Opinion ID: 2362028
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Maine Freedom of Access Act

Text: [¶ 43] By enacting the Freedom of Access Act, the Legislature has declared that public proceedings exist to aid in the conduct of the people's business. It is the intent of the Legislature that their actions be taken openly and that the records of their actions be open to public inspection and their deliberations be conducted openly. 1 M.R.S.A. § 401 (1989). The provisions of the Act apply to all public proceedings. Id. Public proceedings are defined for purposes of our analysis as the transactions of any functions affecting any or all citizens of the State by... [a] municipality. Id. § 402(2)(C) (1989 & Supp.2000). The Freedom of Access Act does not create any exceptions to the application of the Act to the Tribes. [¶ 44] Preliminarily, therefore, we must determine whether the Tribes are acting in their municipal capacities in the matter before us. We conclude that they are. The information sought by the paper companies relates to the Tribes' interactions, or transaction[s], with the federal government regarding the regulation of water quality within or adjacent to their territories. See id. § 402(3). Through their communications with the federal government, the Tribes have sought, inter alia, an approval to be treated like a state, thus excluding the State of Maine from exercising authority over those portions of the rivers that are within or adjacent to their lands. See 33 U.S.C.A. § 1377(e). They do so not as businesses or individuals, but in their capacities as the governments of Indian territories in Maine. Cf. Indian Township Passamaquoddy Reservation Hous. Auth., 495 A.2d at 1191-92. In doing so, the Tribes are unquestionably acting in their governmental capacities. The Maine Implementing Act defines their governmental status with regard to the State of Maine as a municipality. 30 M.R.S.A. § 6206(1). [16] The Tribes are therefore subject, in this context, to state laws affecting municipal governments. See Couturier, 544 A.2d at 308 (holding that the Maine Tort Claims Act, from which municipalities derive their immunity, applies to the Tribes when acting in their governmental capacity). [¶ 45] Because the Freedom of Access Act applies to municipal governments and because the Tribes are acting in their municipal capacity, we must next determine whether any provision of the Maine Implementing Act prohibits or limits the application of the Freedom of Access Act to the Tribes generally or as applied to this case. [¶ 46] The Tribes argue that the internal tribal matters exception flatly prohibits any application of the Freedom of Access Act to the Tribes. See 30 M.R.S.A. § 6206(1). Specifically, the Tribes assert that because the Act would regulate tribal government, its application is prohibited by the exception for internal tribal matters, defined to include tribal government. See id. There is no question that the state may not interfere with internal tribal matters. Id. The question is whether the application of the Freedom of Access Act would always interfere with internal tribal matters. [¶ 47] Generally, the Act affects two areas of government action. First, it requires that public proceedings be open to the public. 1 M.R.S.A. § 403 (1989). Second, it requires that the public be given access to all public records. Id. § 408 (1989). [17] The paper companies have sought access not only to documents generated by the Tribes as a result of the decisions or actions of tribal government, but also to the minutes of the Tribes' meetings or hearings. See id. §§ 402, 403. Thus, both aspects of the Act are implicated here. [¶ 48] Whether either aspect of the Freedom of Access Act would reach into internal tribal matters requires an understanding of that term. Fellencer, 164 F.3d at 709. Internal tribal matters is not defined in the Implementing Act, but includes membership in the respective tribe or nation, the right to reside within the respective Indian territories, tribal organization, tribal government, tribal elections and the use or disposition of settlement fund income. 30 M.R.S.A. § 6206(1) (emphasis added). The Committee Report accompanying the bill To Provide for the Settlement of Land Claims of Indians, Indian Nations and Tribes and Bands of Indians in the State of Maine described this aspect of the compromise as follows: Prior to the settlement, the State passed laws governing the internal affairs of the Passamaquoddy Tribe and the Penobscot Nation, and claimed the power to change these laws or even terminate these tribes.... While the settlement represents a compromise in which state authority is extended over Indian territory to the extent provided in the Maine Implementing Act ... the settlement provides that henceforth the Tribes will be free from state interference in the exercise of their internal affairs. H.R. REP. No. 96-1353 (1980), 1980 U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News p. 3790; cf. 22 M.R.S.A. §§ 4701-4836 (dictating the rules and regulations that apply to the Tribes) (repealed in substantial part by Maine Implementing Act, P.L.1979, ch. 732). [¶ 49] Because the Implementing Act does not define internal tribal matters, giving definition to the term has necessarily fallen to the courts. It has proven to be a complex task. The First Circuit in Akins has suggested several factors for consideration in determining whether a disputed issue relates to an internal tribal matter. Akins, 130 F.3d at 486-87. While these factors are neither exclusive nor dispositive, they provide a common sense framework for addressing this murky area, referred to by the Akins court as treacherous, in which the state's authority over the Tribes may be curtailed. Id. at 487. Those factors include: (1) the effect on nontribal members, (2) & (3) the subject matter of the dispute, particularly when related to Indian lands or the harvesting of natural resources on Indian lands, (4) the interests of the State of Maine, and (5) prior legal understandings. Id. at 486-87. [¶ 50] Applying the Akins factors, we conclude that a Tribe's own methods of convening and engaging in government will in most instances be matters internal to the Tribe. See id. at 487-88, 490 (concluding that the regulation of stumpage permits was an internal tribal matter where policy only dealt with tribal members and natural resources within tribal territories). The methods by which the Tribes govern themselves are not matters of interest to the citizenry of the state at large. Tribal government will ordinarily be focused on Indian territory, tribal resources, and members of the Tribe. Moreover, treating the processes of tribal government as free from state interference is entirely consistent with the intent of the settlement acts. See id. at 488-89; see also 30 M.R.S.A. § 6206(1); Fellencer, 164 F.3d at 709-10, 713. [¶ 51] We need not determine the full parameters of the instances where the Act will not apply to the Tribes. It will suffice to conclude that the Freedom of Access Act is not ordinarily applicable to the methods and actions by which the Tribes engage in self governance. [18] This conclusion is consistent with the House and Senate committee reports which indicated Congress's understanding that, pursuant to the internal tribal matters exception, the Tribes may exclude non-Indians from tribal decision-making processes. S. REP. No. 96-957, at 15 (1980); H.R. REP. No. 96-1353 (1980), 1980 U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News p. 3791. [¶ 52] Thus, when the Tribes undertake the deliberative processes of self-governance, they are, in most instances, engaged in matters that are internal tribal matters. See Stilphen, 461 A.2d at 489-90. The application of the Freedom of Access Act to such internal tribal affairs would constitute an impermissible imposition of state laws on the Tribes' exclusive right to regulate their tribal government. 30 M.R.S.A. § 6206(1). [¶ 53] In the context of this case, the Tribes' internal discussions, votes, and decision-making as to whether they would petition the federal government, and if so, in what manner and to what extent, are processes entirely internal to the Tribes. Neither the state nor the general public has a right to be involved in, or sit in on, that internal decision-making process. Similarly, the methods used to reach the decisions, along with the documents generated in the process, were within the Tribes' authority to create, without interference from the state or the public. [¶ 54] It is not until the decisions made in the course of tribal governance find their way to actions and interactions with others outside of the Tribes that the Tribes will ordinarily be deemed to have moved outside of internal tribal matters. [19] Cf. id. § 6210(3) (1996). When the Tribes, in their municipal capacities, act or interact with persons or entities other than their tribal membership, such as the state or federal government, the Tribes may be engaged in matters that are not internal tribal matters. See Stilphen, 461 A.2d at 488-90. [¶ 55] We conclude that the effort of the Tribes to obtain a position on a par with state government regarding the regulation of water quality is such an instance. The Maine Implementing Act makes state laws regarding natural resources generally applicable to tribal lands. 30 M.R.S.A. § 6204. The Tribes' efforts would, in many aspects, have a direct effect upon members of the public outside the borders of tribal lands and upon the Tribes' relationships with the state, see 33 U.S.C.A. 1377(e), could limit the state's authority, and could affect the state's relationship with federal agencies. The relationship between the state and the Tribes regarding the regulation of water quality within the state is a matter of the legitimate interest of the citizens of this state. Thus, the Tribes' communications with the federal government or the state in the context of their water quality authority are not matters internal to the Tribes, and are subject to the public records provisions of the Freedom of Access Act. See 1 M.R.S.A. § 402(3). [20] [¶ 56] In sum, because the decisions reached by the Tribes have resulted in actions of a governmental nature that may have a meaningful effect on members of the public who are not members of the Tribes, the provisions of the Freedom of Access Act apply to those actions. See Stilphen, 461 A.2d at 480, 490 (holding that operation of beano games, open to the general public and drawing hundreds of players [to the Tribe] from all over Maine and beyond, was not an internal tribal matter). Thus, when the Tribes communicate with the state or federal government, file documents relating to the dispute of authority at issue, and provide the other governments with information regarding their requests, they are not engaged in internal tribal matters. See 30 M.R.S.A. § 6206(1). [¶ 57] The paper companies, however, have not limited their document requests to the Tribes' communications with other governmental entities. They also seek minutes of tribal council meetings in which any discussion of options or proposals regarding governance of water quality occurred. As we concluded above, although the Tribes' interactions with the state and federal government in this instance do not fall within the exception for internal tribal matters, the council meetings and internal decision-making process of the Tribes do. See id.