When Gov. Janet Mills ran for governor in 2018, she touted as one of her priorities to improve tribal-state relations by appointing “people to the Maine Indian Tribal State Commission who will carry out its mission, which has too long been neglected.” To her credit, she initially fulfilled that promise.
Discouragingly, once again the Maine Indian Tribal-State Commission (MITSC) suffers from multiple —four — state commissioner vacancies. This time, the governor has expressed little interest in addressing what she pledged to fix in 2018. This inaction creates an especially acute problem for MITSC as it has an intentionally high quorum threshold to ensure input into decisions from commissioners representing all appointing signatories. With so many vacancies, achieving a quorum is out of reach.
