Pros and cons of Akaka bill addressed

LIHU‘E — The leader of an O‘ahu-based nonprofit group seeking to improve the lives of Native Hawaiians on Kaua‘i urged Hawaiians to step forward and support the Akaka Bill to improve their lives and that of their children.

Speaking at a meeting on Kaua‘i last week, Jade Leialoha Danner said passage of the bill would allow for a Native Hawaiian government that could work for betterment of Native Hawaiians now and into the future.

Passage of the bill also would affirm Native Hawaiians as an indigenous people with a political status and rights similar to those held by Native American Indians and Native Alaskans, said Danner, the director of Government Affairs and Community Consultation with the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement.

Reaffirming that status would protect trusts, federal programs and agencies that serve Native Hawaiians and millions in federal funding that benefit them, she said.

In fiscal year 2002, $59 million for major programs for Hawaiians came to the state, according to literature her group passed out at that meeting.

“The bill is important because it provides native Hawaiians a measure of control over our resources, our assets, our decision-making, our own solutions really,” Danner said.

She offered those comments before and during a nighttime workshop her group led at the Kaua‘i Veterans Center on Kapule Highway on March 24.

The meeting focused on the current status of the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act of 2005, also known as the Akaka bill, and on legal challenges mounted against programs for Native Hawaiians. A similar meeting was held at the Kekaha Neighborhood Center on March 23.

The workshops were sponsored in part by the state Department of Hawaiian Home Lands. The State Council of Hawaiian Homestead Association and the Hui Kako‘o Aina Ho‘opulapula, both statewide advocates for the beneficiaries of the Hawaiian Home Land Trust, helped deliver information on the bill.

Danner said the Akaka bill has moved out of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs and is up for a vote by the Senate. The bill has to be approved by Congress before it can be sent to President Bush for review and possible signing, Danner said.

Danner said the Akaka bill consists of 11 provisions, and that two provisions have drawn high interest.

One deals with the formation of a Native Hawaiian government and negotiations among the new government, the state of Hawaii and federal government over claims related to land, resources and assets.

The first provision outlines the process to form the Native Hawaiian government, including establishment of a nine-member commission to sign up adultage Native Hawaiians who want to help with the reorganizing of that government, according to literature Danner handed out at the meeting.

The next step in the process would involve Native Hawaiians electing an interim governing council to create “governing documents” such as a new constitution, and holding an election of Native government officers, Danner said.

After the U.S. secretary of interior has reviewed government documents of the new Native Hawaiian government and has certified them, the U.S. government will officially recognize the new Hawaiian government, Danner said.

New government

The new government, through successful negotiations with the state and federal governments, is very likely to take control of two key state agencies serving Hawaiians now, the Office of Hawaiian Affairs and the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands, she said.

The other bill section that has draw great interest, Danner said, reaffirms the delegation of federal authority to the state government in the Admissions Act to address the conditions of Native Hawaiians.

This section also authorizes the federal government to negotiate with the state and Native Hawaiian government for the transfer and protection of land, resources and assets set aside for Hawaiian use to the new government, she said.

The section also creates a 20-year time period in which the Native Hawaiian government can file claims with the federal government, including those dealing with ceded lands, Danner said.

That provision works well for Native Hawaiians when one considers that the claim period for other Native groups runs from only one to 6 years, Danner said.

But with so many good leaders in the Native Hawaiian community, Hawaiians should be able to identify rather quickly what claims have to be filed so that the Native Hawaiian community can derive benefits as quickly as possible, Danner said.

“It (the type of claims) shouldn’t be hard to figure out,” she said. “The claims will be filed with the courts.”

But Elaine Dunbar, a Kaua‘i resident who supports the sovereignty movement, said she believes a “land claim extinguishment section is buried in this bill.”

Other key provisions in the Akaka bill:

• Establish the federal government has a special reasonability to promote the welfare of Native Hawaiians;

• Establish an office within the U.S. Department of Interior to represent the federal government in its relationship with Native Hawaiians;

• Create an “interagency coordinating group to coordinate the efforts of government agencies serving Native Hawaiians. The group would be required to consult with Native Hawaiians and with the new government;

• Would not authorize gaming under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act;

• Note that if other provisions are proven invalid, the rest of the provisions would continue to be in effect.

Dual citizenship

Under the bill, if approved, Native Hawaiians could have duel citizenship with the United States and the new Native Hawaiian government, Danner said.

To become part of the new government, Native Hawaiians “have to sign up,” she said. Those who do not will not qualify for programs that currently serve and will serve the Hawaiian community, Danner said.

“The bill is a tool to heal this (Hawaiian) community and preserve this way of life,” she said.

Danner also asked Native Hawaiians to step forward to fight two lawsuits that threaten Hawaiian entitlements and institutions.

In 2002, Earl F. Arakaki and 12 others filed a lawsuit against the state of Hawaii, claiming Hawaiians are racial minorities who have with no special political status or trust entitlements with the federal government that are similarly wielded by other Native groups.

The plaintiffs claimed the programs that benefit Hawaiians are race-based and, therefore, should be dismantled in line with an equal protection clause in the U.S. Constitution, according to literature distributed at the March 24 meeting.

The defendants in the lawsuit contend the U.S. government see Native Hawaiians as native people and has entered into a special relationship with Hawaiians, Danner said.

Passage of the Akaka bill would blow legal holes in the arguments of the defendants, Danner said.

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in March 2002, and will likely be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, she said.

In the other lawsuit, a Kaua‘i mother and son took legal action to taken down a “preference policy” at Kamehameha School for native Hawaiians students.

The plaintiffs claim that policy is discriminatory and unlawful.

The defendants in the case claim that preference policy is lawful, and is designed to remedy “past wrongs” committed against Hawaiians, as acknowledged by an “Apology Resolution” signed by Congress and former President Bill Clinton in 1993,” according to literature distributed at the meeting. The resolution made redress for American actions that led to the overthrow of the Hawaiian Monarchy in 1893.

That lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in June 2003, and is anticipated to be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court as well, Danner noted.

Danner said the Akaka bill was first introduced in the 106th congressional session in July 2000, and that the current Senate version, S. 147, and current House version, H.R. 309, were introduced in the 109th Congressional session on Jan. 25, 2005.

Among the co-sponsors of the Senate bill is Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawai‘i). Among the co-sponsors of the House version are House Reps. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawai‘i) and Ed Case (D-Hawai‘i).

During Senate Committee hearings held in Washington D.C., on March 1, 2005, Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona), the chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, invited testimony from political and community leaders in Hawaii.

Among those invited to do so were Case, Gov. Lingle and representatives from the Hawaiian Homes Commission, Office of Hawaiian Affairs and the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement.

A handful of the 25 people who attended the March 24 meeting were kanaka maoli, the indigenous people of Hawai‘i.

Sovereignty advocates, including Nani Rogers, Elaine Dunbar and Lono Bray, spoke out against the bill before the meeting was held.

“I know the bill is no good,” Rogers said outside the Veteran’s Center. “My main objection is that the bill amounts to future oppression of the kanaka maoli people by the United States …They are totally ignoring the fact that we are a country already. We have a kingdom already.

From her point of view, the 1893 overthrow of the Hawaiian Monarchy and the 1895 annexation of Hawaii to the United States were acts of theft by the United States, so “give us back everything you stole from us. Nothing more but nothing less, period,” Rogers said.

She said she believes the out-come of the Akaka bill is out of the hands of those who have advocated Hawaii’s independence from the United States. “Whatever happens to the Akaka bill will happen,” she said.

Against bill

Speaking out against the bill and for Hawai‘i’s independence from the United States, Bray said the bill amounts to genocide of for the Hawaiian race.

He contended the Hawaiian Kingdom exists “under international, constitutional kingdom law,” partly because the Kingdom of Hawaii was a sovereign nation that had treaties with many countries, including the United States, in the 19th century.

Bray said the “overthrow never happened” and that the takeover of Hawai‘i by the United States has been an “illegal occupation.”

Dunbar contends the bill amounts to a “major land grab by the U.S. government and developers.”

Danner said she agrees with the views by sovereignty advocates that the overthrow of the Hawaiian Monarchy and the annexation of Hawaii were illegal. But at the same time, the Akaka bill, should it become law, leaves open the opportunity for independence, she added.

She said she has fervently pushed for the passage of the bill because she feels it will enable Hawaiians to gain control of their lives again.

“(Passing the bill will determine) What kind of control you effect now, because our people are homeless right now, our young people are starving right now, our children are going without educational benefits right now,” Danner said. “Federal recognition would give us control over the assets right now, as Native Americans and Native Alaskans have, right now.”

For more information on the Akaka bill, contact the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement at 1-800-709-2642, or go to www.hawaiiancouncil.org.