Opinion ID: 202707
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Remaining ABMSA Arguments

Text: 88
89 The Aroostook Band makes another argument, designed to advance its claim that ABMSA §§ 6(a) and/or 7(a) give it an exemption from state employment laws. It points to the fact that two ABMSA sections, 6(b) and 8(a), specifically invoke parts of MICSA as applicable to the Aroostook Band. Section 1725(a) is not one of the specifically invoked provisions. The Aroostook Band posits that if Congress had intended § 1725(a) to apply to it as well, then ABMSA would have said so. Otherwise, the Aroostook Band reasons, the specific inclusions in §§ 6(b) and 8(a) would be meaningless surplusage. 24 90 At its core, this is an argument about congressional intent, and it is one that we reject. Courts rarely presume that a statute's failure to invoke a prior statute will reflect an intent to repeal, see Morton, 417 U.S. at 549-50, 94 S.Ct. 2474, although in an appropriate case this rule can be overcome by the Indian canons of construction, see, e.g., Montana v. Blackfeet Tribe of Indians, 471 U.S. 759, 766, 105 S.Ct. 2399, 85 L.Ed.2d 753 (1985). In any event, ABMSA's failure to reference MICSA's § 1725(a), or to repeat that section's language, is easily explained: Congress likely saw no need to do so in light of both MICSA and the state Micmac Act. ABMSA clearly contemplates that the state Micmac Act will have effect. See ABMSA § 6(d) (consenting to amendments to that law). And the state Micmac Act contains language nearly identical to MICSA's § 1725(a). 25 The Aroostook Band's reading is implausible. 91 There is another possible explanation for the failure to reference § 1725(a), but it is also detrimental to the Aroostook Band's argument. The two ABMSA provisions that the Aroostook Band cites for their explicit references to MICSA, §§ 6(b) and 8(a), do not deal with the application of Maine law. Instead, both deal with the application of federal law. That ABMSA did not specifically repeat § 1725(a) may simply reflect this differing subject matter. 92
93 Our dissenting colleague offers a different interpretation of ABMSA. The dissent does not argue that there are provisions in ABMSA that affirmatively grant the Aroostook Band sovereign powers. Nor does the dissent dispute our pre-ABMSA reading of MICSA. The dissent even accepts that the Congress that enacted MICSA, the Congress that enacted ABMSA, and the Maine Legislature, never intended to give the Aroostook Band even the relatively narrow protections from state law that the tribe now claims. Nonetheless, the dissent interprets ABMSA to yield the paradoxical conclusion that ABMSA accidentally restored full sovereign rights to the Aroostook Band—making it the sole Maine tribe with such extensive independence from state law. We decline to reach a result that we can be fully confident Congress did not intend. Cf. Griffin v. Oceanic Contractors, 458 U.S. 564, 575, 102 S.Ct. 3245, 73 L.Ed.2d 973 (1982) ([I]nterpretations of a statute which would produce absurd results are to be avoided if alternative interpretations consistent with legislative purpose are available.). 94 To reach its paradoxical result, the dissent offers the following syllogism. First, the dissent contends that ABMSA essentially repealed MICSA insofar as MICSA dealt with the relationship between Maine law and the Aroostook Band. This is because, in the dissent's view, Congress intended for the state Micmac Act to deal with the issue. Second, the dissent contends that the state Micmac Act never became effective as a matter of state law, due to irregularities in its passage. Third, the dissent argues that despite Congress's allegedly very strong intent for the state Micmac Act to govern this issue, Congress's intent was apparently not quite strong enough for it to have succeeded in ratifying the relevant portions of the state Micmac Act into federal law. Finally, faced with an apparent legal void on the issue, the dissent concludes that the default option must necessarily be the full scope of federal Indian common law. 95 This view of ABMSA diverges significantly from the interpretation offered by the Aroostook Band. Indeed, the dissent goes far beyond the position that the Aroostook Band advocates. 26 96 In any event, we disagree with the dissent's view that ABMSA supplanted MICSA's § 1725(a) insofar as that MICSA provision applied Maine law to the Aroostook Band. Although the dissent acknowledges that we must attempt to construe MICSA and ABMSA consistently unless Congress has clearly expressed otherwise, see Morton, 417 U.S. at 551, 94 S.Ct. 2474, the dissent nevertheless concludes that ABMSA effects a repeal of the relevant part of MICSA by explicitly deferring to [the state Micmac Act] on the issue of state jurisdiction. Post, at 68. 97 The dissent first points out that Congress did not simply amend MICSA to add the Aroostook Band, but rather enacted a separate statute. Yet that can hardly carry significant weight—the fact that Congress enacted a separate statute is the whole reason why we must apply cases like Morton and the statutory canons that deal with the effect of a later statute on an earlier one. See, e.g., Morton, 417 U.S. at 537, 94 S.Ct. 2474 (seeking to determine the effect of a later-enacted statute on a separate earlier-enacted one). 98 The dissent also finds persuasive the fact that ABMSA §§ 6(b) and 8 specifically reference MICSA, and the dissent concludes that the rest of MICSA must have been intentionally omitted. Yet as we explained above, the fact that ABMSA did not explicitly invoke MICSA's § 1725(a) may well have been because the state Micmac Act contained nearly identical language. 99 The dissent seizes on this, contending that it demonstrates Congress's belief that § 1725(a) was no longer pertinent. But the dissent's conclusion is too hasty. There is no reason to believe that Congress intended to repeal § 1725(a) insofar as it provided a default rule in the event that the state Micmac Act were ineffective for some reason. 27 100 Perhaps in recognition of this distinction, the dissent acknowledges that our position would have significant force if MICSA and the state Micmac Act contained identical jurisdictional provisions. Yet the dissent argues that they are not the same because while MICSA's § 1725(d)(1) contains a sue and be sued provision, the state Micmac Act does not. Notably, the dissent does not contend that MICSA's § 1725(a) is meaningfully different from its sister provision in the state Micmac Act. Of course, it is § 1725(a), and not § 1725(d)(1), that applies state law to the Aroostook Band in the ways relevant to this appeal. 101 Furthermore, the dissent's position is internally inconsistent. The dissent concludes that ABMSA does not directly refer to the State's jurisdiction. Post at 71. Yet it also finds that Congress displaced MICSA's allocation of jurisdiction with the state Micmac Act. Because (in the dissent's view) the state Micmac Act was not effective, the dissent assumes that Congress must have preferred a void in the law over a reinstatement of MICSA's acknowledgment of state jurisdiction in disputes such as this. 102 Even if ABMSA had supplanted MICSA in favor of the state Micmac Act, the correct conclusion would be that ABMSA had simultaneously ratified the relevant provision of that act into federal law. Cf. Mattingly v. District of Columbia, 97 U.S. 687, 690, 24 L.Ed. 1098 (1878) (explaining that Congress can ratify earlier proceedings, notwithstanding the fact that the earlier proceedings were procedurally irregular, if the irregularity consists in the . . . mode or manner of doing some act . . . which [Congress] might have made immaterial by prior law). 103 Thus, notwithstanding the dissent's arguments, we believe that MICSA's § 1725(a) continues to govern the relationship between Maine law and the Aroostook Band. And even if it did not, we would conclude that a virtually identical provision in the state Micmac Act, Me.Rev.Stat. Ann. tit. 30, § 7203, had been ratified into federal law with similar effect. Under either scenario, the Aroostook Band is subject to the state laws at issue in this appeal.
104 A final set of arguments about ABMSA, and its interplay with MICSA, comes from the Houlton Band as amicus curiae. These arguments are also without merit. 105 First, amicus notes that while MICSA's § 1725(a) subjects Maine tribes to state law, that provision also contains exceptions for §§ 1724(d)(4) and 1727(e). Amicus reads those two provisions as authoriz[ing] the State and the [Houlton] Band to separately negotiate jurisdictional and other terms. Amicus adds that because these exceptions are introduced by the language [e]xcept as provided in, rather than the word notwithstanding, Congress failed to express an intent to generally subject the Houlton Band to state law. The further inference we are apparently supposed to make is that ABMSA has a similar intent (or lack thereof) regarding the Aroostook Band. 106 This argument is misguided. Whatever the difference between the phrases except as provided in and notwithstanding, it does not bear the weight amicus assigns. By using except as provided in, Congress clearly expressed its view in MICSA that state law will apply to Maine tribes unless one of the two exceptions applies. These two statutory exceptions have nothing to do with the application of state law in this case. One, § 1727(e), pertains solely to child welfare matters. The other, § 1724(d)(4), is clearly limited to arrangements for Houlton Band land acquisition, and the tax consequences that will flow from that. 107 Second, amicus argues from MICSA's § 1725(e)(2), which provides: 108 Notwithstanding the provisions of [§ 1725(a)], the State of Maine and the Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians are authorized to execute agreements regarding the jurisdiction of the State of Maine over lands owned by or held in trust for the benefit of the band or its members. 109 Amicus reasons from this that Congress wanted Maine and the Houlton Band to form their own agreement regarding Maine's jurisdiction, and thus Congress did not intend MICSA to contravene the Houlton Band's sovereignty (with the inference, again, that Congress intended a similar effect for the Aroostook Band in ABMSA). 110 Amicus misses the mark. While Congress contemplated the state and Houlton Band negotiating over certain matters, it also clearly set the baseline from which that negotiation would proceed. Indeed, § 1725(e)(2) clearly states that any negotiated agreement would be an exception to § 1725(a). Since there is no pertinent agreement here, § 1725(a) controls, and the Houlton Band's sovereignty has been abrogated (with the further implication that any inferential argument applicable to the Aroostook Band would be foreclosed).