deal. Three of the 4 – the Passamaquoddy, the Penobscot, and the Maliseet — were recognized by the Maine Red Indian Claims Settlement Act in 1980, which restored their lands. But it also stipulated that federal Native American jurisprudence would non go for to these tribes after 1980 unless the natural law mentioned Maine specifically, which IGRA didn’t.

The quaternary tribe, the Aroostook, gained its position in 1991, triad years too belatedly for IGRA, which only when applied to tribes that had been recognized at the clip of its enactment.

The tribes have got long demanded the same rights as other tribes in the country. They need to get the chance to control gaming for their economic improvement, but it’s also a interrogative sentence of being capable to recitation their sovereignty.

Racism Discrimination Claim

Maine has II commercial casinos, the Oxford Casino and the Hollywood Casino Bangor. In 2003, country residents voted against an amendment to authorise tribal gaming past a border of 2:1. But at the same public referendum, they sanctioned a measure out authorizing slot-machine gaming at the Bangor facility. The tribes claimed racial discrimination.

It’s unfortunate the Governor opted to ignore the overwhelming reinforcement in the legislature,” said Aroostook Chief Charlie Peter-Paul inward a financial statement on Wednesday.

“The tribes are only asking to follow able-bodied to determine their communities’ futures. They should experience that right hand on their native lands. The law-makers understands this. The people of ME realize this. The Governor and the large corporate gaming operations inwards Maine clearly don’t,” Peter-Paul continued.