State Views
 
In spite of the fact that Maine officials articulated the views that the land claims were without merit and that it was not fair to raise a 200-year old claim, the State supported the settlement.  During hearings on March 28, 1980, before the Legislature's Joint Select Committee on the Maine Indian Claims Settlement, Attorney General Richard Cohen and a representative of Governor Joseph Brennan presented several arguments in support of the settlement:

There was a serious chance that the State of Maine and some of its citizens might have some substantial liability.  The settlement would extinguish all Indian claims to Maine land and Maine money.

If the matter went to trial, it would be very costly to the State.  During an uncertain period of litigation the ability of the State, municipalities, and private corporations to market bonds would be severely jeopardized.  Titles to real estate would be difficult to transfer.  There would be serious economic and social disruption and turmoil. 

The settlement was financially advantageous to the State.  The federal government would appropriate millions of dollars to enable the tribes to purchase 300,000 acres of land.  Because the tribes would receive substantial federal financial assistance as federally recognized tribes, the State could terminate its funding ($1,718,000) for the Department of Indian Affairs, Indian Education, and the Maine Indian Housing Authorities.

The settlement would not create a nation within a nation.  There would be a favorable tribal-state jurisdictional relationship, described by Attorney General Cohen, as follows:

"... [T]he framework of laws in this Act is by far the most favorable state-Indian jurisdictional relationship that exists anywhere in the United States.  As a general rule, States have little authority to enforce state laws on Indian Lands.  Tax laws, water and air pollution laws, zoning laws, health laws, contract and business laws and criminal laws--all those state laws are usually unenforceable on state Indian Lands.   More than half the states in the United States have Indian Lands within their borders and most of those states are engaged in continual battles with Indian Tribes over the question of whether state laws apply to those lands.  In fact, in Maine, the State Supreme Court has recently ruled that Maine cannot enforce its criminal laws on the existing Indian Reservations and ... lacks jurisdiction over those Reservations ... If the Indians were successful in the Land Claim and recovered some land, not only would we lose the land, but also we would probably be unable to enforce State Laws on those lands.   I believe such a result would be intolerable.  The proposal before you not only avoids such a situation, but recovers for the State much of the jurisdiction over the existing reservations that it has lost in ... recent litigation."