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Unsettled Ch. 20: Passamaquoddy Tribe still lacks constitution

Friday, July 18, 2014

A sign to Indian Township, one of the reservations of the Passamaquoddy Tribe in Maine. Photo from Maine Encyclopedia

The Portland Press Herald continues its Unsettled series with Chapter 20 about the lack of a joint constitution for the Passamaquoddy Tribe at Pleasant Point and at Indian Township:

There was never any doubt that the Passamaquoddy needed a constitution.
Such a document would establish the fundamental law of their land, and identify both the powers of elected officials and the mechanism to ensure they adhered to tribal law. Though it was abundantly clear from the outset that one was needed, getting it enacted would prove a complicated and formidable challenge, one that remains unfinished to this day.
With tribal council approval, attorney Tom Tureen had developed a draft constitution in 1983 supported by a $100,000 grant from the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs. It was never enacted.
Each time the document was put up for approval in the 1980s, it was passed by voters at Pleasant Point but defeated by those at Indian Township.
The Maine Times reported from the reservations in January 1987 that the defeat was due to opposition to two provisions in the document. One was a clause allowing tribal members convicted of “illegally selling drugs and alcohol” on the reservations to be banished for between six months (for a first offense) to life (for a third one.) The other was a provision banning convicted felons from holding elective tribal office.
“The element who opposed it is in office on the reservation today,” charged John Stevens, who had been narrowly defeated in the 1986 election for Indian Township governor by 43-year-old Bobby Newell, the former tribal constable-turned-politician. “They’ll never pass it the way it is with those two articles.”

Get the Story:
Unsettled Chapter 20: With no constitution, ‘a community … without rules’ (The Portland Press Herald 7/18)