Politics
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Gov. Janet Mills will not attend a Democratic U.S. Senate candidate forum being hosted by a tribal group next month.
Hosted by the Penobscot Nation, the April 16 forum gives Mills’ Democratic primary opponents Graham Platner and David Costello, who support a tribal sovereignty push that the Mills administration has resisted, an opportunity to discuss tribal issues in Old Town during a heated campaign for the nomination to challenge five-term Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins.
“[Gov.] Mills deeply values her relationship with the Wabanaki Nations and, regrettably, cannot participate in the April 16th forum due to a scheduling conflict,” Mills spokesperson Tommy Garcia said in a statement, citing a speaking event in another part of the state.
The campaign wrote to the Wabanaki Alliance this week offering to meet at another time, saying Mills would “enjoy a discussion about federal priorities and how she can continue to work closely and collaboratively” if elected.
Mills’ campaign, which noted the governor in February committed to three televised debates and two forums hosted by the Maine Democratic Party, said it has also offered to provide video remarks or a surrogate to the Wabanaki Alliance forum.
The governor has clashed for years with state Democrats as they press for tribal sovereignty while she has pushed for more targeted reforms. The Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act of 1980 gave the tribes more than $80 million but allows the state to regulate them much like towns and cities without the sweeping rights of tribes in other parts of the country.
Mills’ position has come under fire from Platner and Costello, who both say the settlement denies certain federal benefits and sovereign rights afforded to more than 500 federally recognized tribes across the U.S.
Platner in March testified in favor of a pair of tribal rights bills, calling the 1980 settlement “an injustice” perpetrated by state government and continued by powerful people, including Mills.
Costello, when he previously ran against Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, said in 2023 that tribes are “unnecessarily and detrimentally excluded from automatically receiving a range of federal health care, economic development, environmental protection, emergency response assistance and other benefits.”
When she vetoed a bipartisan tribal rights bill three years ago, Mills said she shared “the goal of ensuring the Wabanaki Nations can access benefits that are generally available to other federally recognized tribes.” But she said the bill as written would not ensure that goal and could result in years of divisive legal action.
In 2023, Mills did not attend the second State of the Tribes address, though she was invited. She cited a scheduling conflict and invited tribal chiefs to meet with her, and made the case that the relationship between state government and the tribes had improved during her tenure.
Earlier this month, Mills proposed compromise amendments to a tribal rights bill that included targeted income and sales tax cuts after negotiations between the Mills administration and chiefs, who have previously praised Mills’ efforts to mend relations and improve the economy in tribal communities.
Chief William Nicholas Sr. of the Passamaquoddy Tribe at Indian Township said the tax cuts proposal marked “a good-faith effort by the governor’s office to work with the tribes.”
Mills also gave tribes control of a mobile sports betting market that went live in 2023, and let a bill pass earlier this year giving the tribes rights to a regulated online casino industry.
