Opinion: Denial of gaming to Maine tribes a fundamental injustice

Unlike all other Indians tribes, Maine tribes' ability to open gaming facilities has been found to be limited by the Land Claims Settlement Act. To start a casino, or even a new bingo game, they must have the state's consent. So it is that the Pequot Tribe, which for most people hardly existed, runs one of the world's largest casinos in Connecticut, while Maine's tribes, which have unbroken traditions extending back to the beginning of recorded history, have been shut out.

Through voters rejecting their referendums, governors exerting their veto power or — as occurred this year — legislators turning down the bills, the tribes have never succeeded even while two full-fledged casinos, in Oxford and Bangor, have been created through accidents and referendum rolls of the dice.

When senators rejected the tribes' bills again this year, they said the state needed an overall plan for gambling. Fine, but where is the plan? Year after year, the tribes have been waiting for a plan that never arrives. Instead, we have the largely inept proceedings of the Veterans and Legal Affairs Committee, not one of the Legislature's strongest, which this year offered up five separate proposals, ranging from harness racing to the tribal casino bill. They must have known this doomed them all.

Even those who were most strongly opposed to granting sovereignty back during the land claims debate acknowledge that denying Maine tribes the right to legal gaming is a fundamental injustice. It is not too much to say that every Mainer who is not a tribal member is a party to that injustice.