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

Heading: ABMSA as a Repeal of MICSA: The Dissent's Position

Text: 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 First, the dissent contends that ABMSA essentially repealed MICSA insofar as MICSA dealt with the relationship between Maine law and the Aroostook Band.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.