(c) Copyright 2015
Kenneth R. Conklin, Ph.D.
All rights reserved
=============
INDEX OF NEWS REPORTS AND COMMENTARIES DURING OCTOBER 2015
October 1, 2015:
(1) The U.S. Department of Interior proposed rule allowing federal recognition for a Hawaiian tribe is published in the federal Register, with a 90-day comment period ending December 30.
(2) Honolulu Star-Advertiser announces publication of list of 209 certified candidates for the Na'i Aupuni election to choose 40 delegates for a Constitutional Convention to create a governing document for the phony Hawaiian tribe. Provides links to the list which includes a pdf file written by each candidate providing biographical information and reasons for running.
(3) Honolulu Star-Advertiser online poll for October 1 ended with 48% responding they oppose sovereignty for Native Hawaiians, 37% favoring it, and 15% oppose federal involvement in it.
(4) Hawaii Free Press notes that several candidates in the Na'i Aupuni election are currently serving as OHA trustees or State legislators or other government officers; and are thus in conflict with the State constitution or laws prohibiting holding two offices at the same time or running for election without first resigning from current offices.
Oct 3: Professor Jon Osorio, secessionist, writes a rambling opposition to the Na'i Aupuni election and DOI rulemaking. Ken Conklin, in an online comment, notes the example of Barog railroad tunnel (Punjab) that was dug from both ends but they failed to meet.
Oct 4: Columnist Richard Borreca says "There's nothing certain about Hawaiian sovereignty" because the process of creating the tribe in Hawaii and getting federal recognition from Washington is complex with many pitfalls.
Oct 5: Contents of memo sent from Nina Fisher, Congressman Mark Takai's Honolulu office manager, formerly office manager for Congresswoman Colleen Hanabusa, on Sept. 29, describing the Department of Interior proposed rule for federal recognition of Hawaiian tribe.
Oct 5-6:
(1) 3 TV stations report "Critics: Hawaiian constitutional convention election process is flawed."
(2) Statistical analysis of biographical information concludes: "Delegate candidates for a Native Hawaiian Constitutional Convention do not reflect the true makeup of the Native Hawaiian population."
Oct 7:
(1) "Midweek O'ahu" columnist Bob Jones says full sovereignty is just a daydream. Concludes by quoting Ken Conklin: "Hawaiian sovereignty activists, whether they support tribal status or independent nation status, believe that ethnic Hawaiians are entitled to racial supremacy in Hawaii on the theory of indigenous rights. A third alternative of unity, equality, and aloha for all gets almost no media attention, but is by far the most popular with all ethnic groups."
(2) Honolulu Civil Beat columnist Ian Lind says Native Hawaiian Election Throws Out All the Rules -- None of the customary election laws apply to the high-stakes selection of delegates to a constitutional convention regarding a new government.
(3) Grassroot Institute of Hawaii Questions DOI Rule -- transcript of 10-minute Hawaii Public Radio interview of Dr. Keli'i Akina regarding the Department of Interior proposed rule for federal recognition of a Hawaiian tribe. Akina notes that it's peculiar to lump together all people who have a drop of Hawaiian native blood.
Oct 11: Former Governor and Congressman Neil Abercrombie [who successfully pushed the Akaka bill through the House 3 times] says he hopes the tribal creation process now underway will succeed, but different factions must compromise and the secessionist viewpoint must be rejected.
Oct 12: Blogger Ian Lind briefly describes some main issues in the lawsuit to block the election of delegates to a constitutional convention to create a race-based Hawaiian tribe, and PROVIDES LINKS TO THE IMPORTANT LEGAL DOCUMENTS BY PLAINTIFF GRASSROOT INSTITUTE AND JUDICIAL WATCH; AND DEFENDANTS STATE OF HAWAII, NATIVE HAWAIIAN ROLL COMMISSION, OHA, NA'I AUPUNI, AKAMAI FOR OCTOBER 20 HEARING ON MOTION FOR TEMPORARY RESTRAINING ORDER TO BLOCK THE ELECTION.
Oct 15:
(1) OHA trustee Peter Apo writes another in his series of articles for Honolulu Civil Beat online. He defines "Hawaiian" very broadly but says the most important lement is being politically active in the quest for the Holy Grail of nationhood (i.e., federal recognition). Ken Conklin has online comment.
(2) Honolulu Star-Advertisr article says today (October 15) is the last day to register to vote in the Na'i Aupuni election of delegates to the tribal constitutional convention; and article provides free advertising for how to register in addition to a sense of urgency.
(3) Blogger Ian Lind says there's a public Facebook page at
https://www.facebook.com/groups/OPPOSE.Nai.Aupuni/
which is spreading the message, "Protest Na'i Aupuni," and urging Hawaiians to remove their names from the roll of eligible voters. Hawaiians are also being urged to sign a petition pushing for disenrollment.
(4) Judge Seabright invited U.S. Department of Interior to submit amicus brief in lawsuit to block election of delegates to a Hawaiian tribe constitutional convention, and DOI did submit it, urging the judge not to block the election.
Oct 19: Letter to editor says "When America stole our islands, everything that was ours was taken and left with nothing." Etc. So be careful about choosing pathway for self-determination.
Oct 20-21: Several news reports describe the lengthy hearing in U.S. District Court on October 20 on a motion for temporary restraining order to block the Na'i Aupuni election. Reports include background of plaintiffs and some of the main arguments on all sides.
Oct 21: Late in the day on October 21, 2015, the Grassroot Institute made available to the public many of the legal documents in Akina v. Hawaii. A link is provided to the entire collection, where each document can be viewed and downloaded individually.
Oct 21: U.S. HOUSE COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN INTRODUCES BILL TO BLOCK DEPARTMENT OF INTERIOR FROM RECOGNIZING NEW TRIBES, AND TO RETURN THAT AUTHORITY SOLELY TO CONGRESS.
Oct 22: PJ Media: Obama Administration Defends Hawaiian Separatism in Federal Court
Oct 22: FINAL RULE PUBLISHED IN FEDERAL REGISTER ALLOWS TRIBES TO AMEND THEIR GOVERNING DOCUMENTS WITHOUT NEEDING AMENDMENTS TO BE APPROVED BY SECRETARY OF INTERIOR. [One effect would be that limitations imposed on Hawaiian tribe as part of DOI requirements proposed for recognizing it in current Notice of Proposed Rulemaking could be changed by Hawaiian tribe unilaterally after they get recognition]
Oct 23: Honolulu Star-Advertiser: Melody MacKenzie: The specialist in Native Hawaiian law has seen much growth and progress in the field
Oct 23-24: U.S. DISTRICT COURT JUDGE MICHAEL SEABRIGHT DISMISSES LAWSUIT BY GRASSROOT INSTITUTE OF HAWAII AND JUDICIAL WATCH SEEKING TO BLOCK RACE-BASED ELECTION OF DELEGATES TO CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION TO CREATE A HAWAIIAN TRIBE. SEABRIGHT SAYS IT'S A PRIVATE ELECTION NOT SUBJECT TO THE CONSTITUTION'S 1ST, 14TH, AND 15TH AMENDMENTS, DESPITE BEING FUNDED WITH MILLIONS OF DOLLARS FROM STATE GOVERNMENT AGENCY OHA. NUMEROUS NEWS REPORTS PROVIDE VARIOUS DETAILS AND VARIOUS SPINS ON WHAT HAPPENED.
Oct 25:
(1) Hawaii Free Press commentary says the U.S. Department of Interior proposed rule for recognizing a Hawaiian tribe shows the feds are not trying to re-establish a relationship with the actual Kingdom of Hawaii, but rather with the State of Hawaii Office of Hawaiian Affairs as being an Indian tribe.
(2) Honolulu Star-Advertiser Sunday editorial says "In rejecting a motion seeking to block the election of delegates to an aha, or constitutional convention, U.S. District Court Judge J. Michael Seabright underscored the rights of all people to assemble and organize in this way. And as an act by a private entity, the election did not constitute a violation of government's constitutional protections."
Oct 26:
(1) Grassroot Institute press release says plaintiffs file 9th Circuit Court appeal of Judge Seabright's decision, and provides notice of appeal legal document.
(2) Honolulu attorney sarcastic "Tips From An Election Lawyer For Setting Up Private Racially-Exclusive Elections, er ... "Opinion Polls""
Oct 27:
(1) Honolulu Star-Advertiser columnist describes schedule for Na'i Aupuni election, and how important it is for them to create the new tribe and get federal recognition before Obama leaves office.
(2) Trisha Kehaulani Watson, Ph.D. and J.D., article in Honolulu Civil Beat describes at length the efforts to restore Hawaiian sovereignty including Akaka bill and concludes that the current Na'u Aupuni election "is nothing but an elaborate attempt to force Hawaiians into making a decision they do not fully understand."
(3) Letter to editor by Wilbert Wong says "I believe the majority of our resident U.S. citizens who possess many rights and benefits would be foolish to give up such freedom for a race-based sovereign government, with citizens required to have a quantum of Hawaiian blood, and headed by individuals seeking political power and control over all our Hawaiian islands and its natural resources."
Oct 29:
(1) Republican leadership of the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources Subcommittee on Indian, Insular and Alaska Native Affairs (which has jurisdiction over tribal recognition) holds a committee hearing on HR3674, which would strip the Department of Interior of the power to give federal recognition to tribes.
(2) Walter Ritte, independence activist from Moloka'i, has withdrawn his candidacy in the Na'i Aupuni election for delegates to a Hawaiian tribe convention, boycotting in protest that the outcome is rigged in favor of federal recognition.
(3) Zuri Aki, an independence activist from Honolulu who is a candidate in the Na'i Aupuni election, writes a primal scream in online newspaper bewailing the loss of (race-based) sovereignty in 1893 and the hope for restoring it through the Na'i Aupuni process.
Oct 30
(1) Aljazeera America describes the race-based election to create a Hawaiian tribe, justifying it by telling the usual revisionist history of overthrow, annexation, occupation, protest over Mauna Kea, etc.
(2) Opinions editor of Honolulu Civil Beat says "The Cost Of Sitting Out Delegate Elections And The 'Aha -- There are many reasons to criticize the coming elections for a convention on Native Hawaiian governance. But the reasons to participate are more persuasive."
(3) Letter to editor in Honolulu Star-Advertiser points out that two of the candidates for the tribal convention are also members of the State legislature which will be in session at the same time as the tribal convention.
October 31, 2015:
(1) Honolulu Star-Advertiser EDITORIAL stresses that the Na'i Aupuni election is not "fixed" by OHA, and urges all ethnic Hawaiians to participate.
(2)-(5): The OHA monthly newspaper for November became available. Four items were of interest regarding the election of delegates to a tribal convention.
(2) Message from Kamana'opono M. Crabbe, Ph.D. Ka Pouhana/Chief Executive Officer urges voters on the racial registry to participate
(3) Interior proposes Native Hawaiian Rule hailed as Obama commitment to support Native Hawaiians
(4) Na'i Aupuni board of directors wrote an article explaining why it's important to vote in the tribal election
(5) OHA trustee Carmen Hulu Lindsey gave her monthly column to charter school leader Dr. Ku Kahakalau who explained why Kahakalau never enrolled in Kana'iolowalu or any other racial registry, because "we, the Hawaiian people, do not need any involvement by either the Hawaii State government, nor the U.S. federal government, to design, implement and evaluate our process of re-establishing an independent Hawaiian nation."
END OF INDEX OF NEWS REPORTS AND COMMENTARIES DURING OCTOBER 2015
================
** Full text of news reports and commentaries during October 2015.
On October 1, 2015 the U.S. Department of Interior proposed rule allowing federal recognition for a Hawaiian tribe is published in the federal Register, with a 90-day comment period ending December 30.
The proposed rule was published as a nicely formatted, easy-to-read pdf file on the Department of Interior website on September 29, where it can be downloaded from:
https://www.doi.gov/sites/doi.opengov.ibmcloud.com/files/uploads/NPRM%20Part%2050%209.29.15.pdf
The October 1 publication of the proposed rule in the official Federal Register can be seen in a pdf file which displays the actual pages from the
Federal Register
Vol. 80, No. 190
Thursday, October 1, 2015
pp. 59113 - 59132
FR Doc No: 2015-24712 at:
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2015-10-01/pdf/2015-24712.pdf
The October 1 publication of the proposed rule in the official Federal Register can also be seen as a simple-text html file with page breaks indicated in square brackets, at
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2015-10-01/html/2015-24712.htm
------------------
http://www.staradvertiser.com/newspremium/hawaiinewspremium/20151001_209_hawaiians_vie_for_role_in_constitutional_convention.html?id=330220261
Honolulu Star-Advertiser, October 1, 2015
209 Hawaiians vie for role in constitutional convention
By Dan Nakaso and Gordon Pang
Some 209 candidates will vie for 40 delegate positions across the islands for the Native Hawaiian 'aha constitutional convention that will work to form a Native Hawaiian government.
Kuhio Asam, president of Na'i Aupuni, which is in charge of running the November election and subsequent Native Hawaiian convention and ratification process, said the candidates are "diverse in their age, backgrounds and purpose," adding, "They are representative of a good cross section of the Native Hawaiian community."
They include former and current state legislators such as state Rep. Kaniela Ing (D, South Maui); former City Council members; Office of Hawaiian Affairs trustees and administrators; lawyers; and University of Hawaii professors.
The candidates also include well-known activists such as Walter Ritte Jr. of Molokai; Moani Akaka of Hawaii island; and Mahealani Cypher, aka Denise DeCosta, a former Honolulu city clerk.
Information on each candidate can be found at
http://www.naiaupuni.org
or at
https://vote.election-america.com/naiaupuni/bios.htm
The delegates will be elected to represent Native Hawaiians who live in and outside Hawaii.
On Oahu, 110 candidates will vie for 20 delegate positions. Hawaii island has 32 candidates for seven slots; Maui, 15 contenders for three positions; Kauai and Niihau, five hopefuls for two spots; Molokai and Lanai, four candidates for one position; and out of state, 43 contenders for seven slots.
Ballots to elect the delegates will be sent to certified voters on Nov. 1, said Election-America, a private national company hired by Na'i Aupuni to conduct the election.
Votes can be cast by mail or electronically but must be received by Nov. 30.
Native Hawaiians who have not been certified can still apply with the Native Hawaiian Roll Commission (kanaiolowalu.org) or the Office of Hawaiian Affairs (oha.org/registry).
Information about the election process can be found at
http://www.naiaupuni.org
or by emailing
naiaupuni@election-america.com.
The deadline to be certified is Oct. 15.
-------------------
** Unfortunately the Honolulu Star-Advertiser no longer maintains an archive of The Big Q online opinion polls, so there is no URL to cite. But the poll on Thursday October 1 asked:
Big Q: Is the U.S. Interior Department right in opening the door to a reorganized Native Hawaiian government?
B. No, don't believe in sovereignty (48%) - 1,048 votes
A. Yes, indigenous rights overdue (37%) - 819 votes
C. No, feds meddling in sovereignty (15%) - 328 votes
Total Votes: 2,195
** One interpretation is that 48% +15% = 63% Rejected the Department of Interior rulemaking
---------------------
http://www.hawaiifreepress.com/ArticlesMain/tabid/56/ID/16041/Aha-Candidates-Legislators-Trustee-Violate-Resign-to-Run-Law.aspx
Hawaii Free Press, Thursday, October 01, 2015
'Aha Candidates -- Legislators, Trustee Violate Resign to Run Law
by Andrew Walden
OHA may dispute it, but the Na'i Aupuni 'Aha Delegate election is a State of Hawaii election being run illegally by an OHA contractor in violation of Rice v Cayetano and also the Hawaii State Constitution Article 4, Section 3 which requires that all State of Hawaii elections be overseen by the Chief Elections Officer.
Because the 'Aha is a State election, three candidates are in violation of the Hawaii Resign to Run Law codified in Article 2, Section 7 of the Hawaii State Constitution which reads:
Any elected public officer shall resign from that office before being eligible as a candidate for another public office, if the term of the office sought begins before the end of the term of the office held.
The three candidates for immediate resignation are:
OHA Trustee Rowena Akana
Sen Brickwood Galuteria
Rep Kaniela Ing
According to Na'i Aupuni, the term of office for Aha delegates is "Between February and April 2016: 'Aha held on Oahu over the course of eight consecutive weeks (40 work days, Monday through Friday)."
In addition to violating the Resign to Run law, another section of the Hawaii State Constitution, Article 3, Section 8, flatly states:
"No member of the legislature shall hold any other public office under the State...."
If elected to the 'Aha, this would ensnare both Galuteria and Ing.
The State Constitution does not prescribe punishment for violators such as Galuteria and Ing, but Article 3, Section 8 is helpfully titled "Disqualifications of Members." Are they planning to ignore the resign to run law only to resign from the Legislature if elected to the 'Aha? The 'Aha schedule covers most of the upcoming Legislative session.
They are not alone. An Hawaii Attorney General opinion holds that one cannot "simultaneously retain his position as a public officer and serve as a trustee for OHA."
Rowena Akana's candidacy flaunts both the AG opinion and OHA's pledge to not interfere in the 'Aha.
Additionally, members of the Kanaiolowalu Roll Commission are, of course, public officers of the State of Hawaii. In spite of this, they are now seeking to hold additional State of Hawaii public offices as 'Aha delegates. These include three 'Aha candidates:
Naalehu Anthony
Lei Kihoi
Clyde Namuo (executive director of Roll Commission)
** Ken Conklin's note: Ethnic Hawaiians who are state government executives, legislators, or judges have an obvious and very severe conflict of interest if they are members of a Hawaiian tribe, and especially if they are leaders in creating it or participating in the governing of it. See my webpage at
https://www.angelfire.com/big09a/AkakaHawnConflictRecuse.html
See also my webpage "OHA is a state government agency despite its assertions to the contrary. It must disclose its income, budget, and expenditures. OHA, the new Act 195 state recognized tribe, and any future federally recognized Akaka tribe are government-created agencies and therefore must all comply with the 15th and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution." at
https://www.angelfire.com/big09/OHAstateagency.html
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http://hawaiiindependent.net/story/pondering-independence
Hawaii Independent [secessionist blog], October 3, 2015
Pondering independence
by Jon Osorio [Professor of Hawaiian Studies, University of Hawaii, Manoa]
The US Department of the Interior's announcement of procedures to establish a formal government-to-government relationship with the Hawaiian community begins with several obvious and anticipated arguments and inferences, and one argument that is patently bizarre.
Interior's 73-page memo takes special pains to document its reasons for treating the "Hawaiian community" as a group that has a special political relationship with the United States, but without really admitting what makes us special in the first place. According to the DOI, Congress has acknowledged a relationship with Native Hawaiians "analogous to, but separate from programs and services enacted for Native Americans." Congress has further claimed that it "does not extend services to Native Hawaiians because of their race, but because of their unique status as the indigenous peoples of a once sovereign nation as to whom the United States has established a trust relationship."
This argument was predictable, since one group opposing a federally recognized Hawaiian government is the American neo-cons, who have challenged the constitutionality of Hawaiian programs in federal courts. These challenges have been the personal boogie man such Hawaiian agencies as the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Department of Hawaiian Homelands, even Kamehameha Schools. One OHA trustee rather famously argued on a televised panel in 2005 that within five years all of these programs would be gone unless Congress passed legislation authorizing a federally recognized Hawaiian government.
But opposition to federal recognition also comes from Hawaiian independence organizations that have grown over the past decade to occupy the visual and vocal center of the sovereignty movement in Hawai'i. In the summer of 2014, when the DOI conducted its "Advanced Notice of Proposed Rule-Making (ANPRM)" listening sessions, several thousand people in Hawai'i and the United States attended, with most of the testimony opposing DOI participation. The argument, quite clearly stated, was that Hawai'i had never been legally annexed, and had therefore been subjected to prolonged occupation by US government and military forces. Hundreds of people testified that Hawai'i should have its independence from the US restored, and that the DOI should not interfere with efforts to regain independence.
Which is what makes the DOI's current claim that the testimony was overwhelmingly in favor of their rule-making process so astonishing. But even more bizarre is the rationale the Department offers for this conclusion. It is worth quoting:
As expressly stated in the ANPRM, comments about altering the fundamental nature of the political and trust relationship that Congress has established between the United States and the Native Hawaiian community were outside the ANPRM's scope and therefore did not inform development of the proposed rule. (DOI, 24)
Here, Interior very clumsily sidesteps the fact that the reason for opposing federal recognition, declared by hundreds of testifiers, is that United States control of the Hawaiian Islands is illegal. Even if it disagrees with the rationale for the testimony, it is impossible to understand how the Department of the Interior could dismiss such a clear voice of opposition. It could perhaps say that it was not swayed by the testimony, but to insist that it should not be counted suggests a level of federal arrogance that will only invite ridicule.
Hawai'i does indeed have a unique relationship with the United States, as the only once-internationally-recognized state possessing treaties with many nations that became subject to a foreign seizure without cause or relief. We don't fit into the American republic's neat little rationales for seizing Indian lands and subjecting them to American laws. And we also don't fit the profile of primitive and vulnerable clusters of people needing the guidance of European laws and religion that other colonial powers used as a justification for turning other Pacific Islands into "protectorates" and colonies.
We are special. We are the sinister reminder that one of the most blatant thefts of a country's legal and recognized sovereignty in the last two centuries has been carried out by the nation that trumpets the loudest about its support of democracy and self-determination. But when the people of our nation came forth recently to speak the truth of this theft, our voices did not register with the Department of the Interior because our complaint is not handled by their department.
The DOI does however have a very significant role in designing a federal accommodation for a Hawaiian government that several state and private agencies have been working through the Kana'ioluwalu enrollment and Na'i Aupuni to create. State legislation in the form of Act 195 (2012) recognized the Kanaka Maoli as the native people of Hawai'i, and called for a process to create a governing entity that could be recognized by the US government. Under this law, the Office of Hawaiian Affairs was required to fund the enrollment and the execution of the convention. According to various sources, including the Grassroots Institute and the Hawaii Independent, OHA has spent more than 4 million dollars on the enrollment, and has committed 2.8 million dollars for the election of delegates and the conducting of the eventual convention.
So what will the DOI rulemaking permit an agency like Kana'ioluwalu and its mutant sister Na'I Aupuni to create? As it turns out, not much. Beyond its insistence that the form and formation of the reorganized government must be a Native initiative, the DOI rules make it very clear that the result will be a federally recognized government in which the participants -- one cannot call them citizens -- must be Hawaiian and must include strong participation from those Hawaiians who qualify for Hawaiian Homelands. Discarding the Independents' argument that the Kingdom of Hawai'i was a multi-ethnic nation-state that did not discriminate on the basis of race might be necessary to the DOI's struggle to fit the Hawaiian nation into the model of Indian tribes, but only the most jaded individuals will fail to be discomfited by such hypocrisy.
This scam would be less easy to pull off if Hawaiians had not been lulled into believing Kana'ioluwalu's and Na'i Aupuni's endless claims that participation in the Hawaiian roll could produce any future nation that we really wanted, including independence from the United States. But in the wake of the DOI announcement, one thing is clear. If the DOI and the Native Hawaiian Convention join together, we will see the emergence of a governing entity whose lands and resources will have to come entirely from the State of Hawai'i
Section 50.44(f) makes clear that reestablishment of the formal government-to-government relationship will not affect title, jurisdiction, or status of Federal lands and property in Hawaii. This provision does not affect lands owned by the State of Hawaii or provisions of State law. See, e.g., Haw. Rev. Stat. 6K-9 ("[T]he resources and waters of Kahoolawe shall be held in trust as part of the public land trust; provided that the State shall transfer management and control of the island and its waters to the sovereign native Hawaiian entity upon its recognition by the United States and the State of Hawaii.") (DOI, 48)
Na'i Aupuni's website does state that "Na'i Aupuni has no relationship with the Department of the Interior and any rules it may adopt will not limit the delegates' political options at the 'Aha." Given that, Na'i Aupuni should go farther than this statement, and categorically reject the DOI rules. And in any case the DOI leaves the option of seeking federal recognition through its rules up to whatever governing entity is created:
Moreover, if a Native Hawaiian government reorganizes, it will be for that government to decide whether to seek to reestablish a formal government-to-government relationship with the United States. The process established by this rule would be optional, and Federal action would occur only upon an express formal request from the newly reorganized Native Hawaiian government. (DOI, 39)
Perhaps the Na'i Aupuni conveners have already realized that options for the new government are now fairly clear with the DOI announcement. If that government is designed to require federal recognition, then the cards are stacked against achieving very much in the way of resources from the US because the DOI has explicitly stated that the Hawaiian "tribe" is not entitled to the same benefits and resources that are available to American Indians. (DOI, 36)
Despite Na'i Aupuni's assurances that the creation of an independent government is on the table for this convention, I suspect that the conveners and many of the some 30,000 individuals who actually signed the Kana'ioluwalu roll were probably just looking for some federal protection of existing Native Hawaiian programs and entitlements from any new lawsuits. And a close look at the DOI rules reveals that such protection is actually the only thing that federal recognition offers, though perhaps some enrollees are hoping that this new government will be able to wrest new resources from the Feds, and a better ceded lands arrangement with the State.
One thing is clear. A Native Hawaiian government that would assume control of all OHA resources and responsibilities would at least be free of legislation like Act 195, which requires OHA to pay, both financially and politically, for the roll and for the convention. Even I have to admit that this would be an improvement. But 6.8 million dollars is an expensive quick fix, and one proving to be tremendously divisive in our community.
The irony that a re-organized government was supposed to establish a unity in the Hawaiian community should not be lost on us. In fact, this process has been divisive from the beginning, in large part because of the legislative origins and wording of Act 195, which mandated explicitly that the goal of this process is to create an entity that can be granted federal recognition. Hawaiians seeking independence were never going to consent to such a government, and what is proving even more divisive now is Na'i Aupuni's declaration of independence from Act 195, and its assurances that independence is a possibility. As some independence activists suddenly enroll to run as candidates for the convention, alienating those of us who stand firm against it, one cannot help wondering whether the Fed Rec enrollees are starting to feel similarly betrayed.
It is unlikely that this election of delegates and the resulting convention can be halted. The neo-con Grassroots Institute lawsuit will surely fail, as it deserves to. What will be interesting is whether the convention will understand how limited its gains will be through federal recognition, and how difficult it will be to break for independence. Perhaps the conveners have anticipated and planned how to address the deep divisions among the delegates likely to appear. But if the convention were to create a government independent from the United States, I have to wonder how will it sell that to the nearly one million residents in the Hawaiian islands who are not Hawaiians, and have not been able to participate in any of this.
------------------
** Ken Conklin's online comment to Osorio's essay:
One small correction of fact to Professor Osorio's otherwise well-written essay: Act 195 is a statute law from the 2011 legislature, not from 2012.
I offer two rays of hope:
(1) The hearing before federal judge Seabright on October 20 regarding a motion for TRO (temporary restraining order) to block the Na'i Olowalu election just might succeed, despite Professor Osorio's pessimism. Na'i Aupuni, and the Kana'iolowalu racial registry, are wholly-owned subsidiaries of OHA, which is a State agency. Therefore the Rice v. Cayetano decision (all registered voters regardless of race are entitled to vote in OHA elections) and the Arakaki decision (all registered voters regardless of race are entitled to run as candidates for OHA) apply to the Na'i Aupuni election, whose racial exclusivity for both voters and candidates makes it doubly illegal.
(2) Here's a mo'olelo -- a tidbit of history which, in the tradition of Hawaiian storytelling, carries kaona providing an interesting way of understanding the present and future of the relationship between the Na'i Aupuni election and resulting Constitutional Convention, on one hand, and the Department of Interior rulemaking process on the other hand.
Quoting from that paragon of authoritative reliability, Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barog
"[The town named] Barog was settled in the early 20th century during the building of the narrow gauge Kalka-Shimla Railway. It is named after Colonel Barog, an engineer involved in building the railway track in 1903. Currently many residents have their long stays in their houses and flats in Barog. Mostly they are Sikhs from Punjab. Barog, the engineer, was responsible for designing a tunnel near the railway station. He commenced digging the tunnel from both sides of the mountain, which is quite common as it speeds up construction. However, he made mistakes in his calculation and while constructing the tunnel, it was found that the two ends of the tunnel did not meet.[1] Barog was fined an amount of 1 Rupee by the British government. Unable to withstand the humiliation, Barog committed suicide and was buried near the incomplete tunnel. The area came to be known as Barog after him.[2] Later it was constructed under Chief Engineer H.S. Harrington's supervision, guided by a local sage, Bhalku,[3] from July 1900 to September 1903, at a cost of 840,000 rupees. This tunnel is the longest of the 103 operational tunnels on the route of the Shimla-Kalka Railway, which is 1143.61m long. Barog station is immediately after the tunnel. Barog tunnel is the straightest tunnel in the World."
Let's have a contest to choose which name should be given to the Barog monument to be constructed at UH to commemorate the mismatch between Hawaii and DOI when they fail to connect before Obama fades into history on January 20, 2017 and is replaced by a Republican President who will issue an Executive Order to cancel the special rule now under construction. Shall we call it Danner? Or perhaps Dorton? Kia'aina? Apoliona? So many more come to mind. Perhaps an obelisk with all their names would be good -- one with a horizontal rod on top for the birds to perch upon while delivering their blessings to the names inscribed below.
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http://www.staradvertiser.com/editorialspremium/onpoliticspremium/20151002_theres_nothing_certain_about_hawaiian_sovereignty.html?id=330503451
Honolulu Star-Advertiser, Sunday October 4, 2015
There's nothing certain about Hawaiian sovereignty
By Richard Borreca [regular columnist]
While immediately hailed as a breakthrough in negotiations between the federal government and the Native Hawaiian community, a careful reading of the proposed Department of Interior agreement is also opening a lot of questions.
The proposed rules issued last week by the Department of Interior would permit Native Hawaiians to structure a single, separate government that would then conduct negotiations with the United States.
Getting to that specific point is likely to be an exceedingly complex process.
Already the proposed rules have to go through a 90-day comment period and then the final rules would be adopted in Washington.
Here in Hawaii, a multi-step process is in place to allow Native Hawaiians to vote first for delegates to a state convention to come up with a proposed governmental structure, a new Hawaiian government.
Then the Native Hawaiian people would vote for or against that proposed government.
The catch is that the federal government already is proposing how that second round of voting would take place.
For instance, the rules, powers, holdings and those served by the existing Hawaiian Home Commission Act (HHCA) could not be touched. The new Hawaiian government, the federal government said, cannot "diminish any right, protection, or benefit granted to Native Hawaiians by the HHCA. The HHCA would be preserved regardless of whether a Native Hawaiian government is reorganized, regardless of whether it submits a request to the Secretary, and regardless of whether any such request is granted."
So a new Hawaiian government will not be snagging any valuable Hawaiian Home Land acreage.
If a new government is formed, however, one thing it would get is Kahoolawe. According to state law and noted in the proposal federal law, there is a line explaining that when the federal government returned jurisdiction of the former military target island to state control, it would eventually belong to a "sovereign Native Hawaiian entity."
Former U.S. Rep. Colleen Hanabusa, a strong supporter of federal recognition, says the Interior Department proposal is complicated and likely to need extensive review.
"This thing is still fresh -- you are going to have to read it four or five times and then you will find more questions," Hanabusa said in an interview. "There are major implications."
For instance, Hanabusa said, the federal proposal sets out two classes of Native Hawaiian voters who would be empowered to ratify a proposed national government. One class would be all Native Hawaiian voters and a second group would be Native Hawaiians who are Hawaiian Homes beneficiaries, that is, those who are at least 50 percent Hawaiian.
The federal government says there must be at least 50,000 yes votes among the Native Hawaiian voters and at least 15,000 from the 50 percent Hawaiian group.
The federal government says this is to ensure broad-based community support.
"Although they are saying this is going to be one separate Native Hawaiian entity, the vote is going to be by two separate voting groups. And the beneficiary group (the 50 percent group) also has veto power over the entire vote," Hanabusa said.
Because the voting is being restricted to Native Hawaiians, the conservative Grassroot Institute of Hawaii has filed suit in federal court; a request for a preliminary injunction is scheduled to be heard this month.
"OHA and the Native Hawaiian Roll Commission have used state authority and public funds for the upcoming race-based delegate election and planned constitutional convention to potentially establish a race-based government," charges Keli'i Akina, chairman and CEO of the Grassroot Institute and one of the lawsuit plaintiffs.
Both organizers of the election and the Department of Interior deny that the plans for a Native Hawaiian government would be race-based.
What is not in disagreement is the amount of uncertainty still facing the construction of a Native Hawaiian government.
Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays.
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http://www.hawaiifreepress.com/ArticlesMain/tabid/56/ID/16057/Memo-Outlines-Reasons-The-Akaka-Tribe-Might-be-Very-Disappointed-with-Interior-Department.aspx
Hawaii Free Press, Monday October 5, 2015
Memo Outlines Reasons The Akaka Tribe Might be Very Disappointed with Interior Department
By Andrew Walden
From: Fisher, Nina (Rep Mark Takai's Honolulu office manager, formerly Hanabusa office manager)
Date: Tue, Sep 29, 2015 at 10:05 AM
Subject: FW: Memo on DOI Proposed Rules Re: Native Hawaiian Governing Entity
Sent: Tuesday, September 29, 2015 3:35 PM
Subject: Memo on DOI Proposed Rules Re: Native Hawaiian Governing Entity
Below and attached you find a memorandum on the Department of Interior's proposed rules on the Reestablishment of a government-to-government relationship with a Native Hawaiian governing entity. The memo discusses what the DOI is proposing in regards to a reestablishment; but it does not spell out DOI's responses to submitted comments on the Advanced Rulemaking Notice, nor does it go into detail of the history of the U.S. relationship with the Native Hawaiian community. For more information on the comment responses and history, please refer to the Federal Register copy of the rule.
MEMORANDUM
DT: 9/29/2015
RE: Summary of DOI Proposed Rule re: Native Hawaiian Governing Entity
PURPOSE OF MEMO:
To provide background on a proposed rule released by the Department of Interior (DOI) on September 29, 2015 that establishes an administrative procedure and criteria for the U.S. to reestablish a formal government-to-government relationship with a Native Hawaiian Governing Entity.
BACKGROUND:
On September 29, 2015, the DOI released a proposed rule that creates an administrative procedure and criteria that the Secretary of the Interior would apply if the Native Hawaiian community forms a unified government that then seeks a formal government-to-government relationship with the United States. Under the new proposal, the Native Hawaiian community – not the Federal government—would decide whether to reorganize a Native Hawaiian government, what form that government would take, and whether it would seek a government-to-government relationship.
The proposed rule accomplishes four key things. First, it lays out the legal arguments for Native Hawaiian (NH) community's right to a government-to-government relationship under existing law. Second, it outlines requirements a NH entity must meet before applying for a government-to-government relationship with the U.S. Third, it differentiates rights of a Native Hawaiian governing entity and its members from those of federal recognized tribes. Fourth, the proposed rule reiterates that the reestablishment of a government-to-government relationship will not affect existing federal and state laws and rights.
1. The Native Hawaiian community has existing rights to a Government-to-Government Relationship.
The proposed rule sets out the legal argument that Congress has already granted the Native Hawaiian community rights of a distinct indigenous people through numerous laws, policies, and treaties enacted before and after the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy. Because the acknowledgment of the Native Hawaiian people's unique standing exists in law, the Administration has the power to establish an administrative procedure and criteria for reestablishing a government to government relationship. This proposed rule sets out a draft of administrative rules, and clarifies recognition of a NH governing entity will be different than normal proceedings for American Indian tribal recognition.
2. A Native Hawaiian Governing Entity must meet certain requirements to gain a Government-to-Government Relationship.
The proposed rule sets out certain requirements for a Native Hawaiian governing entity to meet before it may be eligible for a government-to-government relationship with the U.S. These requirements include:
In regards to membership, the NH government must (a) include Hawaiian Homes Commission Act (HHCA)-eligible NHs, (b) exclude Non-NHs, and (c) establish membership as voluntary; and may include NHs who are not HHCA-eligible NHs, or some defined subset of that group that is not contrary to Federal law. This means that NHs with less than 50% NH ancestry, the current threshold for HHCA-eligibility, can be excluded from membership to the NH government.
In regards to members' rights, a NH government must include and maintain the unique status and separate rights of HHCA-eligible Native Hawaiians.
A NH government must have a governing body that is elected periodically and have a separation of legislative and judiciary bodies.
DOI will only accept the results of a referendum affirming a NH government and governing document if (a) at least 50,000 NHs vote, of which at least 15,000 HHCA-eligible NHs vote, and (b) at least 30,000 NHs vote in favor of the governing entity, of which at least 9,000 HHCA-eligible NHs vote in favor. The main take-away from this requirement is that ratification of a referendum establishing a NH government and governing document must have separate vote tallies for HHCA-eligible NH voters and all other NH voters.
A governing document must also protect and preserve the liberties, rights, and privileges of all persons affected by the NH government's exercise of government powers in accordance with the Indian Civil Rights Act.
3. A Native Hawaiian Governing Entity will not have same rights and benefits as federally recognized tribes, unless an Act of Congress expressly provides otherwise.
The proposed rule maintains the status quo of programs and benefits to NHs and Tribes. If a government-to-government relationship is established, NHs will not automatically gain access to rights and benefits currently afforded to only Indian tribes and their members. Native Hawaiians will only have rights to programs and benefits currently specified in the law as being for, or including NHs. Eligibility for federal Indian programs, services, and benefits may only be extended to NHs through an act of Congress.
4. In general, reestablishment of a government-to-government relationship will not affect existing federal and state laws and rights.
First, under current definitions in the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, a NH governing entity could not qualify for the gaming rights set out by IGRA. Second, the reestablishment of a government-to-government relationship will not affect title, jurisdiction, or status of Federal lands and property in Hawaii with exception of Kahoolawe, which will be transferred to a NH government as directed by law. Third, although the proposed rule does not explicitly discuss this, given the assumption that NH eligibility would only be for those benefits already set out in law, a NH government would not be eligible for trust or "reservation" lands. The proposed rule does not, however, discuss or allude to whether a NH governing entity has the right to sovereign immunity.
Comment Period
The DOI is allowing for public comments until 90 days after October 1st. DOI explicitly asked for comments on certain topics, namely:
NH governing entity's eligibility under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act;
How many affirmative votes are needed for a governing document, in order for the U.S. to recognize a NH governing entity;
Who is eligible for membership;
Whether a NH government would have to meet the same requirements of Indian tribes to be federally recognized ("Part 83"); and
Whether references to "tribes" and "Indians" would encompass the NH governing entity and its members.
Two teleconferences with the public will be held on October 26th and November 7th. The DOI will also talk with select groups and organizations via closed teleconferences on October 27th and November 4th.
There is no indication of when the Administration will finalize the rules.
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http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/30194206/hawaiian-con-con-controversy
Hawaii News Now [3 TV stations],
Posted: Oct 05, 2015 11:10 PM HST; Updated: Oct 06, 2015 5:33 AM HST
Critics: Hawaiian constitutional convention election process is flawed
HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) --
With the vote to elect delegates for a Hawaiian constitutional convention just weeks away, critics say the way the election is being handled is flawed.
The nonprofit Na'i Aupuni, which is organizing the election, said the list of eligible voters comes from the Native Hawaiian Roll Commission, which has been registering Hawaiians since 2011. It says the vote is an important first step in helping to shape the future of native Hawaiian self-determination.
"This is really an important election for native Hawaiians. We haven't had a government since the overthrow. This is a first opportunity for native Hawaiians ... to vote for their leaders so they could come together and compare their ideas and test them," said William Meheula, attorney for Na'i Aupuni.
But Kelii Akina, whose Grassroot Institute of Hawaii is suing to stop the election, said the process lacks transparency. His group previously sued to get the names of potential voters and when it did get those names, it said it found serious problems. "Number one, there are names of individuals who did not authorize for their names to be on the list," he said. "Number two, there are people who are deceased on the list. Number three, there are minors on the list."
But Meheula said the native Hawaiian Roll Commission in recent months has weeded out nearly 25,000 names, including names of deceased people and names of people who's mailing or email addresses couldn't be verified. "Our process isn't perfect and I wished that's not the case but there's no indication that there are large numbers of that," he said.
The constitutional convention will cost about $2.6 million. The election itself will cost about $150,000 and will be conducted by Washington, D.C.-based contractor Elections America. Delegates will meet for about four months to craft a statement on what, if any, form of sovereign status Hawaiians should pursue.
Akina is challenging the entire process since all of the funding comes from a grant from the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. Under the landmark 2000 Rice vs. Cayetano U.S. Supreme Court case, Akina said the state cannot conduct race-based elections. "In essence a tiny group of non representative leaders are going to make decision that affect land, power and financial resources of everyone in the state of Hawaii," he said.
But Meheula said it's a private election that state agencies have no say in what they do. "We're not performing a state function because this isn't an election for a state office. The other thing is the Office of Hawaiian Affairs has no control over what we do," he said.
The legal challenge to the election will be heard in Federal Court on Oct. 20 by U.S. District Judge Michael Seabright.
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http://www.civilbeat.com/2015/10/he-ʻaha-keia-is-this-a-convention/
Honolulu Civil Beat, October 6, 2015
He 'Aha Keia? Is This a Convention?
Delegate candidates for a Native Hawaiian Constitutional Convention do not reflect the true makeup of the Native Hawaiian population.
By Randall Akee
On Sept. 30, 2015, the candidates for delegates for the aha (Native Hawaiian Constitutional Convention) organized by the group, Nai Aupuni, were announced. The biographies and backgrounds for the candidates were made public on the Nai Aupuni website.
From this list of candidates, 40 delegates will be selected to "come together to decide whether or not to create a document or constitution for a nation and its governance." The purpose of these efforts are to create a Native Hawaiian constitution and government that could eventually seek federal recognition by the U.S. federal government via the executive branch.
There are many reasons to be concerned with this entire aha process, which really is just an outgrowth of failed attempts at federal recognition via the congressional path, also known as the Akaka Bill.
First, there was the fraught process of creating a Native Hawaiian Roll which began as an Office of Hawaiian Affairs initiative called "Kanaiolowalu." The state-appointed Hawaiian Roll Commission's objective was to sign up 200,000 Hawaiians to participate in the path to self-governance.
A Native Hawaiian Roll Commission appointed by the governor of Hawaii is an anachronism. The Bureau of Indian Affairs initiated similar rolls for American Indians in the 1800s.
The Native Hawaiian Roll only garnered the interest of some 40,000 people. The commission then approached the state to move names from previously collected lists of Native Hawaiians. To that end, some 71,000 names were moved from the initiatives "Kau Inoa" and "Operation Ohana" to the Native Hawaiian Rolls.
Instead of focusing on these other well-known problems, I shed some light on the representativeness of the candidate pool for the aha.
A constitution is intended to embody the values, priorities and concerns of the population that it governs. Therefore, it is quite useful to take a look at the individuals who are interested in undertaking this endeavor for Native Hawaiians.
Fair questions would be: Do they represent the average Native Hawaiian? Who should be building the foundations of a Native Hawaiian government? Do they have the same struggles, concerns and values that are prevalent in the various Native Hawaiian communities?
Examining the data provided from the candidates themselves, the answer appears to be a resounding no.
On average, the candidates represent a distinct and relatively small portion of the Native Hawaiian population. There are many attorneys, current and former OHA employees (or trustees themselves), and many graduates of private high schools -- Kamehameha in particular accounts for over 25 percent of all individuals in the candidate pool.
Additionally, 58 percent of the candidates are male, which is surprising since there tends to be slightly more women on average in the Native Hawaiian community, especially at older ages. The average age of the candidate pool is about 53, and less than 10 percent of the candidate pool is younger than 30.
Even more unbalanced is the proportion of candidates with a college degree or higher. Approximately 60 percent have a college degree or more while the average for Native Hawaiians in Hawaii is less than 15 percent.
Large portions of the Native Hawaiian community have decided not to participate. The process either attracts a certain type of individual or it creates significant obstacles that make it impossible for others to participate.
One example of such an obstacle might be the requirement that the delegates must participate in the aha for at least 40 days (during work weeks). This requirement may not be feasible for a large group of Native Hawaiians who work multiple jobs, are in school, or do not have the leave time necessary to participate.
There is something fundamentally wrong with a process that attracts a small minority of the population. Having a skewed candidate pool is a problem if the intention was to represent the will of all Native Hawaiians in this aha process. It may not be a problem, however, if the intention is to create a constitution and a government for the benefit of a select few.
Looking at the Data
I collected data from the individual candidate profiles that are all publicly available online.
In the table below, I provide information on the regions that the individual candidates have indicated that they will represent. The last column indicates the percent of Native Hawaiians in each region, according to the 2010 U.S. Census.
Fifty-five percent of the candidates intend to represent Oahu; however, only 34 percent of the total population of Native Hawaiians (including the continental United States) reside on Oahu.
Hawaii Island has approximately 14 percent of all candidates and 10 percent of all Native Hawaiians reside there. The number of candidates intending to represent Kauai, Maui and Molokai are more closely aligned with the actual percentages of Hawaiians residing on each of those islands.
Finally, while only 20 percent of the candidates are from outside Hawaii, approximately 45 percent of Native Hawaiians reside outside of Hawaii . This suggests that this population is not well-represented by the candidate pool.
As noted earlier, the average age of candidates is approximately 53. In Figure 1 below I provide a distribution of ages for the candidates. Less than 10 percent of the candidates are younger than 30. Almost one-third of the candidates are older than 60 (30 percent) and more than half of the candidates are older than 50.
The fact that such a large proportion of the younger Native Hawaiians are not participating in this process is a problem. While there is value to having the kupuna and makua generations included in this process, a more balanced distribution of participants by ages is absolutely crucial.
I also compared the educational attainment as reported by candidates in their profiles and these percentages (by highest level of education) to that of the Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander population estimates provided by the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey for 2013 five-year estimates.
None of the Nai Aupuni candidates have less than a high school diploma while about 14 percent of NHOPI adults 25 years old or older have no high school diploma in the 2013 data.
About 9 percent of the Nai Aupuni candidates have a high school diploma or GED or home schooling is their highest level of education. For the NHOPI group, this proportion is about 36 percent.
About a quarter of the Nai Aupuni candidates have some college background or experience, whereas about 35 percent of NHOPI have some college education. Overall, the data indicates that the candidates for Nai Aupuni are not well represented in these lower education categories.
On the other hand, the Nai Aupuni candidates tend to be over-represented in the college and graduate degree categories. On average, just 15 percent of all NHOPI have a college degree or more in the 2013 data. However, approximately 60 percent of the Na'i Aupuni candidates have a college degree or more. In fact, 13 percent have a law degree of some type and almost 20 percent have a master's degree.
Finally, approximately 6 percent of the candidates hold a doctorate degree of some type.
The candidates for Nai Aupuni are drawn heavily from the upper end of the educational distribution and are not representative of the Native Hawaiian population in general.
It is also possible to identify where individuals graduated from high school in this data, as many mention it in their personal statements.
In Table 3 below, we see that over one-fourth of the candidates are graduates of the Kamehameha Schools. This is larger than the proportion of Kamehameha graduates in the Native Hawaiian population at large.
Overall, if other private school graduates are included, over 30 percent of the candidates for Nai Aupuni are from private high schools in Hawaii. However, only about 16 percent of Native Hawaiians attend private schools in Hawaii, according to U.S. Census data.
Finally, I compared candidates' employment and occupation information as contained in their online profiles. There are 32 individuals who are currently employed or previously employed by OHA, Kanaiolowalu, the state Legislature, Department of Hawaiian Homelands, or U.S. senators or representatives or non-profits working on behalf of U.S. federal recognition. These individuals comprise 15 percent of the candidate pool.
A Top-Down Approach
The data provided above paints an interesting picture of the candidate pool for the aha. The candidates are drawn from very specific parts of the Native Hawaiian community that are quite well-educated, male, and middle-aged or older.
A large portion of the candidate pool is private-school educated and is well-connected to the existing agencies that are spearheading the federal recognition process. Fewer individuals are drawn from the younger cohorts of Native Hawaiians or those with lower educational attainment.
There are entire segments of the Native Hawaiian population that do not appear in the candidate pool. For instance, there are very few (if any) homeless participants from my reading of the candidate descriptions.
I also do not find any fishermen or fisherwomen in the list. While there are a few farmers, they number less than a handful. I don't find a single musician or entertainer in the list. Finally, there is a lack of cultural practitioners in the candidate list.
I note that there is one individual who has graduated to the level of olapa, another candidate has graduated as a laau lapaau practioner (level wasn't specified in application), another is a well-known expert in loko ia and another has extensive experience on the Hawaiian Burial council. Beyond these four individuals it does not appear that there are other cultural practitioners or experts in the list of candidates.
It must be made clear that I have no problem with the individual candidates themselves. Many of them have provided heartfelt statements of their desire to work for the benefit of Native Hawaiians. I believe many of them.
I question, however, the Nai Aupuni and Kanaiolowalu processes. These state-led and funded processes either discouraged (purposely or not) participation by the majority of Native Hawaiians or only encouraged participation by a select few.
In either case, the process is fatally flawed. One cannot build a house on a foundation of sand. This biased process does not represent Native Hawaiians as they exist in Hawaii (and the continental United States).
What should be done? How about a process that is explicitly inclusive of all Native Hawaiians to start? How about a process that provides educational materials that are accessible and available to Native Hawaiians from all walks of life?
The process of organizing a government needs to come from the bottom up, not from the top down. Elites should not run this show. This should be inclusive for all. First, we need to know what the priorities are for Native Hawaiians. We have to reach a consensus on priorities, values and desires for the future and the nation.
It is not clear why anyone would attempt to create a constitution for a Native Hawaiian government without knowledge of these priorities, values and desires. A constitution enshrines the soul of a nation in a single document. How can the proposed aha ensure that there will be an inclusive outcome when candidates are drawn from just a sliver of the Native Hawaiian population?
How can this process pretend to represent the desires of all Hawaiians? If there is no concern or outrage by those in charge of the aha, then it is clear that this was not really for the rest of us in the first place but, instead, for just a few.
About the Author
Dr. Randall Quinones Akee is an assistant professor in the Departments of Public Policy and American Indian Studies at UCLA. Before earning his doctorate at Harvard University he worked for several years for the State of Hawaii Office of Hawaiian Affairs Economic Development Division. He is also a graduate of the Kamehameha Schools. He is a research fellow at the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development.
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Midweek O'ahu, Vol. 32 No 13, October 7, 2015, page 8
** Midweek no longer stores most columnist articles on its website.
Full Sovereignty: It's Just A Daydream
by Bob Jones [regular columnist]
My read is that the Hawaiian sovereignty movement has lost some support because of the Mauna Kea telescope protest and a sense that the "protectors" have taken native rights claims too far afield of the poverty, education and incarceration issues. A couple of decades ago, activists Haunani-Kay Trask, Hayden Burgess and Keanu Sai were at the forefront of getting federal recognition and more money, and the idea of a sovereign kingdom was outrageous daydreaming.
Today, there's definitely more weight being tossed on the sovereignty side, which is probably too bad for moderate Native Hawaiians because that's the side that has no chance of going beyond daydreaming.
The conservative Heritage Foundation summed it up for sovereignty opponents:
"This would balkanize Hawaii, dividing the islands into separate racial and ethnic enclaves. It would also undo the political bargain through which Hawaii secured its admission into the Union -- when Native Hawaiians themselves voted for statehood, thus voluntarily and democratically relinquishing any residual sovereignty to the United States.
Even the sympathetic former Gov. Lingle backed off because, she said, that would create immunity from some of our laws.
That's no small issue. "Civil Beat" columnist Ian Lind wrote, "It seems like everywhere you turn, there's another cult-like group formed around a charismatic central figure claiming sovereign rights and asserting that they and their followers are above the laws that apply to the rest of us."
He didn't name names, but that certainly points at look-at-me activists such as Walter Ritte, Bumpy Kanahele, "King" Edmund Kelii Silva Jr., and "Queen" Mahealani Kahau.
Political science professor Noel Kent has written that "during the late 1980s and early 1990s sovereignty was transformed from an outlandish idea propagated by marginal groups into a legitimate political position supported by a majority of native Hawaiians."
I'd take issue with his statistics. The most dependable I've come across say that only 34 percent of Native Hawaiians favor sovereignty.
Department of Interior's recent initiative would allow Hawaiians to join the more than 500 native nations already in existence and with some kind of government-to-government relationship.
But Ritte and others say, "We are not Indians." They say that resolution violated international law and just because the U.S. has not admitted to a military occupation does not mean that Hawaii is not under one.
Among law scholars, that's gauged to be a non-starter. Congress has firmly signaled that the U.S. does not yield to international bodies on matters of national sovereignty.
And the whole movement tends to inflame other ethnic groups here. Longtime sovereignty opponent Kenneth Conklin expressed it this way: "Hawaiian sovereignty activists, whether they support tribal status or independent nation status, believe that ethnic Hawaiians are entitled to racial supremacy in Hawaii on the theory of indigenous rights.
"A third alternative of unity, equality, and aloha for all gets almost no media attention, but is by far the most popular with all ethnic groups."
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http://www.civilbeat.com/2015/10/ian-lind-native-hawaiian-election-throws-out-all-the-rules/
Honolulu Civil Beat, October 7, 2015
Native Hawaiian Election Throws Out All the Rules
None of the customary election laws apply to the high-stakes selection of delegates to a constitutional convention regarding a new government.
By Ian Lind
Imagine a sudden announcement that all existing laws providing for transparency and accountability would be repealed prior to the next statewide election.
The move would mean that all laws adopted over the past 40 years to limit and control the influence of special interest money on elections would be wiped off the books, along with those ethics laws that have applied to candidates, elected officials and those who seek to influence them.
No more laws regulating campaign spending or elections, no more ethical standards for the winning candidates, and no restrictions on the efforts of lobbyists to sway policies in favor of their special interest clients.
From the point of view of special interests, it would mean a free-for-all where anything goes.
From the public's perspective, on the other hand, it would be a disaster, and I think most people would recognize it as such.
Not likely to happen, you say? At least as far as regular state and local elections go, certainly not.
But it is precisely the case for the current election of Hawaiian delegates who will convene early in 2016 for an eight-week convention, or aha, "to decide whether or not to create a document or constitution for a nation and its governance."
The outcome of the convention process will potentially have a profound impact not only on those of Hawaiian descent, but on all residents of Hawaii.
Unlike regular state and local elections, this election of delegates is being carried out by Nai Aupuni, a private organization set up for this specific purpose, and elected delegates will not be considered government officials. As a result, the laws that regulate election campaigns, ethics and lobbying do not apply.
There are no current indications that special interests have targeted the Hawaiian election or the convention to follow, any more than they have influenced Office of Hawaiian Affairs elections in the past. But as the process begins to take shape and move from theory to reality, and the risks and rewards of competing outcomes become more evident, that's almost certain to change.
So what exactly will be missing from this election process? The short answer: Almost everything we've gotten used to.
Campaign Spending Commission Executive Director Kristin E. Izumi-Nitao confirmed this week that the state's campaign spending law does not apply to the privately operated Hawaiian election.
There will be no limits on contributions to candidates from individual supporters, organizations or corporations.
Nai Aupuni says candidates will eventually have to disclose how much they spent on their campaigns and "the sources of the contributions," but we don't know the specifics of the disclosure requirements. And that information will not be filed or publicly available until the election is already over, so it will not help inform voters as they choose between candidates.
And how about corporations and other special interests that decide to fund candidates? Their actions will not be subject to contribution limits or public disclosure, and the public won't have any clear way to determine whether they are playing a significant role in the process or not.
In regular elections, the law sets out procedures for handling and accounting for money that flows through each campaign. Those will not apply to the Hawaiian election.
Loans to candidates or campaigns? Unregulated. Repayment? Who knows.
State law prohibits anonymous contributions to candidates or campaigns, contributions under false names, contributions by contractors, or from foreign companies or individuals. None of those prohibitions will apply to the election for delegates charged with deciding whether or how to establish a Native Hawaiian government.
And state law prohibits candidates for public office from accepting campaign contributions and then turning around and using the money for personal expenditures. Also not applicable to the Hawaiian election.
A few elected officials, or former candidates who still have active campaign committees, are among those who have filed to run as Hawaiian convention delegates, and Izumi-Nitao says she will be watching to be sure they don't try to use their existing campaign funds to fuel their convention bids.
And then there are the ethics laws, which also don't apply.
Candidates in regular elections are required to file personal financial disclosures that are part of the public record. These disclosures include sources of income, ownership interests in businesses, positions with organizations, real property owned, and outstanding debts, and have to be filed well in advance of elections, but that's another aid to the public that won't be available in the Hawaiian election.
And while the Hawaii Constitution requires delegates to a state constitutional convention to adopt and enforce its own code of ethics, it doesn't apply to the upcoming convention, although delegates could decide to comply nonetheless.
Finally, there's the whole lobbyist law, which requires lobbyists to disclose both their clients -- the organizations or businesses paying for their services -- and their activities, including their spending.
But the law only applies to lobbying the Legislature or, under certain limited circumstances, the state administration. It will not apply to lobbying aimed at influencing delegates who are elected to take part in the aha, or the outcome of the convention process.
Unregulated and undisclosed lobbying, especially without clear and enforceable laws prohibiting conflicts, definitely creates tricky and dangerous terrain, both for delegates and for the public.
It may be that money won't end up being a factor in the election, and those who are elected to serve as delegates to the Hawaiian convention will adhere to the highest standards of ethical conduct even without the whole legal framework we usually rely on.
It's possible, but I wouldn't bet on it. There's just too much at stake to expect everyone to be on their best behavior through the whole process.
About the Author
Ian Lind is an award-winning investigative reporter and columnist who has been blogging daily for 15 years. He has also worked as a newsletter publisher, public interest advocate and lobbyist for Common Cause in Hawaii, peace educator, and legislative staffer. Lind is a lifelong resident of the islands. Read his blog here.
http://www.ilind.net/
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http://new.grassrootinstitute.org/2015/10/dr-akina-discusses-the-proposed-doi-rule-on-hawaii-public-radio/
Dr. Akina Discusses the Proposed DOI Rule on Hawaii Public Radio
by admin | Oct 7, 2015
When the Department of the Interior explored the possibility of helping establish a Native Hawaiian "tribe" last year, Grassroot Institute submitted comments about the problematic nature of their plan. We were joined in opposition with a substantial number of Native Hawaiians who had grave concerns about the federal government's involvement in Native Hawaiian affairs.
A year has passed, and the DOI has returned with a proposed rule that would create a path to recognition for a Native Hawaiian government. As Grassroot President Keli'i Akina explains in this interview with Hawaii Public Radio, the concerns over the Department's proposal remain.
Click here to read the transcript.
http://new.grassrootinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Hawaii-Public-Radio-Transcript-10-6.pdf
Hawaii Public Radio, The Conversation: Tuesday, October 6th 2015
Grassroot Institute of Hawaii Questions DOI Rule
Chris Vandercook: Should the Native Hawaiian Community be treated as a single entity these days? That's how it's described in the Department of Interior's recent proposal for the creation of a Native Hawaiian Government. Does the Department of Hawaiian Homelands have the Authority to make such a proposal? Dr. Keli'i Akina, President and CEO of the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii, raises those questions and others, and he's here with us this morning. Good morning, Keli'i.
Dr. Keli'i Akina: Well, good morning, Chris - always glad to be on Hawaii Public Radio.
Chris: Let's set the stage. What just happened? What's the substance of what just happened in the Department of the Interior?
Keli'i: Basically, the Department of the Interior issued a news release. And just to summarize it very briefly, they're saying that they're willing to issue some rules to acknowledge a Native Hawaiian Government. But it's very important to note – they say they're not going to set up a Native Hawaiian Government. But, if the "Hawaiian Community "- and they use that term - if the Hawaiian Community sets up a government, they'll acknowledge it.
Chris: And right there, that's different from the Akaka Bill which actually made it something that was generated from the Federal side.
Keli'i: That's right, Chris. In fact, what the Department of Interior is saying is really not news. The Federal Government doesn't set up other foreign governments. And in this news release they're actually saying all they're going to do is acknowledge any government that is set up by Hawaiians. But as you point out, this is different from the Akaka Bill. The Akaka Bill was much more aggressive. It said the Federal Government shall set up Hawaiians as a Federally recognized Indian tribe.
Chris: ... and was shot down, for that reason...
Keli'i: It was. In fact, the motions that are being made by the Department of the Interior look like an end run around the Constitution of the United States because the Supreme Court has already weighed in, through a case called Rice v. Cayetano; and the Congress has weighed in by not passing the Akaka Bill in a period of about 15 years. So, we've got the Judicial, we've got the Congressional... and now it looks like the Executive Branch is trying to do something to foster a Native Hawaiian Government.
Chris: Well Keli'i, are you saying that on that basis that it's just not going to happen? Or it should not happen?
Keli'i: Well, you know in the world in which we live it's not a safe thing to say nothing will happen, and all things are impossible. But I can say this: it's clearly not constitutional. We have to understand that we have a government that has established checks and balances and proper roles for the different branches of government. The Executive Branch simply doesn't have the power to recognize foreign nations and so forth. This is something that is for the Congress to do. So, there's something amiss about this. But, there's something deeper – a problem you raised in the question you asked at the beginning.
Chris: Well, Keli'i, when you say 'we' have a government, some people are going to say, "Who's 'we'?" Particularly Hawaiians are going to say, "Wait a minute, you're not talking about me."
Keli'i: Well, individuals do have every right under the First Amendment to protest and reject the government of the United States of America and the Constitution -- they have a Constitutional right to say that they're not part of that --
Chris: Somewhat ironic, yeah.
Keli'i: But the reality is – 'we the people' represents all of us. And most of us together, even part Native Hawaiians and Native Hawaiians have no problem whatsoever being proud of being Hawaiian, and being proud of being American. In fact, a recent effort done at the State level to try to enlist and enroll Native Hawaiians in establishing a government, called the Native Hawaiian Roll Commission, simply fell flat. They started by targeting over half a million Native Hawaiians across the United States. Less than 20% of them were even interested in signing up. And we've exposed the fact that a good number of those had their names put on the list without their permission.
If that's a good poll, we can see clearly that most Native Hawaiians, who are also something else - Chinese, Japanese, Caucasian and so forth - are not interested in establishing a separate government.
Chris: Enough are, Keli'i, that I can hear, some of the things you're saying to me, I can just hear howls of protest in response. There's an awful lot of energy directed at some form of a Native Hawaiian Government. You sound as if you're sort of – rejecting it out of hand. Saying, there is no realistic mechanism for such a thing to be done.
Keli'i: Well, first of all, no. I don't disrespect the right of individuals to protest, or to envision different forms of government. And you are correct; there are individuals who are doing this. What I am pointing out is simply this: the numbers do not show that they represent a majority. There are voices that speak many different messages; for example, opposition to the Thirty Meter Telescope or other protests. But to say just because they are loud voices, just because they are in the media, or just because they make a certain amount of noise that they represent the Native Hawaiian people, would be a huge logical error. And any numerical measurement of the Native Hawaiian people shows that there is no one single consensus.
Chris: Well, you're not saying that you are either obviously. But how would one determine such a thing? Who is a spokesperson, what is the community?
Keli'i: Well, that's a great question. And I'd go back one step before that and ask, is there a spokesperson? Is there a community of Native Hawaiians who can be represented with one voice? And the answer is that we are diverse- as diverse as all the people in Hawaii. A trustee in the Office of Hawaiian Affairs gave me the opportunity to interview him once, and he turned to me in the break and he said, "You know, Keli'i, most of us Hawaiians are mostly something else."
We Native Hawaiians span the spectrum politically. We are Democrats, Republicans, Independents, and Libertarians. We span the spectrum socially, economically, educationally. Part of the problem of what the Department of Interior is proposing is the notion that there's one group that can be put into one governmental administration. I think that anybody who has a drop of Native Hawaiian should be frightened by this.
Imagine this, if you had a drop of Filipino blood, or Dutch blood, or German blood, and the government said, "We're going to establish a federally recognized administration for everybody who has a drop of this blood, and your relationship with the government will be defined through this, and you will be spoken for by leaders of this administration" – we would be up in arms! And we would see that that's not something good and empowering. But that's something that limits us in terms of the Constitution.
Chris: So that's how you're defining the so called 'Government-to-Government Relationship'. What you're seeing is that it just adds another layer of government nonsense to the existing government nonsense.
Keli'i: Well it absolutely does. And it does so based on the premise that anybody with a drop of Hawaiian blood is part of a group. I think that this denies the individual liberties that that Bill of Rights stands for. Hawaiians have been participants in all political parties. Hawaiians have been on both sides of the argument: should there be a restoration of a Native Hawaiian government? But for our Federal Government to take a hand in this is something that takes away the process of democracy.
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http://www.staradvertiser.com/editorialspremium/onpoliticspremium/20151009_abercrombies_good_advice_to_hawaiians_compromise.html?id=331864911
Honolulu Star-Advertiser, October 11, 2015
Abercrombie's good advice to Hawaiians: compromise
By Richard Borreca [regular columnist]
One of Hawaii's longest, loudest and strongest supporters of Native Hawaiian sovereignty, former Gov. Neil Abercrombie, is offering counsel as preparations are made for the next step in the drive to create a new government.
At the request of the U.S. Department of Interior, which is drafting rules to set a path for the federal government to recognize a Native Hawaiian government entity, Abercrombie issued a statement giving his full support and offering counsel.
The 77-year-old Democratic former governor and congressman is now in business for himself as a consultant with a firm called Pacific Strategies.
He urged Native Hawaiians to expand their range and not close out options.
Warning that "the loud voices have their own agendas," Abercrombie advised that "the broad community of Native Hawaiians need to be and must be heard today, if there is to be a Native Hawaii world of tomorrow."
Abercrombie stressed that a Native Hawaiian government will neither form in a vacuum, nor be successful if it "does not take into account existing institutions -- governmental, economic, social and above all constitutional."
Then Abercrombie touched on an issue that caused controversy during his term as Hawaii's governor, the argument made loudly by a small group that the Kingdom of Hawaii still exists.
"Continued verbal sniping, empty rhetoric about Kingdoms and denunciations of those attempting to address political reality will only serve to retard, if not destroy, any possibility of a timely conclusion to this opportunity," Abercrombie says of the chance of Hawaiians to form their own government.
Back in 2012, during a Hawaii island speech reported by West Hawaii Today, Abercrombie expressed his frustration with Native Hawaiian activists protesting construction of the Queen Kaahumanu Highway.
"It's being delayed by what I'm told are Native Hawaiian organizations," he said, then asking rhetorically which organizations. "It's somebody self-designating and getting some standing. That's something we've got to move past."
In an interview last week, Abercrombie, stressing that while he is speaking as a non-Hawaiian, he is also a veteran of 45 years in politics, including 20 in Congress.
"The proposed rules offers the most sensible, practical and reasonable way of addressing what it means to be Native Hawaiian in the 21st century," Abercrombie said.
That will mean that if Hawaiians vote to go into a constitutional convention and draft a proposed constitution for a native government, it has to be discussed and not ignored.
"At this stage Hawaiians can simply not look to someone else to blame. You got to decide: Do you want to keep pulling each other down? If you want to keep tearing yourself to pieces, everyone else is going to stand around on the sidelines saying, 'There they go, tearing themselves to pieces,' and that is going to be the end of it. This is it."
In an interview, Abercrombie said, "My only observation as a non-Hawaiian is: When are you going to put it together? You can't be a victim forever. At some point, you have to get up and take charge of yourself."
If instead, Native Hawaiians are able to work with both state and federal governments to fashion a government that can represent Native Hawaiian interests, "I think everyone will stand up and cheer," Abercrombie said.
While warning Native Hawaiians that the entire process is political, meaning there will be both winners and losers, Abercrombie gives some good advice, saying that the ultimate victors will be those who are most successful in compromising.
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http://www.ilind.net/2015/10/12/challenge-to-native-hawaiian-convention-vote-heads-to-federal-court-next-week/
Ian Lind blog, October 12, 2015
Challenge to Native Hawaiian convention vote heads to federal court next week
A week from Tuesday, on the morning of October 20, lawyers representing opponents of the scheduled election to select delegates to a Native Hawaiian political convention will be in federal court in Honolulu seeking a preliminary injunction to block the election from moving forward. Plaintiffs in the lawsuit, led by Keli'i Akina, president and CEO of the conservative Grassroot Foundation, argue that the Hawaiian-only election violates several provisions of the U.S. Constitution by preventing non-Hawaiian from voting, and allegedly limiting eligible voters to those who agree with statements favoring Hawaiian sovereignty.
In part, the lawsuit tracks earlier cases which struck down Hawaiian-only voting for trustees of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. But it goes further, arguing that the potential outcomes of the Hawaiian convention will have major repercussions for all Hawaii residents, and that therefore all residents should be eligible to vote.
For example, representatives of Na'i Aupuni have stated, among other things, that the convention will be about "possible nationhood" for Native Hawaiians, that the purpose of the convention is to draft "governance documents," and even that convention delegates might take any plans they developed directly to the United Nations.
In these circumstances, it is manifestly obvious that non-Native Hawaiian citizens of the State have real and weighty interests in the outcome of this issue that has the potential for altering the way in which their State is governed. Plaintiffs' exclusion from participation in the registration/election/convention process under Act 195 will deny them the opportunity to participate fully in the controversy over Native Hawaiian sovereignty. Because this is so, that exclusion is prohibited by constitutional and statutory protections of the right to vote.
The outcome of the case could depend on whether the state's involvement in authorizing, funding, and administering the election is sufficient to require it to be treated as a public election, as a matter of law.
Plaintiffs point out that the whole election process and apparatus was established by the state legislature and funded by OHA, a state agency, which they say is enough to make election laws apply.
The state and other defendants, including trustees and staff of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs and the Native Hawaiian Roll Commission, along with two nonprofit groups contracted to conduct the election, the Akamai Foundation and Na'i Aupuni Foundation, argue that this is purely a private election operated by private groups, will not result in the election of any state officials, and is therefore exempt from the election law precedents. To the extent that the legislature and OHA have been involved, they will not exert any power or control over the operation and outcomes of the convention.
Somewhat ironically, the view of the conservative challengers is consistent with views expressed by the more nationalist of Hawaiians, who reject the election and the convention as being creatures of the state and therefore by definition not truly independent.
http://hawaiiindependent.net/story/aha-may-fail-to-give-hawaiians-true-self-determination
Here are the main arguments on both sides, spelled out in a series of legal memos for and against issuing an injunction (links updated and corrected).
Memorandum in support of motion for preliminary injunction, filed by plaintiffs
http://ilind.net/misc%20/2015/hawn_concon_lawsuit/memo_in_support.pdf
Memorandum in opposition to motion, filed by state defendants (Gov. David Ige and members and staff of the Native Hawaiian Roll Commission)
http://ilind.net/misc%20/2015/hawn_concon_lawsuit/opposition_state.pdf
Memorandum in opposition to motion, filed by the Akamai Foundation and Na'i Aupuni Foundation
http://ilind.net/misc%20/2015/hawn_concon_lawsuit/opposition_foundations.pdf
Memorandum in opposition to motion, filed by OHA trustees
http://ilind.net/misc%20/2015/hawn_concon_lawsuit/opposition_oha.pdf
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http://www.civilbeat.com/2015/10/peter-apo-what-does-it-mean-to-be-hawaiian/
Honolulu Civil Beat, October 15, 2015
What Does it Mean to Be Hawaiian?
All politics aside, indigenous identity seems more malleable than many people suggest.
By Peter Apo
Another Hawaiian who took issue with a Civil Beat column I wrote in support of the Mauna Kea Thirty Meter Telescope recently confronted me.
In that hallway conversation our exchange was respectful, but it was one in which the person was seriously asking, "How can you call yourself a Hawaiian?"
I walked away from that encounter thinking: 'Mmmmmm, good question.'
So I am asking myself: "What does it mean to be a Hawaiian?"
I begin by repeating my statement in a previous column that the word "Hawaiian" is not a Hawaiian word. It is an English word. Hawaiian words don't end in consonants.
The origin of the word Hawaiian was not intended as a reference to ancestry or ethnicity. When Hawaii was a sovereign nation the word Hawaiian referred to anyone, irrespective of ancestry, who was from that place called Hawaii.
This included everyone who was part of Hawaii's multi-cultural citizenry. Over the last century the word Hawaiian seems to have evolved to mean a person of Hawaiian ancestry and for this column I will defer to that definition of Hawaiian, but I will point out that the Oxford American Dictionary doubles down on the meaning as "a native or inhabitant of Hawaii."
Hawaiian by Genealogical Credentials
If there were a depth chart to measure the degree of a person's Hawaiianess nothing could trump a person's Hawaiian genealogy. In the absence of a written language the most important statement of one's Hawaiianess in ancient times lay in their birth chant. On major political occasions requiring opening protocol one's credentials had to be established by the chanting of their genealogy, some of which could go on for hours.
Hawaiian by Law
There are two formal political definitions of Hawaiian generated by congressional language to separately define two Hawaiian beneficiary groups as qualifying criteria for federal and state entitlement programs. The first is native Hawaiian, spelled with a small "n," which refers to a beneficiary class of Hawaiians with a 50 percent or more blood quantum that qualifies them for Department of Hawaiian Homelands homestead leases. The second beneficiary group is Native Hawaiian, spelled with a capital "N," which refers to anyone with any quantum of Hawaiian blood.
Hawaiian by Cultural Choice
What it means to be Hawaiian starts to get complicated as Hawaiians routinely turn to assessing a person's Hawaiianess by their behavioral choices, rather than by their ethnicity. One of the fascinating socio-cultural behavior phenomena about Hawaiian cultural identity is that it does not require ancestry. A scan of the thousands of folk engaged in Hawaiian cultural practices, traditions and customs finds hundreds of practitioners who are not Hawaiian by ancestry. Many are of multi-ethnic ancestry, but Hawaiian is a small part of their ethnic mix.
These people are Hawaiian by lifestyle and emotional commitment. They self-identify themselves as being cultural Hawaiians who embrace, live and breathe Hawaiian culture.
It is even more fascinating to note that a number of the Hawaiian community's most respected and accomplished cultural and spiritual leaders are not of Hawaiian blood.
This is an important element of cultural inclusiveness, which suggests that embracing and practicing the cultural concepts and values of the Hawaiian culture qualifies anyone to think of himself or herself as Hawaiian.
Hawaiian by Values
An important measure of any claim to being a Hawaiian is proportionate to the degree a person consciously embraces Hawaiian values as a guide to their daily behavior toward people. Here are a few examples:
Aloha is an overarching values statement that, in its deepest meaning, is the unconditional extension of trust and friendship, even to strangers.
Kokua is the act of being helpful without having to be asked.
Kupono is about uncompromising honesty, fairness, and justice.
Ho'ohiki means keeping your promises.
Hanohano speaks to conducting oneself with distinction and self-respect.
The Hawaiian vocabulary is loaded with such behavior-guiding language and, in my opinion, no matter how accomplished a person becomes in any Hawaiian cultural pursuit or how high they rise into prominent positions of community leadership, if they don't practice the values, they are missing the essence of being Hawaiian. I would go so far to say that absent living by Hawaiian values a person cannot claim to be Hawaiian because the values that drive his or her behavior are fundamental to who that person has decided to be.
It saddens me to have seen so many wayward and misguided Hawaiians by ancestry unabashedly proclaim their Hawaiianess by engaging in disrespectful and egregious behavior as a "shock and awe" political strategy.
We saw some of this last year when the U.S. Department of Interior held statewide hearings on federal recognition for Hawaiians. A few of these individuals were shouting abuse, including racial slurs and acting out all manner of degenerate behavior. This generated embarrassment and a judgment of all Hawaiians by some mainstream media. These people, in my opinion, cannot ever claim to be Hawaiian because -- in my judgment -- behavior trumps blood quantum as a defining characteristic of one's Hawaiianess.
What Does a Hawaiian Look Like?
It's a distinguishing characteristic of the early Hawaiians, particularly following the influx of immigrants from Europe and Asia, that Hawaiians were ethnically colorblind. That is, Hawaiians were absent prejudice based on skin color or cultural persuasion. Hence, the aloha brand was born as Hawaiians welcomed waves of immigrants with an unconditional hand of friendship.
When we flaunt our multi-cultural society to the world we sometimes get a response that says: Hey, I'm from New York, or Los Angeles, and we have a lot of diversity in our town too. So then, we have to point out a not-so-insignificant difference between their multi-cultural communities and ours -- in Hawaii we marry each other!
My point here is that over the years inter-marriage between Hawaiians and other ethnicities has produced a very large segment of Hawaii's population whose common denominator is the part of them that is Hawaiian. The Hawaiian genes are then joined by every kind of Hawaiian-European-Asian combination.
So, there are thousands of part-Hawaiians who -- though holding their Hawaiian heritage as being special -- cannot be recognized by their appearance alone. There was a time when it was easy to recognize Hawaiians in the crowd because they looked like Hawaiians. But intermarriage and gene-pool blends have blurred the lines of recognition.
Hawaiian by Political Behavior
Of all the options Hawaiians have to identify themselves as Hawaiian, none is more definitive than the politics of being a Hawaiian. This arena seems to bring out the best and worst of Hawaiian behavior. It's an arena of high drama and passionate exchanges, some of which are not so polite.
Hawaiian politics is an all-encompassing field of political movement. All the issues affecting and driving Hawaiians -- whether it's Mauna Kea, Haleakala, the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, the Department of Hawaiian Homelands, the Alii Trusts, Hawaiian education, Hawaiian health, environmental stewardship (aloha 'aina), Makua Valley, or Pohakuloa -- lead to the same intersection of Nationhood and Sovereignty.
For many, many Hawaiians -- regardless of their cultural pursuits, beneficiary status, occupation, religious beliefs or socio-economic status -- Hawaiian politics is the one arena where one is most easily identified as Hawaiian, and not just by ancestry.
Achieving some form of nationhood and self-determination is seen by thousands of Hawaiians as the Holy Grail -- the summit of Hawaiian socio-cultural and political ambition for the 21st Century.
The Mainstream Hawaiian
Notwithstanding the inclusiveness of those who are Hawaiian by cultural criteria other than ethnicity, I believe there is a mainstream Hawaiian. It is a Hawaiian by ancestry, but of mixed ethnic genealogy, who is emotionally invested in Hawaiian culture but also well-integrated into Hawaii's multi-cultural hybrid society. This person is American-educated and in pursuit of key elements of the American dream -- to home ownership, family prosperity, education for their children, quality health care, surrounded by friends from many walks of life with whom they laugh, cry and celebrate the blessing of these islands.
The mainstream Hawaiian is also viscerally invested in the call for political justice and a model of reconciliation with the federal government that makes Hawaii a better place for everyone.
So, here is a question for you: What does it mean to be a Hawaiian?
About the Author
A former legislator, Peter Apo is a trustee of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs and the president of the Peter Apo Company LLC, a cultural tourism consulting company to the visitor industry. He has also been the arts and culture director for Honolulu, the city's director of Waikiki Development and served as special assistant on Hawaiian affairs to Gov. Ben Cayetano. His opinions are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of OHA or other organizations he is involved in.
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** Ken Conklin online comment:
It saddens me, but does not surprise me, that Peter Apo has said the most important element defining who is Hawaiian is political activism. Furthermore, according to Apo -- to be Hawaiian, it's not only necessary to be politically active but also essential to favor federal recognition of a Hawaiian tribe. Apo says "Hawaiian politics is the one arena where one is most easily identified as Hawaiian, and not just by ancestry. Achieving some form of nationhood and self-determination is seen by thousands of Hawaiians as the Holy Grail -- the summit of Hawaiian socio-cultural and political ambition for the 21st Century. ... The mainstream Hawaiian is also viscerally invested in the call for political justice and a model of reconciliation with the federal government ..."
That's pure nonsense. Peter Apo has written a screed in which he merely describes the core of his own identity as being a political animal in a jihad for quasi-sovereignty as a federally recognized tribe. But Apo is what statisticians call an outlier. His priorities are badly skewed from what I know to be the priorities of most Hawaiians -- both Hawaiians by blood and people lacking a drop of the magic blood. We Hawaiians, whatever our ancestry, define ourselves by embracing the Aloha Spirit as the core of our identity; we do not define ourselves by adherence to Peter Apo's political jihad.
Most of us Hawaiians are silent on political issues, but when we speak about sovereignty it is to defend the unity of Hawaii with the United States, the unity of Hawaii under the undivided sovereignty of the State of Hawaii, the equality of all people in the eyes of God regardless of race, and the belief that our government should treat us all equally under the law regardless of race. Several years ago the Honolulu Advertiser did a scientific survey to discover what is the order in which people rank the importance of various priorities, and what issues they would be willing to increase their taxes to support if it could be proved that the money would actually solve the problems. The results clearly showed that both ethnic Hawaiians and non-ethnic-Hawaiians have the same ranking of priorities, with education, healthcare, and housing at the top; environmental issues and traffic congestion in the middle, and Hawaiian sovereignty at the very bottom. Imagine that Peter Apo -- both ethnic Hawaiians and non-ethnic Hawaiians feel that traffic congestion is a more important issue than building a "Hawaiian nation", and the most important issues are education, health, and housing.
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http://www.staradvertiser.com/newspremium/20151015_hawaiian_voter_registration_ending.html?id=333008441
Honolulu Star-Advertiser, October 15, 2015
Hawaiian voter registration ending
The deadline to sign up is at hand, but some in the sovereignty movement decry the process
By Timothy Hurley
Today is the scheduled last day to register to vote in next month's Na'i Aupuni election of delegates to the Native Hawaiian constitutional convention set to begin in February.
The Native Hawaiian Roll Commission, having certified the Kana'iolowalu roll at the end of July, has now pushed the number of enrollees eligible to vote in the election to 99,217 from 95,690, the commission reported Wednesday.
Clyde Namuo, the commission's executive director, said that while today is advertised as the last day to sign up, the official roll isn't scheduled to be certified until Monday, so more names could be added Friday.
A U.S. District Court hearing on a preliminary injunction seeking to block the "race-based" and "viewpoint-based" election with more than 200 candidates is scheduled for Tuesday.
A lawsuit filed by the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii and others argues that the election violates the U.S. Constitution and the Voting Rights Act by using race and political qualifications to determine voter eligibility.
Monday's motion asks the court to put the election on hold until after a decision is reached.
As it stands now, ballots for the election will be sent to certified voters Nov. 1, with voting scheduled to end Nov. 30. The results of the election will be announced Dec. 1.
Organizers are describing the election as a historic event that may lead to re-establishing a Hawaiian government.
"Hawaiians have not had this type of consensus-building structure since the overthrow," says the website of Na'i Aupuni, the volunteer group overseeing the process. "Hawaiians should seize this opportunity to start the process of deciding how they want to move forward in unity."
But not everyone's on board. A group of supporters of Hawaiian independence have been waging a social media and grass-roots campaign to undermine the effort.
They have been circulating a "Protest Na'i Aupuni" petition and have been urging people to remove their names from the Kana'iolo- walu roll.
A meeting was held at the University of Hawaii at Manoa on Friday to rally people against the Na'i effort, and another was scheduled Wednesday night at UH-Hilo.
At Friday's "Halawai Aloha 'Aina" meeting, attendees were told that the state-initiated self-governance initiative is a flawed and rushed process that failed to win a consensus of the Hawaiian people.
Attendees were told Na'i Aupuni is not about self-determination for the Hawaiian people. Rather, it is a scam to create a puppet nation to undercut the independence movement and permanently relinquish Hawaiian cultural and political rights to sovereignty and more than 1.8 million acres of national lands in a universal settlement.
The effort, they said, would seal the fate of the Hawaiian people as a landless, powerless nation that will forever be under the thumb of the United States.
During the meeting, attendees brainstormed ways to undermine the effort.
Walter Ritte, the longtime Hawaiian activist from Molokai who qualified as a Na'i Aupuni candidate, said Wednesday he's had a change of heart and intends to quit the race. He said he plans to urge like-minded candidates to do so as well.
Ritte said he originally hoped to push for independence within the convention. But now it appears he is wasting his time, he said, because there's a predetermined outcome for federal recognition.
"The whole process is really bad," he said. "It's better not to give credibility to the process by participating."
Lanakila Mangauil, the Mauna Kea "protector" who surprised many by declaring his candidacy, told his supporters on Facebook that he thinks Na'i Aupuni is less than "pono" (righteous or correct) and that, if elected, he plans to work to postpone the process.
"This is not something that can be rushed," he said. "This is something that needs to be clear and (have) understanding."
Robin Danner, the newly elected chairman of the Sovereign Councils of the Hawaiian Homeland Assembly, said it's wrong for opponents of Na'i Aupuni to say the process will undermine anyone's pursuit of sovereignty.
"There simply is zero legal precedence for that, federally or internationally. It may sound provocative, 'do this and you won't be able to do that,' but it's just hyperbole," she said in an email.
On whether the process is rushed, Danner, one of the five Native Hawaiian Roll commissioners, said many Hawaiians don't feel that way at all.
"We are ready to move out of just slogans, move out of rallies, and up to the governance table to exercise our decision-making through a native government, albeit for the Native Hawaiians that want to be apart of it," she said.
To register, Hawaiians go to either the Office of Hawaiian Affairs website at oha.org/registry or to the Native Hawaiian Roll Commission website kanaiolowalu.org. Information about the election process can be found at Na'i Aupuni's website at naiaupuni.org or by emailing naiaupuni@election-america.com.
Those wishing to check whether they are certified to vote, or to reconfirm postal and email information, can complete a form on the Kana'iolowalu website at the address above or call 973-0099.
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http://www.ilind.net/2015/10/15/hawaiians-divided-again-over-nai-aupuni-election/
Ian Lind blog, October 15, 2015
Hawaiians divided again over Na'i Aupuni election
Here's a bit more evidence of the parallel views of those on the political right who have sued to block the election for delegates to a Native Hawaiian political convention, and those on the independence-or-bust nationalist side of the Hawaiian spectrum.
These two sides are opposites in many ways, but their views of this election process are remarkably similar. The right wing says the election will violate provisions of the U.S. constitution because of the role played by the State Legislature and the Office of Hawaiian Affairs in authorizing and funding the election process. Nationalists agree that the process is fatally flawed because the involvement of the state and OHA mean that any possible outcome will not, by definition, be truly independent.
A public Facebook page
https://www.facebook.com/groups/OPPOSE.Nai.Aupuni/
is spreading the message, "Protest Na'i Aupuni," and urging Hawaiians to remove their names from the roll of eligible voters. Hawaiians are also being urged to sign a petition pushing for disenrollment.
I wouldn't be surprised if the parties suing to block the election as unconstitutional cite the nationalist opposition's claims of "state/fed control" of Na'i Aupuni in their legal arguments in federal court next week.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out. The election, if it succeeds in drawing substantial participation with hard-line nationalists. And if participation is low, it will leave the effort to create a Hawaiian governing entity under U.S. law, that began with the Akaka bill, dead in the water.
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http://www.staradvertiser.com/news/breaking/20151015_Feds_say_judge_should_not_block_Native_Hawaiian_election.html?id=333142961
Honolulu Star-Advertiser, October 15, 2015, Breaking News at 5:34 PM Hawaii Standard time [Appeared only in breaking news online during the evening but never got printed the following day either in print or online]
Feds say judge should not block Native Hawaiian election
By Associated Press
The U.S. Department of the Interior says a judge shouldn't grant an injunction against an election process that's underway for those with Native Hawaiian ancestry.
The department filed what's known as a friend-of-the-court brief in a lawsuit challenging the election. The lawsuit says a race-based election is unconstitutional.
An election is planned for November to elect delegates for a convention to determine self-governance for Native Hawaiians.
The judge in the case invited the department to weigh in after the department outlined a proposal to establish a possible government-to-government relationship if a Native Hawaiian government is formed and wants such a relationship.
The department notes that Native American tribes hold elections that exclude non-natives.
A hearing is scheduled for Tuesday in the plaintiffs' motion for a preliminary injunction.
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http://thegardenisland.com/news/opinion/mailbag/letters-for-oct/article_c7b03ff6-7621-11e5-9813-bbdeb889a2a8.html
The Garden island, October 19, 2015, Letter to editor
Please be careful, listen and question
We are so fortunate to be of Hawaii, and descendants of the original inhabitants.
When America stole our islands, everything that was ours was taken and left with nothing.
This time, the Department of the Interior of America is saying, we (Kanaka Maouli) will be rated according to the Department of Hawaiian Homes Lands, rules and regulations.
They think we are stupid and will stand being ruled continuously by the U.S. One of the greatest misleading rules is blood quantum. How does one measure blood? According to American law if you have one eye drop of black blood, you are black. Yet, an eye drop of Hawaiian blood does not qualify you for Hawaiian benefits. That's the biggest scam.
Please, please, please, read carefully, the so-called (1) self-determination rules the DOI says will benefit us; (2) be very careful and cognizant of what the appointed representative(s) say to be best for na Kanaka Maoli; (3) check and double-check their presentations and reasonings for accepting the DOI's suggestions; (4) listen attentively to the speeches and vows of candidates running for office; and (5) remind them to adhere to the promises made for our benefit.
Why haven't we been informed on the varying forms of governing? Like anarchy, democratic, dictatorship, republic, monarchy, statehood, independent, commonwealth, home rule, state within a state and socialistic, to name a few. Why do we need to take the suggestion of the DOI?
Ihiihinui Kanealii Wakinekona
Anahola
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http://www.staradvertiser.com/news/breaking/20151020_Judge_to_rule_Friday_on_challenge_to_Native_Hawaiian_election.html?id=334854781
Honolulu Star-Advertiser, October 20, 2015, Breaking news at 2:15 PM updated at 3:15 PM
Judge to rule Friday on challenge to Native Hawaiian election
By Star-Advertiser staff
A federal judge says he'll rule on Friday whether an election for Natives Hawaiians can proceed.
U.S. District Judge J. Michael Seabright heard arguments Tuesday in a lawsuit that says the state is improperly involved in a race-based election.
The state argues that while it played a part in compiling a roll of Native Hawaiians eligible to participate, it's not involved in the election planned for next month to pick delegates for a convention to determine self-governance for Native Hawaiians.
Election leaders say it's important for the historic election to move forward because it provides an opportunity for self-determination that has evaded Native Hawaiians since the 1893 overthrow of the Hawaiian kingdom.
Seabright says he'll rule from the bench with an explanation for his decision. He'll issue a detailed written order later.
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http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/30305794/judge-to-rule-friday-on-fate-of-native-hawaiian-election
Hawaii News Now (3 TV stations), October 20, 2015
Judge to rule Friday on fate of Native Hawaiian election
By Mileka Lincoln
HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) -
A federal judge will rule Friday on whether an election for Native Hawaiians is constitutional and can move forward next month.
A group of both Native and non-Native Hawaiians has sued to prevent the election -- saying it's unconstitutional to restrict voting to only Native Hawaiians.
But the state argues constitutional protections only apply to government agencies or private entities acting on behalf of the state.
Robert Popper, a Judicial Watch lawyer representing the plaintiffs, said the vote is a clear violation of the 15th Amendment.
"You can't hold a race-based election -- and that's exactly what's going on," he said. "Based on our history, if anything is not permitted it's to screen people based on their race and then decide if they can vote."
The Na'i Aupuni election is set for Nov. 1, 2015. Native Hawaiians who are registered to vote will have the opportunity to elect delegates who will then meet at a convention, or 'aha, next year to discuss and decide what type of nation or government, if any, will be created or reorganized.
Bill Meheula, an attorney for Na'i Aupuni, said: "They sued us under the law that says if we're going to be a state actor, we have to change state law -- and we're saying we're not changing state law. What we're doing is we're electing delegates, Hawaiian leaders, to come together and decide Hawaiian future in terms of self-determination and we don't know what that's going to be."
The state maintains their involvement was limited to creating the roll of eligible Native Hawaiians, kana'iolowalu, who could choose to participate -- and has nothing to do with the election itself to determine self-governance.
But Dr. Kelii Akina, president of the Grassroots Institute of Hawai'i and one of the plaintiffs, said the vote affects everyone so shouldn't be restricted to a particular group.
"We all have the same stake in our lives here together and what's going on is our right to determine the future excludes people and it's excluding people on the basis of race. It's excluding people who may not hold a political viewpoint," Akina said.
Native Hawaiians are the only indigenous group in the United States that hasn't been allowed to establish its own government.
In court Tuesday, before Judge Michael Seabright, both sides argued Na'i Aupuni would be a historic election because it would provide the first chance for self-determination since the Hawaiian kingdom was overthrown in 1893.
Seabright says he'll rule from the bench with an explanation for his decision. He'll issue a detailed written order later.
----------------
http://juneauempire.com/nation-and-world/2015-10-20/lawsuit-divisiveness-hamper-native-hawaiian-election-effort
Juneau Empire, October 20, 2015
Lawsuit, divisiveness hamper Native Hawaiian election effort
By JENNIFER SINCO KELLEHER
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
HONOLULU — A group of Native Hawaiians are organizing an election to create a national government for the first time since American businessmen, backed by U.S. Marines, overthrew the Hawaiian kingdom more than 100 years ago.
They are trying to elect delegates for a convention next year to hash out a governing document that will go back to the Native Hawaiian community for ratification, but their plan is already facing resistance -- from Native Hawaiians themselves.
A federal judge on Tuesday will consider an injunction motion in a lawsuit that argues that it's unconstitutional to restrict voting to those with Native Hawaiian ancestry and that the state is improperly involved in the process.
Native Hawaiians are the last remaining indigenous group in the U.S. that hasn't been allowed to establish its own government.
Former U.S. Sen. Daniel Akaka spent about a dozen years trying to get a bill passed that would give Native Hawaiians the same rights already extended to many Native Americans and Alaska Natives.
When it became clear that wouldn't happen, the state passed a law recognizing Hawaiians as the first people of Hawaii and laid the foundation for Native Hawaiians to establish their own government.
The governor appointed a commission to produce a roll of qualified Native Hawaiians interested in participating in their government.
Some of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit argue that their names appear on the roll without their consent.
The process has been rushed and confusing, critics say. "It's a shotgun wedding of self-determination," said Native Hawaiian community advocate Trisha Kehaulani Watson-Sproat.
Molokai activist Walter Ritte planned to run as a delegate, deciding it's better to participate even though he disagrees with the process. But when he saw that the list of candidates includes politicians and those who support federal recognition instead of forming an independent nation, he changed his mind.
"I don't want people to say, 'Well you were part of it,'" he said. "I have no faith in the system so I'm taking my name out."
There are some 200 candidates for 40 positions representing Hawaiians across the state and those living outside of Hawaii.
Supporters of the election agree that the process hasn't been perfect.
"But it's an opportunity that rarely comes around," said Bill Meheula, an attorney who will argue in court Tuesday on behalf of Nai Aupuni, a nonprofit organization made up of five directors guiding the election, convention and ratification process.
Watson-Sproat is skeptical of the people behind Nai Aupuni: "Who picked these people?"
"We are individuals who decided we want to commit ourselves to the process," Meheula said. "Someone had to stand up and it couldn't be a state agency. We were individuals that were able to come together and get a grant."
The Office of Hawaiian Affairs, a public agency tasked with improving Native Hawaiians' wellbeing, provided a nearly $2.6 million grant for the election, with the understanding that the office wouldn't have any control over Nai Aupuni.
Some liken the election to selecting the founding fathers and mothers of a modern Hawaiian nation.
"Founding parents, if you will," said Clyde Namuo, executive director of the Native Hawaiian Roll Commission and a delegate candidate, noting that the founding fathers of the U.S. organized the 13 colonies to escape British oppression.
Self-determination is a way for Native Hawaiians to address longstanding concerns in the community, he said: They fare poorly when it comes to income, education and health.
"The western way of life has not necessarily been good to us," he said. "We will be able to control our destiny in a better way if we form our government."
Until the 1893 overthrow, the U.S. recognized the Hawaiian nation's independence, extended full diplomatic recognition to the Hawaiian government and entered into several treaties with the Hawaiian monarch.
The U.S. annexed Hawaii five years later, and it became a state in 1959.
Native Hawaiians have long clamored for self-determination, but the options and opinions on what that looks like vary — from federal recognition, to restoring the kingdom to dual citizenship.
Last month, the U.S. Department of the Interior outlined a proposal for a possible government-to-government relationship with Native Hawaiians — if they want one.
The department has also weighed in on the lawsuit, urging the judge not to grant an injunction by pointing out that Native American tribes hold elections that exclude non-natives.
Ritte doesn't want Hawaiians to be another tribe.
"We don't have the same history as Indians," he said. "The choice is to go down and be closer to the United States of America, who overthrew our queen, or avenge our queen and correct an injustice."
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http://www.staradvertiser.com/newspremium/hawaiinewspremium/20151021_convention_suit_to_be_decided_on_friday.html?id=334963731
Honolulu Star-Advertiser, October 21, 2015
Convention suit to be decided on Friday
By Timothy Hurley
A U.S. District Court judge will decide Friday whether an election will go forward next month to choose delegates to a convention that aims to consider proposals for Native Hawaiian self-governance.
Judge J. Michael Seabright heard arguments Tuesday in a lawsuit that argues that the state is illegally supporting an election that is race-based, discriminatory and a violation of the U.S. Constitution and the Voting Rights Act.
But state attorneys argued that while the state initiated the process, it is no longer involved in an election being overseen by the nonprofit group Na'i Aupuni.
Honolulu attorney Bill Meheula, representing Na'i Aupuni, said his client is a private entity running a private election and is therefore judged by different standards.
"What we've got here is indigenous people trying to pursue self-determination, which is their inherent right under federal law," he said.
Attorneys for four Native Hawaiians and two non-Hawaiians who filed the suit in August are seeking to block the election while the case continues.
Seabright said considering the timing of the injunction request, he would rule from the bench Friday and issue a detailed written order later.
More than 95,000 Native Hawaiians were included on a list of eligible voters put together by the Native Hawaiian Roll Commission, the group established by the state Legislature in Act 195 in 2011.
Na'i Aupuni, a group of five volunteer and unpaid directors with ties to Hawaiian royalty, is overseeing the election and convention with nearly $2.6 million given to it by the Office of Hawaiian Affairs.
Voting will take place during November with more than 200 candidates seeking to become delegates to a governance aha, or constitutional convention, planned to start in February.
Robert Popper, a Judicial Watch attorney who represents six people who object to the election for different reasons, argued that Na'i Aupuni is essentially a "government actor" carrying out the mandate of Act 195, which makes it a public election.
While Na'i Aupuni may be considered an independent group, the election is nevertheless public in its effect, he said, because it will have sweeping consequences for hundreds of thousands of Hawaiians and others in the state.
"To create a government-to-government relationship is going to change so many things in these islands, with respect to how people live their lives," Popper said. "There is going to be so much that is under a different government."
The fact that the federal Department of Interior, in a brief filed with the court last week, said it would consider the results of the election as the basis for creating a Native Hawaiian self-governing entity adds even more weight to the argument, he said.
"This may actually turn out to be the ballgame," Popper said. "If this election goes forward and there's a ratification of a (Interior Department) rule and that rule is applied, there will be a Native Hawaiian governing entity, and this will have been my plaintiffs' opportunity to say something about it, and it will be gone."
Seabright, the judge, shot back that the argument is speculation and it's not clear the Interior Department will accept the results of what comes out of the convention. He said he was leaning toward the view that the election is private.
The lawsuit offers objections based on laws in any number of areas. It argues that the election violates the First, 14th and 15th Amendments and the Voting Rights Act.
It further argues that to allow the election to move forward would cause both the plaintiffs and the citizens of the state irreparable harm, citing the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' opinion that "an alleged constitutional infringement will often alone constitute irreparable harm."
The plaintiffs are Keli'i Akina, president of the Grassroot Institute, plus Kealii Makekau, Joseph Kent, Yoshimasa Sean Mitsui, Pedro Kana'e Gapero and Melissa Leina'ala Moniz.
According to the suit, Akina and Makekau, both Native Hawaiian, are excluded from the roll because they cannot affirm the political declaration required for registration. Along with proving Native Hawaiian ancestry, a registrant must "affirm the unrelinquished sovereignty of the Native Hawaiian people and my intent to participate in the process of self-governance."
Gapero and Moniz contend they were registered on the Native Hawaiian Roll without their consent. Kent and Mitsui say they were racially discriminated against when excluded from the roll because of race.
All six are Hawaii residents, except Moniz, who lives in Texas.
The Native Hawaiian Roll Commission launched its registry campaign in 2012 and signed up more than 40,000 people before incorporating names from previous Native Hawaiian registries.
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http://www.civilbeat.com/2015/10/ian-lind-is-the-hawaiian-election-a-public-or-private-affair/
Honolulu Civil Beat, October 21, 2015
Is the Hawaiian Election a Public or Private Affair?
Federal judge says he will rule on Friday whether the process to elect delegates to a Hawaiian constitutional convention can continue.
By Ian Lind
After four hours of legal arguments on Tuesday by supporters and opponents of the current election for delegates to a Native Hawaiian political convention that both sides agree could be an important step toward some form of Hawaiian self-governance, federal Judge J. Michael Seabright said he will decide by the end of the week whether he will block the election from proceeding.
Seabright is presiding over a lawsuit brought by several opponents of the process that is widely expected to be a significant step toward Hawaiian political autonomy. The lawsuit is backed by Judicial Watch, a conservative Washington foundation, and the lead plaintiff is Kelii Akina, CEO of the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii, a local conservative, free-market educational group.
Tuesday's hearing was request by plaintiffs seeking a preliminary injunction that would put the election on hold until the issues being raised by the lawsuit can be decided. No trial date has yet been set, while ballots are due to be distributed to the list of certified voters on Nov. 1.
Seabright said he will rule on the injunction and scheduled another hearing for 10:30 a.m. Friday to explain the basis for it. A full written ruling is unlikely be ready before the election. Mail-in voting is currently scheduled to continue through the month of November.
The judge did not indicate which way he is leaning, although the commitment to a decision this week likely means he has at least tentatively made up his mind.
The election process, and the political convention, or aha, to follow, are supported by a broad swath of mainstream Hawaiian organizations, including the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, and several so-called "Alii Trusts" and royal societies, which established a private nonprofit organization, Nai Aupuni, to organize and conduct the election. OHA entered into contracts with Nai Aupuni to fund the election process, although it maintains it has no control over the process or its outcome.
The election is opposed by Hawaiians on two ends of the political spectrum. Some Hawaiians like Akina, a political conservative, have opposed extending special status to Hawaiians. But the election process is also opposed by those Hawaiians who say they will not support anything less than full national independence. They also are against any process that would grant Hawaiians the same status as Native American tribal governments, which they see as limiting sovereignty.
The lawsuit criticizes the election on several grounds. First, it argues that Hawaiians who declined to affirm several statements that were part of the registration process, including the "unrelinquished sovereignty" of the Native Hawaiian people, were illegally barred from registering to vote simply due to their political beliefs.
Second, the lawsuit alleges that the election violates the U.S. Constitution by limiting voting to those of Hawaiian descent.
And, finally, the lawsuit argues that the First Amendment rights of some Hawaiians were violated when they were placed on the voter rolls without their affirmative consent.
Stepping back, though, the election process has been spurred on not only by a desire for more political autonomy for Hawaiians, but also by the fear that virtually all social programs that have specifically targeted benefits to Hawaiians, including institutions such as Kamehameha Schools as well as programs created and funded by Congress over the past 40 years, could be shut down if the U.S. Supreme Court finds Hawaiian-only preferences to be unconstitutional.
Previous court rulings ended Hawaiian-only voting in OHA elections, and have challenged Hawaiian-only admission to Kamehameha Schools. Many legal scholars believe that unless Hawaiians are given a legal status akin to those of Indian tribes, which are recognized in federal law, these programs will be at risk in the face of continued legal challenges.
Much of the legal wrangling during the hearing revolved around the issue of whether this election is truly a private affair among Hawaiians only, or whether its public funding and the participation of OHA, a state agency, mean that it is really a government function involving "state action" and subject to the constitutional protections against various forms of discrimination in voting and elections.
Robert Popper, arguing for the plaintiffs, told the court that the upcoming election "could be a turning point for the state" because it will inevitably start a process that will have far-reaching impacts on all Hawaii residents, and on the relationship between Hawaiians and the U.S. government.
And because of those potential impacts, as well as the key role played by OHA in organizing and funding the whole process, the election is necessarily more than simply a private affair, Popper argued.
In addition, plaintiffs argued that the Hawaiian election process was triggered by Act 195, passed by the Legislature in 2011, which established the Native Hawaiian Roll Commission to compile a list of qualified Hawaiian voters. This, they say, is further evidence that the election should be treated as a public election.
But the position of the defendants in the case, which include trustees, officers, and staff of OHA, the Native Hawaiian Role Commission, and Nai Aupuni, is that the election is private and independent of the government.
In his comments, Judge Seabright seemed to agree. He pressed Popper and other attorneys for the plaintiffs concerning the outcome of the planned election, noting that it would not result in the election of any state official, or the passing of any public laws. Why, Seabright asked, should it be considered anything other than a private election?
What if blue-eyed people raised money to organize themselves, create a list of qualified blue-eyed people, and then elected representatives to meet and discuss their status, Seabright asked, indicating that he did not believe there are grounds to consider that a public election.
Nai Aupuni and its supporters were also buoyed by a "friend of the court" brief in support of the legality of the election process filed by the U.S. Department of the Interior. The department said Native American tribes are recognized to have the right to determine their own members, organize themselves and conduct their own elections, limited to tribal members.
Federal laws have allowed these elections to exclude non-Natives, and there is no basis for treating the Native Hawaiian community any differently, the department argued.
GUEST CONTRIBUTOR
Ian Lind is an award-winning investigative reporter and columnist who has been blogging daily for 15 years. He has also worked as a newsletter publisher, public interest advocate and lobbyist for Common Cause in Hawaii, peace educator, and legislative staffer. Lind is a lifelong resident of the islands.
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Late in the day on October 21, 2015, the Grassroot Institute made available to the public many of the legal documents in Akina v. Hawaii, the federal lawsuit to block or invalidate the election of delegates to a convention to create governing documents for a proposed Hawaiian tribe which is expected to apply for federal recognition under a new rule being created by the U.S. Department of Interior specifically for the purpose of facilitating the application.
Each document is provided in pdf format which can be viewed and downloaded, and each has its own individual URL. It is expected that additional documents will be added as the case moves forward.
http://new.grassrootinstitute.org/2015/10/akina-v-hawaii-the-documents/
On October 21 the documents include:
Complaint by Grassroot Institute and Judicial Watch, 8/13/15
Motion for Preliminary Injunction, 8/28/15
Certificate of Service 8/28/15
Memo in Support of Motion for Preliminary Injunction 8/28/15
Nai Apuni Answer 9/15/15
Nai Apuni Corporate Disclosure 9/15/15
Transcript of 9-19 Status Hearing
Notice of Absent Party 10/08/15 [Lanny Sinkin, chief advocate for King Edmund K. Silva Jr.]
Reply Memo for Preliminary Injunction 10/09/15
Certificate of Compliance 10/09/15
Department of Interior Amicus Brief 10/14/15
Notice of Witnesses 10/16/15
Numerous Declarations by individuals, and Exhibits of contracts
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Oct 21: U.S. HOUSE COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN INTRODUCES BILL TO BLOCK DEPARTMENT OF INTERIOR FROM RECOGNIZING NEW TRIBES, AND TO RETURN THAT AUTHORITY SOLELY TO CONGRESS.
http://naturalresources.house.gov/newsroom/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=399512
U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Natural Resources [This is the House committee with jurisdiction over legislation for Indian tribes, comparable to the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs]
Press release, October 21, 2015
Bishop Introduces Tribal Recognition Act
Legislation Restores Proper Congressional Authority, Process Integrity and Transparency to Tribal Recognition
WASHINGTON, D.C., October 21, 2015 -
Today, House Committee on Natural Resources Chairman Rob Bishop (R-UT) introduced H.R. 3764, the Tribal Recognition Act of 2015 and issued the following statement.
"The tribal recognition process has been a mess for decades. The authority to recognize tribes is one that belongs to Congress, not the executive branch. However, as far back as the Carter Administration, the executive branch has muddied the process and this Administration has made the problem worse.
"The Tribal Recognition Act of 2015 is historic legislation that solves a systematic problem caused by unelected bureaucrats inventing new procedures and standards for tribal recognition. H.R. 3764 brings legitimacy and transparency back to the process. Most importantly, the legislation reasserts the critical role that Congress is tasked with under the Constitution in this important and historic realm of public policy."
The Tribal Recognition Act of 2015 restores Congress as making the sole determination on whether to extend recognition to a group as an Indian tribe, and updates the current lengthy and inconsistent recognition process for the 21st century. The Department of the Interior (DOI) would play a supporting role in analyzing documents submitted by petitioners for tribal recognition.
Under the legislation, the DOI's controversial recognition rules, also known as Part 83, would have no force and effect. Tribes lawfully recognized before the date of enactment of the bill would be unaffected.
Contact: Committee Press Office 202-226-9019
----------------------
http://pjmedia.com/jchristianadams/2015/10/22/obama-administration-defends-hawaiian-separtism-in-federal-court/
PJ Media, October 22, 2015
Obama Administration Defends Hawaiian Separatism in Federal Court
by J. Christian Adams
Instead of opposing racial classifications and racial division, the Obama administration is doing what it does best: taking sides against American traditions of equality and unity.
On Friday, a federal judge in Hawaii will rule whether a racially discriminatory election that only allows one race to participate may take place in November. The Obama administration filed a brief as a friend of the court saying that the racially discriminatory election should take place.
Hawaii passed a law to empower the "native Hawaiian" movement by establishing a government-run voter registration roll that only allows "native Hawaiians" to register to vote. The law's purpose "is to provide for and to implement the recognition of the native Hawaiian people by means and methods that will facilitate their self-governance."
The law allows for an election to select delegates to a convention, which would then draft the "governance documents" of a native Hawaiian entity. The "roll of qualified Native Hawaiians" will result in "a convention of qualified native Hawaiians, established for the purpose of organizing themselves."
The authors of the law seem to have never heard of Appomattox.
The election of delegates to the convention is set to take place next month unless federal district court judge J. Michael Seabright blocks the racially exclusionary election on Friday. Judicial Watch has sought to block the election.
Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, said "the Constitution still applies to the the State of Hawaii. It is shameful that it has taken a federal lawsuit to remind both Hawaiian officials and the Obama administration about the rule of the law."
The native Hawaiian separatist movement relies on the familiar narrative that the establishment of Hawaii as a state is illegitimate. After all, American corporate interests overthrew Queen Liliuokalani in 1893, and imperialism wiped out legitimate Hawaiian self-governance, or so the story goes.
Similar separatist efforts are underway in Guam.
Instead of opposing racial classifications and racial division, the Obama administration is doing what it does best: taking sides against American traditions of equality and unity.
In a brief filed by the Department of the Interior, the Obama administration squarely takes the side of the racial classifications and those defending the separatist election.
The Obama administration characterizes the nativist movement in Hawaii as akin to an Indian tribe recognized as such by Congress, which it isn't.
As explained below, in accordance with Federal law, tribes in the continental United States routinely limit voting in tribal elections, including constitutional referenda, to members, while excluding non-Natives. There is no principled basis for treating the Native Hawaiian community differently.
No principled basis? Here's a start: Congress never passed a law to treat native Hawaiians like an Indian tribe like that pesky Constitution requires. Article I, Section 8, Clause 3 clearly gives Congress alone the power to answer questions related to the status of an Indian tribe. Congress has repeatedly rejected efforts to treat native Hawaiians like good old fashioned stateside Indians.
Only in the Obama administration would a lawyer file a pleading with a court saying there is "no principled basis" when the Constitution itself provides a principled basis.
But the Obama lawyers go even further and have no gripe with the racially exclusionary elections. Why should they? After all, this is a gang that's regularly on the wrong side of questions of racial equality. They've even drafted rules to give validity to the racially exclusionary election. The brief:
The proposed rule places few conditions on the drafting of a governing document that might be presented to the Department in the process of reestablishing a government-to-government relationship, merely stating that the governing document should be "based on meaningful input from representative segments of the Native Hawaiian community and reflect the will of [that] community."
This is a question for Congress to decide, not a small band of lawyer-activists inside the Obama administration who enable a racial separatist movement in Hawaii. We'll see Friday if the racially exclusionary election is allowed to take place.
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Oct 22: FINAL RULE PUBLISHED IN FEDERAL REGISTER ALLOWS TRIBES TO AMEND THEIR GOVERNING DOCUMENTS WITHOUT NEEDING AMENDMENTS TO BE APPROVED BY SECRETARY OF INTERIOR. [One effect would be that limitations imposed on Hawaiian tribe as part of DOI requirements proposed for recognizing it in current Notice of Proposed Rulemaking could be changed by Hawaiian tribe unilaterally after they get recognition]
http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2015/10/22/washburn-pushes-self-determination-again-final-rule-secretarial-elections-162183
Indian Country Today, October 22, 2015
Washburn Pushes Self-Determination Again with Final Rule on Secretarial Elections
The Department of the Interior along with Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs Kevin K. Washburn continues to make tribal sovereignty and self-determination something all federally recognized tribes can obtain.
The most recent steps toward that goal came when Washburn announced the Final Rule on Secretarial elections on October 19. Washburn shared that Interior "finalized updates to Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) regulations on Secretarial elections for tribal governments that will, among other things, protect the rights of tribal members living away from their communities to vote in these elections."
A Secretarial election is a federal election conducted by the Secretary of the Interior for federally recognized tribes under a federal statute or tribal governing document (25 C.F.R. Part 81).
The amendments to the rule take into account that tribal members living in urban areas may be far from their reservations or tribal communities by providing that Secretarial elections generally be conducted by mail-out ballots.
"Though many federal responsibilities concern the lands we hold in trust for tribes and Indian people, more than 55 million acres nationwide, the United States has a moral obligation to preserve connections between Indian people and their tribes that it once sought to destroy," Washburn said. "For the future of Native nations and the health of Indian country, American Indians in urban areas must work harder to maintain connections with their tribes. One important aspect of that relationship is participation in the civic and political life of their tribal governments. For that reason, our Secretarial election amendments seek to prevent tribal members living in urban areas from being inadvertently disenfranchised in Secretarial elections."
Many Indians came to be living in cities because of the BIA's mid-20th century program to relocate American Indians away from their reservations to large urban areas in hopes of assimilating them and terminating the federal relationship with the tribes. Today, almost three-quarters of American Indians live in urban areas away from their home reservations – there are 567 federally recognized tribes throughout the U.S.
The Final Rule as presented at the Federal Register states, "For many tribes, the requirement for Secretarial elections or Secretarial approval is anachronistic and inconsistent with modern policies favoring tribal self-governance. The rule includes language clarifying that a tribe reorganized under the [Indian Reorganization Act may amend its governing document to remove the requirement for Secretarial approval of future amendments.
"The Department encourages amendments to governing documents to remove vestiges of a more paternalistic approach toward tribes. Once the requirement for Secretarial approval is removed through a Secretarial election, Secretarial approval of future amendments is not required, meaning there will be no future Secretarial elections conducted for the tribe, and future elections will be purely tribal elections, governed and run by the tribe rather than BIA. Additionally, without a requirement for Secretarial approval, the constitution will no longer be governed by the other election-related requirements of the IRA, such as the minimum number of tribal voters to make an election effective. Such matters will be governed by tribal policy decisions rather than Federal ones."
The Final Rule also states tribes that currently have Secretarial election requirements are encouraged to remove them as a step towards tribal sovereignty and self-determination.
Secretarial elections are conducted by the BIA for tribes that are required to have them if one of the four items apply:
-- A federal law requires a Secretarial election to take an action;
-- The tribe's governing document requires a Secretarial election to take an action;
-- A federal corporate charter requires a Secretarial approval; or
-- The tribe is adopting or amending a federal charter of incorporation, and certain circumstances apply.
The update combines previous regulations that govern how the Bureau conducts Secretarial elections and which govern how tribal members can petition for a Secretarial election into one at 25 C.F.R. Part 81. The new rule also features other updates reflecting changes in statutory law, along with deadlines "triggered by a tribe's request for a Secretarial election, within which the BIA must call and hold an election."
According to Interior, the rule has been in development for many years and has been the subject of three consultation sessions with tribal leaders, and an extended public comment period that ended January 16, 2015.
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http://www.staradvertiser.com/editorialspremium/20151023_melody_mackenzie.html?id=336184161
Honolulu Star-Advertiser, October 23, 2015, NAME IN THE NEWS
Melody MacKenzie
The specialist in Native Hawaiian law has seen much growth and progress in the field
By Mark Coleman
Melody Kapilialoha MacKenzie has been working in the field of Native Hawaiian law long enough that a book she helped write and edit in 1991, "The Native Hawaiian Rights Handbook," was publicly re-released this month by Kamehameha Publishing and now is almost 4.5 times longer (320 pages then versus 1,420 now).
Director of the Ka Huli Ao Center for Excellence in Native Hawaiian Law at the University of Hawaii's William S. Richardson School of Law, MacKenzie said the book, now titled "Native Hawaiian Law: A Treatise," is larger because, "obviously, it's been since 1991, so there's a whole growth in law related to the Native Hawaiians."
A review of the book's 21 chapter subjects suggests how much growth. They include Native Hawaiians and U.S. law, gathering rights, religious freedom, burial rights, education, health, charitable and public land trusts, the island of Kahoolawe and more -- all subjects prominent in today's political landscape.
Besides her UH affiliation, MacKenzie's standing to edit "Native Hawaiian Law" (along with Susan K. Serrano and D. Kapua'ala Sproat) includes being immediate past president of the Native Hawaiian Bar Association, former executive director of the Native Hawaiian Legal Corp. and the Hawaii Claims Office, and a director of the Native Hawaiian cultural organization Hika'alani.
Part-Hawaiian herself, she is related, even, to Princess Kaiulani, through her great-great-grandmother, a half-sister of Kaiulani.
MacKenzie is a graduate of Kailua High School (Class of '66), Beloit College in Wisconsin, where she earned a bachelor's degree in comparative religion, and the UH law school. One of her first jobs after UH was clerking for Hawaii Chief Justice William S. Richardson, who, she said, was her mentor and virtually the founder of the Native Hawaiian law field.
She is married and lives with her husband in Kailua.
Question: What is Native Hawaiian law?
Answer: Well, basically, I would say it's the body of law that specifically relates to the people, cultural and natural resources of the Native Hawaiian community. And then there are other laws that are broader but specifically impact the Native Hawaiian community, such as quiet title and adverse possession, ... because Hawaiians were the original owners of the lands.
Q: Could you explain briefly how those two laws affect Native Hawaiians?
A: Well, especially in the context of traditional kuleana lands, the adverse possession law basically says if somebody possesses the property for 20 years -- I can't remember all the criteria right now -- that then they can be deemed to own the land and, say, go to court. And so often in the past that has been used to dispossess Native Hawaiian kuleana owners.
The other major impact, quiet title, happens when there are a number of owners of land. So, back in the 1850s, in the Mahele, an individual would get their land, and it would be in their name. Over the generations, of course, there are now many heirs to the land. It's called tenants in common.
So if one person sells the land to a big corporation -- in the past it would have been to a plantation or sugar company -- then that company could bring what's called a quiet title action, to get quiet title to the land. They had an interest in the property so they could do that.
Oftentimes, Hawaiian families didn't know that there was a quiet title action taking place, or because it's been in the family for generations, they had a very, very small interest, like 1/300th, or something like that, so it was not necessarily worth it for them to take part in the court action. So because of all these fractionated interests, it created a problem for many Hawaiians.
Q: The landmark decision in that field (Hustace v. Kapuni, 1986) was that they couldn't just publish it (the notice of a quiet title action) in the newspaper, right? What were they required to do?
A: In that case, the state Supreme Court said they have to go and do their due diligence. ... You know, if it's a co-tenancy, they have to look for and find the other heirs, if at all possible. But at some point, the courts often allow either publication for unknown heirs or the heirs of one person and they will name as many as they can find.
Q: About the new book, who is it intended for, in terms of readership?
A: It's intended, obviously, for attorneys and law students, but we have tried to make it so that the language is accessible to the general public and to the Hawaii community generally, and I think we've succeeded.
Q: I know there's a lot there to chew on, but overall, are there any cases that you think are maybe the most important ever involving Native Hawaiian law?
A: I don't think it's a great case, but one case you could point to ... is the Rice v. Cayetano case, in 2000, decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. That really threw into question the relationship of the Native Hawaiian community to the federal government, whether laws that were established to benefit the Native Hawaiian community, could be characterized as unconstitutional.
Q: You have some background in Native American law, and I'm thinking you think Hawaiians should be considered as Native Americans, because apparently there was a Supreme Court ruling that thereby they would be allowed to offer exclusive race-based programs.
A: Well, one of the things that's happened in the last 15 or 20 years is the whole growth internationally of the recognition of the rights of indigenous people.
In 2007, the United Nations General Assembly passed the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, and the U.S., although it initially didn't sign on to it, did eventually, once President Obama came into office ... in 2010. One part of that declaration ... recognizes ... the right to internal self-determination ... so I believe that the movement in Hawaii for an election and a constitutional convention (by Native Hawaiians) is very consistent with ... the right of internal self-determination.
With regard to what's called federal recognition or federal acknowledgement, I do see that as maybe the next logical step for Native Hawaiians in seeking greater self-determination, and, as you said, the U.S. Supreme Court has recognized that laws that benefit Native Americans are based in part on a recognition that the indigenous people of the U.S. were pre-existing sovereigns ...
Q: In light of the aha (convention of Native Hawaiian delegates) that might be coming up, ... are you saying the federal recognition option is the way to go?
A: I think, realistically, that's probably the next logical step for us. But like many Native Hawaiians, I want to make sure it's not seen as foreclosing other possible options.
Q: If they are arguing that the Hawaiian government was illegally overthrown, how is it the aha would be starting with a clean slate instead of saying we have to restore our previous government?
A: We're kind of looking at two different theories, or principles, and one is definitely related to re-establishment of the independent nation state.
The other relates to the indigenous people of Hawaii. If an independent nation state were re-established, it would still have obligations under the international regime toward Hawaii's indigenous people. So I don't see any inconsistency with saying the U.S., as now the authority in Hawaii, has those responsibilities toward these indigenous peoples.
Q: But there's no possibility of going back to the kingdom status?
A: I just think that at this point in history there's no clear-cut way to do that.
Q: In terms of the obligations, where do you think the line is between being paternalistic toward Native Hawaiians and treating them as free individuals with equal rights as others, in terms of land ownership, contract law, and all the rest?
A: I think what we're moving toward, and what the aha is all about, is really the ability to have more self-determination, to control Native Hawaiian lands and resources, right? And really that was the movement in the '70s with regard to the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. ... So, yes, there is this vein of paternalism that runs through some programs, and particularly you might look at the history of the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act, in which the Act did not turn out the way it was proposed by Prince Kuhio and others, and in reality what ended up is Native Hawaiians got the worst land, a blood quantum was imposed, etc.
Q: How did that blood quantum get imposed; do you know?
A: Basically it was a compromise between Hawaiian interests and the plantations and ranchers and the territorial government. ... When Hawaiians came up with this idea, they had no blood quantum. ... So the 50 percent was proposed; it was a compromise with plantation and ranching interests.
Q: How did that serve those guys?
A: Part of this has to do with Hawaii's crown lands, some of which were under long-term leases to plantations and ranchers. ... When those leases came up ... they wanted to be able to continue to have those leases. ... So they were willing to say, "OK, Hawaiians, you can have third- and fourth-class agricultural and pastoral lands; we get to keep the best of the lands, and in addition to that, we want the 50 percent blood quantum."
Part of it, indeed, was the racism of the time that basically said ... "Oh, if you're 50 percent (Hawaiian) and the other percent is haole or Chinese or other hard workers, then you don't really need this program. You're going to make it OK in the outside world. But if you're 50 percent, you're probably not going to make it. And so" -- this is the paternalism -- "we're going to have to help them to rehabilitate." The word was "rehabilitate."
Q: OK, fast-forward to 2015: Why do I not hear Native Hawaiian advocates speaking out against that? Why is this DHHL land trust continuing? Why don't they just give it to the people who qualify and be done with it?
A: You know, there has been talk in the past, and there were Hawaiians at ConCon (the 1978 state Constitutional Convention) who actually suggested changing Hawaiian Homes so that people would have their lands in fee simple. But the concern there is the same concern about what happened at the Mahele, ... which is they ended up losing a lot of their land.
Q: "Losing it" because you mean they agreed to sell it or because of adverse possession and quiet title?
A: In some instances they agreed to sell it. In some instances it was because of quiet title and adverse possession. ...
I guess the other thing I would say is that as long as we have over 27,000 people on the (DHHL) waiting list, the idea of making the home lands fee-simple title would not fly. … And the other thing is I think we're still dealing with the idea that Hawaiian lands originally were in some kind of communal ownership, ... with everyone having some use rights in the land. So fee simple has not really worked really well for many native people, including the tribes in the continental U.S.
Q: I imagine something could be arranged -- co-ops or whatever.
A: Yes, there might be other kinds of ideas, like land trusts. ...
At this point I think people, with regard to the Hawaiian Home Lands trust, are basically, like, OK, this wasn't the best deal, and it's not the best land, but we're going to try to do the best job that we can. I foresee maybe 20 or 30 years down the road, if we do have a Native Hawaiian government, ... it might eventually be that the Native Hawaiian government takes over administering the Hawaiian Home Lands program. And that's part of the reason to keep it as a corpus together, I think. ... But here's the thing: This is a state responsibility. I mean, the DHHL has been totally underfunded ... it's never been fully funded.
Q: What about the state Office of Hawaiian Affairs? Were you disturbed at all by the deal to give it land to manage as part of that settlement with the (Neil) Abercrombie administration, or would you have preferred to see it just be in charge of disbursing its share of ceded lands revenues?
A: Actually I've always taken the position that OHA should get as much land as it can. That settlement, though, was for back revenue. The big issue going forward is what is the true pro rata 20 percent share of the public land trust revenues (that is supposed to go to OHA), and is OHA ever going to get that?
Q: Do you think OHA is doing enough for its part to benefit Hawaiians with the money that it gets?
A: I think OHA has a very, very large kuleana, a lot of responsibility, and I think it's doing the best that it can, given its resources.
Q: In a 2006 interview you said that to be a lawyer in the Native Hawaiian rights field was really frustrating, that it was really an uphill battle. ... Do you still think that's the case, or has it been a little less frustrating lately?
A: I think, as with probably other areas of law, there are good things that happen and negative things, and things that give you incredible hope. I mean, I have to say, for the most part our Hawaii Supreme Court comes out with some very good decisions on Native Hawaiian issues, particularly in relation to natural resources, so that certainly gives me hope.
================
Oct 23-24: U.S. DISTRICT COURT JUDGE MICHAEL SEABRIGHT DISMISSES LAWSUIT BY GRASSROOT INSTITUTE OF HAWAII AND JUDICIAL WATCH SEEKING TO BLOCK RACE-BASED ELECTION OF DELEGATES TO CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION TO CREATE A HAWAIIAN TRIBE. SEABRIGHT SAYS IT'S A PRIVATE ELECTION NOT SUBJECT TO THE CONSTITUTION'S 1ST, 14TH, AND 15TH AMENDMENTS, DESPITE BEING FUNDED WITH MILLIONS OF DOLLARS FROM STATE GOVERNMENT AGENCY OHA. NUMEROUS NEWS REPORTS PROVIDE VARIOUS DETAILS AND VARIOUS SPINS ON WHAT HAPPENED.
http://www.staradvertiser.com/news/breaking/20151023_federal_judge_rules_native_hawaiian_election_may_proceed.html?id=336407531
Honolulu Star-Advertiser, October 23, 2015, Breaking News at 11:35 AM.
Federal judge rules Native Hawaiian election may proceed
By Audrey McAvoy, Associated Press
A federal judge is ruling a Native Hawaiian election for a convention may go ahead next month.
U.S. District Court Judge J. Michael Seabright said today the election is a private poll, and not one run by the state.
A lawsuit filed in August to stop the poll argued it's unconstitutional for the state to be involved in a race-based election.
The state argues it's not involved in next month's vote to elect delegates for a convention to come up with a self-governance document for Native Hawaiians to ratify.
Native Hawaiians are the last remaining indigenous group in the U.S. that hasn't been allowed to establish its own government.
---------------
** Conklin's online comment
The final sentence in this news report is absolutely false: "Native Hawaiians are the last remaining indigenous group in the U.S. that hasn't been allowed to establish its own government."
There are hundreds of Indian groups on the mainland who have been refused federal recognition because they fail to satisfy one or more of 7 requirements, and several of those requirements are also failed by ethnic Hawaiians. That's why the Department of Interior wants to create a whole new set of rules just to create a tribe for their new BFF "Native Hawaiians" who cannot qualify in the normal way.
----------
Star-Advertiser breaking news revised version posted at 12:29 PM
Federal judge rules Native Hawaiian election may proceed
By Timothy Hurley
An election of Native Hawaiian delegates to a constitutional convention can go forward next month as planned, a federal judge ruled today.
U.S. District Court Judge J. Michael Seabright said he would not block the Na'i Aupuni election, saying it was a private election not subject to public election laws.
A lawsuit filed in August argued that state is illegally supporting a race-based and view-based election, and an additional motion sought to halt the proceeding scheduled during the month of November.
One of the plaintiffs, Keli'i Akina, president of the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii, said he plans to appeal the ruling to the 9th Circuit Court.
Voting for delegates begins November 1 for Hawaiians certified by the Native Hawaiian Roll Commission. Voting ends Nov. 30, with a constitutional convention planned to start in February.
---------------
http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/30337706/federal-judge-wont-stop-native-hawaiian-election
Hawaii News Now [3 TV stations], October 23, 2015, Breaking news 11:40 AM
by HNN staff
HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) -
U.S. District Court Judge Michael Seabright says an election for Native Hawaiians can move forward next month.
The Na'i Aupuni election is set for Nov. 1, 2015.
Native Hawaiians who are registered to vote will have the opportunity to elect delegates who will then meet at a convention, or 'aha, next year to decide what type of nation or government, if any, will be created or reorganized.
Seabright ruled that even though public funds were used for the effort there was enough separation between the organizations and the state that it is essentially a private election, which can be conducted among a specific group.
A group of both Native and non-Native Hawaiians had sued to prevent the election, saying it's unconstitutional to restrict voting to only Native Hawaiians.
The lawyers who brought the lawsuit are expected to appeal.
Meanwhile, the state argued constitutional protections only apply to government agencies or private entities acting on behalf of the state.
Bill Meheula, an attorney for Na'i Aupuni, maintained the lawsuit ignored the facts.
"They sued us under the law that says if we're going to be a state actor, we have to change state law -- and we're saying we're not changing state law. What we're doing is we're electing delegates, Hawaiian leaders, to come together and decide Hawaiian future in terms of self-determination and we don't know what that's going to be."
But Robert Popper, a Judicial Watch lawyer representing the plaintiffs, had said the vote is a clear violation of the 15th Amendment.
"You can't hold a race-based election -- and that's exactly what's going on," he said. "Based on our history, if anything is not permitted it's to screen people based on their race and then decide if they can vote."
The state says their involvement was limited to creating the roll of eligible Native Hawaiians, kana'iolowalu, who could choose to participate -- and has nothing to do with the election itself to determine self-governance.
Native Hawaiians are the only indigenous group in the United States that hasn't been allowed to establish their own government.
In court on Tuesday, both sides argued Na'i Aupuni would be a historic election because it would provide the first chance for self-determination since the Hawaiian kingdom was overthrown in 1893.
Seabright had said he'll rule from the bench with an explanation for his decision, and will issue a detailed written order later.
--------------
** Conklin's Online comment:
This sentence near the end of the news report is absolutely false, and is the same as what was said in the Star-Advertiser report. It's pure propaganda from OHA. "Native Hawaiians are the only indigenous group in the United States that hasn't been allowed to establish their own government."
There are hundreds of Indian groups on the mainland who have been refused federal recognition because they fail to satisfy one or more of 7 requirements, and several of those requirements are also failed by ethnic Hawaiians. That's why the Department of Interior wants to create a whole new set of rules just to create a tribe for their new BFF "Native Hawaiians" who cannot qualify in the normal way.
-------------
http://www.kitv.com/news/federal-judge-rules-native-hawaiian-election-may-proceed/36015324
KITV news, October 23, 2015, 11:40 AM
Federal judge rules Native Hawaiian election may proceed
HONOLULU —A federal judge is ruling a Native Hawaiian election for a convention may go ahead next month.
U.S. District Court Judge J. Michael Seabright said Friday the election is a private poll, and not one run by the state.
A lawsuit filed in August to stop the poll argued it's unconstitutional for the state to be involved in a race-based election.
The state argues it's not involved in next month's vote to elect delegates for a convention to come up with a self-governance document for Native Hawaiians to ratify.
Native Hawaiians are the last remaining indigenous group in the U.S. that hasn't been allowed to establish its own government.
** Conklin's online comment
The final sentence in this news report is absolutely false. It is pure propaganda which OHA has been spewing for 16 years, and the same false sentence is found in the news reports on the Star-Advertiser and Hawaii News Now (they're all in cahoots!): "Native Hawaiians are the last remaining indigenous group in the U.S. that hasn't been allowed to establish its own government."
There are hundreds of Indian groups on the mainland who have been refused federal recognition because they fail to satisfy one or more of 7 requirements, and several of those requirements are also failed by ethnic Hawaiians. That's why the Department of Interior wants to create a whole new set of rules just to create a tribe for their new BFF "Native Hawaiians" who cannot qualify in the normal way.
--------------
** Note from Ken Conklin: The following news report on the website of a TV station in Albany New York is copied here because it is typical of Associated Press media reports throughout America.
http://news10.com/ap/vote-to-proceed-involving-self-governing-by-native-hawaiians/
TV News 10, ABC affiliate, Albany NY
Vote to proceed involving self-governing by Native Hawaiians
AUDREY McAVOY, The Associated Press
Published: October 23, 2015, 7:46 pm
HONOLULU (AP) — A federal judge ruled Friday that an election can go forward to choose delegates to draft a document allowing Native Hawaiians to govern themselves.
U.S. District Court Judge J. Michael Seabright explained the election is a private poll -- not one run by the state -- as he denied a motion for a preliminary injunction to stop the vote set for next month.
Native Hawaiians are the last remaining indigenous group in the U.S. that hasn't been allowed to establish its own government.
In 2011, the state passed a law recognizing Hawaiians as the first people of Hawaii and laid the foundation for Native Hawaiians to establish their own government.
The election is intended to choose delegates to draft a self-governing document that would be submitted to Native Hawaiians for possible ratification.
Bill Meheula, an attorney for the organization Nai Aupuni which determined election criteria, hailed the ruling as "awesome."
"We've been looking forward to this for decades, since the 1970s," Meheula said.
Meheula said self-determination has been shown to help indigenous peoples such as Native Hawaiians struggling with low socio-economic status.
However, the election in Hawaii was challenged in a lawsuit filed in August that argued it was unconstitutional for the state to be involved in a race-based election.
The plaintiffs include two non-Hawaiians who aren't eligible for the voter roll and two Native Hawaiians who say their names appear on the roll without their consent.
Two Native Hawaiians who said they didn't want to participate in the process of self-determination also joined the complaint.
Judge Seabright, in an oral ruling from the bench, said the poll is a private election for the purpose of establishing self-determination for the indigenous people of Hawaii. Those elected won't be able to alter state or local laws, he said.
He also noted that the vote will not lead to the election of any federal, state or county officeholders.
Even if the election were found to be state-run, Seabright said, Hawaii has a compelling interest in organizing a Native Hawaiian community and that wouldn't be possible unless participation in the election is restricted to Native Hawaiians.
The push for self-governing came after former U.S. Sen. Daniel Akaka tried for a decade but failed to get a bill passed in the U.S. Congress that would give Native Hawaiians the same rights already extended to many Native Americans and Alaska Natives.
----------------
http://us3.campaign-archive1.com/?u=f9a371d0547f107d938233d66&id=6e30f2722f&e=4a7cf86850
Grassroot Institute of Hawaii, October 23, 2014, press release
Despite Decision, Plaintiffs Intend to Continue Fight Against Unconstitutional Election
Currently considering all of their options, including appeal
HONOLULU, HAWAII -- Oct. 23, 2015 -- Despite an adverse decision from district court Judge Michael Seabright, the effort to stop the state's unconstitutional Native Hawaiian election is far from over. Though Judge Seabright announced his ruling against a motion for a preliminary injunction that would halt the election pending the conclusion of a case against it (his written opinion is expected to follow), the plaintiffs are determined to continue.
"Hawaii's own attorneys said in open court that this is an historic election – and we represent Hawaiian citizens who can't vote in it because they are the wrong race," said Robert Popper, the attorney from Judicial Watch who argued the motion before Judge Seabright. "We think that is a wrong result."
"Today's ruling is only a temporary setback as we are confident that the constitutional arguments for our case will prevail," said Keli'i Akina, Ph.D., President of the Grassroot Institute and one of the plaintiffs in the case. "The people of Hawaii, including the Native Hawaiian community, have clearly expressed their concerns about the state's nation-building process and its racial divisiveness. It's time to set all that aside and stop diverting millions of dollars of public funds from meeting the real needs of Hawaiians and others for education, housing, and health care."
Speaking as a plaintiff, Dr. Akina continued: "We are now looking into all of our options, including the possibility of appeal. We strongly believe that the constitutional conflict inherent in this race-based election is clear and intend to continue the effort to put a halt to a divisive nation-building scheme."
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http://www.hawaiifreepress.com/ArticlesMain/tabid/56/ID/16173/quotShame-on-this-courtquot--Shouting-Erupts-as-Seabright-Upholds-Nai-Aupuni-Election.aspx
Hawaii Free Press, October 23, 2015
"Shame on this court"-- Shouting Erupts as Seabright Upholds Nai Aupuni Election
By Andrew Walden
"Shame on this court. This court is incompetent." The shouting from angry Hawaiian Homelands beneficiaries ended with Sam Kealoha Jr being removed from today's Federal Court hearing in Akina v Hawaii.
Plaintiffs led by Grassroot Institute President Keli'i Akina were asking the court to enjoin Nai Aupuni from conducting an election designed to select delegates to write a 'Hawaiian' tribal constitution in spite of the fact that Hawaiians are not American Indians. Voting is set to begin November 1.
Kealoha's outburst came after Seabright refused to hear from attorney Walter Schoettle who had earlier been denied the right to intervene on behalf of Hawaiian Homelands beneficiaries. After Kealoha was removed, Seabright relented, allowing Schoettle to make a statement.
Schoettle, who has previously litigated on behalf of Hawaiian Homes beneficiaries including Kealoha, pointed out: "This case has nothing to do with Native Hawaiians (as defined by the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act). This is about $500 million dollars of OHA money in exchange for surrendering Native Hawaiian rights."
With US Department of Justice attorney Sam Hirsch listening in by speakerphone from Washington, US District Court Judge Seabright did his job as part of the local power structure and, as expected, rejected plaintiffs on nearly every claim.
Seabright based his lengthy oral ruling on a finding that Nai Aupuni was conducting a private election rather than a State election in spite of the fact that Nai Aupuni is a State contractor funded by the State of Hawaii, Office of Hawaiian Affairs and is using a voter roll assembled by the Kanaiolowalu Roll Commission which was created by Hawaii Act 195 and appointed by Governor Neil Abercrombie.
The only points on which Seabright favored the plaintiffs were standing and timeliness.
Plaintiff attorney Bob Popper informed the court that "Plaintiffs are planning an appeal."
Interviewed by Hawai'i Free Press, Schoettle says he too is planning litigation.
Seabright said he expects to have a written order available in about a week.
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http://www.civilbeat.com/2015/10/hawaiians-only-election-gets-court-approval/
Honolulu Civil Beat, October 23, 2015
Hawaiians-Only Election Gets Court Approval
A U.S. District Court judge rejects a lawsuit that argues the Nai Aupuni election violates the U.S. Constitution. An appeal is likely.
By Chad Blair
An election of delegates to a Native Hawaiian convention on self-governance can proceed, a federal judge in Honolulu ruled Friday.
U.S. District Court Judge Michael Seabright said he will not block the Nai Aupuni election, set for next month, because it is a private election not subject to public-election laws.
That makes it different from elections for the trustees of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, a quasi-state agency responsible for improving the well-being of Native Hawaiians; federal courts have ruled that nonnatives can both run in those elections and vote for candidates.
The convention could create a Native Hawaiian governing body roughly similar in nature to the governing bodies of many U.S. Native American and Alaska Native tribes and indigenous groups.
Though the Nai Aupuni election process was facilitated through Act 195 by the Hawaii Legislature, Seabright said the Native Hawaiian Roll Commission, established as a result of the act, merely created a list of potential voters.
And though Nai Aupuni is funded through grants from OHA, Seabright said Nai Aupuni is "completely independent" -- even if OHA supports its activities. The OHA money was granted to the Akamai Foundation, a private nonprofit that in turn funded Nai Aupuni.
The election is being handled by a private contractor and not the state Office of Elections; and it will not result in the election of government officials. The bottom line, said Seabright, is that the Nai Aupuni election "has nothing to do with the government of the state of Hawaii" and is instead an "internal matter of self-determination."
Seabright also rejected arguments by the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii and Judicial Watch that the election, which involves only certified Native Hawaiian voters and candidates, is race-based and thus violates the 14th Amendment on equal protection and the 15th Amendment on due process.
A Matter of Public Interest
Nor were the First Amendment rights of the plaintiffs infringed upon, Seabright determined, saying they did not suffer "irreparable harm."
The judge also concluded that the election does not violate the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Finally, Seabright characterized the Nai Aupuni election as a matter of great public interest.
"The state has a compelling reason to give dignity to the indigenous people," he said, and could do so by letting Native Hawaiians "decide for themselves whether they want self-governance."
"The question of sovereignty is not going to go away," he said.
'Shame On This Court!'
Seabright said he would issue his formal written ruling in about a week. Grassroot Institute, a conservative public-policy think tank in Honolulu, and Judicial Watch, a conservative foundation based in the District of Columbia, are expected to appeal to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, in San Francisco.
Robert Popper, an attorney for Judicial Watch -- he and others on the mainland were connected by telephone lines to Seabright's Honolulu courtroom -- asked Seabright to certify a transcript of his oral order and approve a motion for an injunction to halt the election process pending appeal.
Seabright, perplexed by the requests, said he would not accept a motion that effectively would reverse his oral decision.
Soon after that, a man in the audience shouted out, "Shame on this court! It is incompetent!" The man was escorted out of the courtroom by federal marshals.
Speaking with reporters afterwards, Michael Lilly, the Grassroot Institute's attorney, disagreed with Seabright's ruling that Nai Aupuni is a private election.
"I don't see how you can really argue that this is a private action when it was all teed up and organized by the state of Hawaii through state agencies and state funding," he said. "It's about as much a state action as anything could be. And if you are able to create a way to avoid state action like this, then that's a prescription to make it very easy to avoid state action in other cases, which would be offensive."
But Bill Meheula, Nai Aupuni's attorney, said he believed Seabright made the right call. He said he and others involved in the process made sure Nai Aupuni was established as a private election.
The election is to be held by mail-in ballot and online throughout November. Election results are due Dec. 1 and the aha, or convention process, is set to be held on Oahu from February to April.
The delegates could establish a governing self-entity that would have government-to-government status with the United States. Meheula predicted that the election could lead to "structural change" for Native Hawaiians, and could benefit them greatly.
"Right now they are on the lowest rung of the socio-economic status," he said. "It's pretty much documented that indigenous people -- if they have self-determination, they have their own government -- that it makes a big difference, and for a long time too ... We've been looking forward to this for decades, from the seventies, and to have this moment right now where we are actually going to take that step, where 95,000 native Hawaiians can vote on 40 delegates that can start this process, this governance -- it's wonderful."
For his part, Kelii Akina, Grassroot Institute president, said, "Today's ruling is the first step in taking our case to a higher court, where we are confident that the constitutional principles will prevail."
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http://www.staradvertiser.com/newspremium/20151024_hawaiian_poll_challenge_rejected.html?id=336584761
Honolulu Star-Advertiser, October 24, 2015
Hawaiian poll challenge rejected
By Timothy Hurley
Those trying to stop a Native Hawaiian election in court vowed to continue their legal fight Friday despite a judge's decision to allow the voting of convention delegates to move forward.
Plaintiff Keli'i Akina, president of the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii, said he was confident the ruling would be overturned by a higher court.
"It is simply wrong for the state to use public resources in order to promote a racially discriminatory process," said Akina, one of six individuals who filed a lawsuit in August claiming the state is illegally running a race-based and view-based election.
On Friday U.S. District Judge J. Michael Seabright denied a motion to block the election, saying the vote is a private matter not subject to the same 14th Amendment requirements imposed on state-sanctioned elections.
In addition, Seabright denied most of the other constitutional claims brought by the plaintiffs, saying they failed to meet the requirements of violations cited in the First, 14th and 15th Amendments and the Voting Rights Act.
Afterward, Na'i Aupuni attorney Bill Meheula said the ruling underscores the fact that an election held exclusively for Native Hawaiians does not violate the U.S. Constitution.
Meheula said the ruling will be difficult to topple on appeal. Not only did the defendants win on the state action doctrine, he said, but on other constitutional claims as well.
"(Seabright) basically said they lost at both levels, and they needed to win on both levels. We only need to win on one level. So for them to win on appeal, they have to reverse him basically twice," Meheula said.
The ruling paves the way for a November election with more than 200 candidates hoping to become delegates to a governance aha, or constitutional convention, planned to start in February.
More than 95,000 Native Hawaiians were included on a list of eligible voters put together by the Native Hawaiian Roll Commission, the group established by the 2011 state Legislature in Act 195.
Na'i Aupuni, a group of five volunteer and unpaid directors with ties to Hawaiian royalty, is overseeing the election and convention with nearly $2.6 million given to it by the state Office of Hawaiian Affairs, which was tapped by Act 195 to underwrite the effort.
In court on Tuesday, attorneys for the plaintiffs argued that Na'i Aupuni was essentially a government actor carrying out the mandate of Act 195.
What's more, they said that even if Na'i Aupuni is considered an independent group, the election is public in its effect because of the far-ranging consequences it would have on the tens of thousands of Native Hawaiians and others in the state.
In his ruling, however, Seabright said any consequences of the election are purely speculation. Even if it results in the ratification of a constitution, the document would be powerless until it is recognized in negotiations with the state or federal government. In other words, he said, Na'i Aupuni is just an early step in the process.
Act 195 also didn't mandate any one self-governance process, the judge said, and the nexus between state funding and the election isn't close enough to label it "a state election."
Seabright, who moved quickly to issue a ruling before the election, said he would issue a more detailed written order in a week or so.
Outside the courtroom Friday, Honolulu attorney Michael Lilly, who represented the plaintiffs along with attorneys with the conservative public-interest group Judicial Watch, said, "This certainly isn't the end of the discussion."
Lilly said he didn't see how anyone could argue what is happening is a private action.
"It was organized by the state of Hawaii through state agencies and state funding, so it's about as much of a state action as anything could be," he said.
Left unchallenged, he said, Seabright's ruling is "a prescription to completely nullify the state-action requirement. It would completely destroy (the requirement) because it would be so easy to find that something is not state action by subterfuge."
Kamana'opono Crabbe, CEO of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, said the the judge's decision makes it clear that OHA took the appropriate steps to maintain neutrality in the process.
"We always believed it was a private election," Crabbe said. "It's purely for the purposes and goals of determining what options and direction Native Hawaiians want to go. It's not fixed. I know there are people who believe it's a slam dunk for federal recognition, but in our deliberations we really believe it's up to the people."
Ballots are scheduled to be mailed out Nov. 1, with voting ending Nov. 30. Voters will elect 40 delegates who will meet on Oahu between February and April over the course of eight consecutive weeks.
If the delegates recommend a form of Hawaiian government, a ratification vote may be held two months after the convention ends, according to Na'i Aupuni guidelines.
"The federal court has confirmed that Native Hawaiians have the right to bring our voices together to be heard," OHA Chairman Robert Lindsey said in a statement. "It's now up to us. This is our opportunity as a community to take on the kuleana -- the rights and responsibilities -- to improve our lives. Native Hawaiians have the chance to engage in Na'i Aupuni's process to ultimately create greater well-being for our people today and for generations to come."
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http://thegardenisland.com/news/local/judge-oks-election/article_ce3c6af2-bbfd-534f-8055-4f3c832b31ce.html
The Garden Island [Kaua'iu], October 24, 2015
Judge OKs election
Rules against injunction to halt voting for delegates to draft a document allowing Native Hawaiians to govern themselves
Associated Press
HONOLULU -- A federal judge ruled Friday that an election can go forward to choose delegates to draft a document allowing Native Hawaiians to govern themselves.
U.S. District Court Judge J. Michael Seabright explained the election is a private poll -- not one run by the state -- as he denied a motion for a preliminary injunction to stop the vote set for next month.
Native Hawaiians are the last remaining indigenous group in the U.S. that hasn't been allowed to establish its own government.
"It's terrific news," said Robin Danner, who represents Kauai on the Native Hawaiian Roll Commission, the group that is assembling and certifying a list of voters. "I hope all Native Hawaiians that want to participate will participate, and those that don't, that's OK, too."
Danner said the ruling was not suprising given that Na'i Aupuni, the group leading the nation-building effort, is not a state agency.
In 2011, the state passed a law recognizing Hawaiians as the first people of Hawaii and laid the foundation for Native Hawaiians to establish their own government.
The election is intended to choose delegates to draft a self-governing document that would be submitted to Native Hawaiians for possible ratification.
Bill Meheula, an attorney for the organization Nai Aupuni which determined election criteria, hailed the ruling as "awesome."
"We've been looking forward to this for decades, since the 1970s," Meheula said.
Meheula said self-determination has been shown to help indigenous peoples such as Native Hawaiians struggling with low socio-economic status.
The election in Hawaii was challenged in a lawsuit filed in August that argued it was unconstitutional for the state to be involved in a race-based election.
The plaintiffs include two non-Hawaiians who aren't eligible for the voter roll and two Native Hawaiians who say their names appear on the roll without their consent.
Kelii Akina, one of the plaintiffs, said he would appeal.
It's "wrong for the state government to use public resources in order to promote a racially discriminatory process," Akina said. "What's really at stake here is not only the constitution of the United States but also the aloha spirit."
** Online comment by Ken Conklin: The following sentence in this news report is totally false. "Native Hawaiians are the last remaining indigenous group in the U.S. that hasn't been allowed to establish its own government." It is OHA propaganda broadcast for 15 years. There are hundreds of Indian groups on the mainland who have been refused federal recognition because they fail to satisfy one or more of 7 requirements, and several of those requirements are also failed by ethnic Hawaiians. That's why the Department of Interior wants to create a whole new set of rules just to create a tribe for their new BFF "Native Hawaiians" who cannot qualify in the normal way.
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http://www.hawaiifreepress.com/ArticlesMain/tabid/56/ID/16190/Feds-Reestablishing-government-to-government-relationship-with-OHA-as-a-Tribe.aspx
Hawaii Free Press, October 25, 2015
Feds 'Reestablishing government-to-government relationship' with OHA as a Tribe
By Andrew Walden
By now, anybody not living under a rock knows that the US Department of the Interior plan for "reestablishing a government-to-government relationship with the Native Hawaiian community" does not refer to reestablishing a relationship with the Hawaiian Kingdom, which was a multi-ethnic state.
So what are the Feds "reestablishing"? It turns out to be a "government to government" relationship with OHA.
Akamai readers will remember that the US DoI's proposed rule includes very specific criteria to measure "broad-based community support" in a vote on any governing documents written by OHA's Na'i Aupuni 'Aha:
...if fewer than 30,000 Native Hawaiians cast votes in favor of the governing document, this criterion is not satisfied.... if more than 50,000 Native Hawaiians cast votes in favor of the governing document, the Secretary shall apply a strong presumption that this criterion is satisfied....
...if fewer than 9,000 HHCA-eligible Native Hawaiians cast votes in favor of the governing document, this criterion is not satisfied.... if more than 15,000 HHCA-eligible Native Hawaiians cast votes in favor of the governing document, the Secretary shall apply a strong presumption that this criterion is satisfied.... (Section 50:16, subparts g and h)
The DoI rule proposal explains where it derives those numbers from:
In the 1990s, the State of Hawaii's Office of Elections tracked Native Hawaiian status (To allow for race-based voting in OHA elections until the practice was outlawed by the US Supreme Court's February, 2000, Rice v Cayetano decision. --ed) and found that the percentage of Hawaii's registered voters who were Native Hawaiian was rising, from about 14.7 percent in 1992, to 15.5 percent in 1994, to 16.0 percent in 1996, and 16.7 percent in 1998. (This trend is generally consistent with census data showing growth in recent decades in the number of persons identifying as Native Hawaiian.) In the most recent of those elections, in 1998, there were just over 100,000 Native Hawaiian registered voters, about 65,000 of whom actually turned out and cast ballots in that off-year (i.e., non-presidential) Federal election. (Part III)
In other words, DoI's certification is dependent on the Tribe obtaining support from the pre-Rice OHA electorate. Based on continuity of the body politic, the only conclusion is that the DoI is "reestablishing" OHA as an Indian Tribe.
OHA already sets the standard for corruption, infighting, and resistance to transparency among Hawaii State agencies. What would happen if it became an Indian Tribe?
In the mid-1990s former Governor John Waihee proposed that the corrupt Broken Trustees of Kamehameha Schools relocate KSBE Corporate HQ to the Cheyenne River Sioux Indian Reservation because tribal jurisdiction would shield them from the state and federal investigations which eventually forced their resignations. Waihee is now Chair of the Kanaiolowalu Roll Commission. His son is an OHA Trustee.
How could an OHA Indian Tribe lead to Broken Trust-Part 2?
For the answer, we turn to an US DoI amicus brief submitted October 14 in the Akina v Hawaii lawsuit.
Because tribes pre-date the Constitution and did not participate in the Constitutional Convention, they are not governed by "constitutional provisions framed specifically as limitations on federal or state authority," including the Bill of Rights and the Civil War Amendments.....
Likewise, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, as amended, is directed only to a "State or political subdivision." So any Voting Rights Act claim against an Indian tribe must fail....
Tribes' exercise of sovereign governmental powers is constrained, however, by the Indian Civil Rights Act. ICRA guarantees most, but not all, of the protections for individual liberties similar to those found in the Bill of Rights and the Civil War Amendments, and makes them applicable to tribes....
And what could tribalized Hawaiians expect from the Indian Civil Rights Act? Minnesota Public Radio takes a look at the status of civil rights in Indian Country, pointing out:
Reports of civil rights violations on Minnesota's Indian reservations have been persistent for years. Indians have filed scores of complaints to state and federal agencies, saying they live under a system where political patronage and nepotism rule the day and tribal leaders can manipulate the legal system to benefit themselves and their supporters.
Political patronage? Nepotism? Sound familiar? Just in case you still don't get the point, the MPR series is titled, "Broken Trust."
Indian civil rights mean little because Tribes lack a system of checks and balances. A federally recognized OHA Indian Tribe would be exempt from State laws governing such things as land development and zoning. Given Hawaii's tough permitting process, developers would fall all over themselves to bribe the OHA Tribe for permits. As the mega-profits roll in, dissention would ensue. Business outside tribal lands would suffer.
After hundreds of California Indians were 'disenrolled' from their tribes in order to maximize casino profits for the remaining members, LA Weekly discovered the victims' recourse to the courts depends on the whim of distant federal Bureau of Indian Affairs officials:
Citing what he calls an "increase in the number of human and civil rights violations, especially within tribes that have gaming operations," (expelled tribal member) John Gomez Jr and his allies are working to reform the 1968 Indian Civil Rights Act....
"We have to be able to use that Indian Civil Rights Act," says (another expelled Indian) Michael Madariaga. "You can't go into the courts unless the federal government gets behind enforcing things. We're not there yet."
The DoI amicus brief sums up with this:
Native Hawaiian people have the same fundamental rights of political liberty and local self-government as any Indian tribe. Native Hawaiians should not be relegated to second-class status among our Nation's indigenous peoples. Accordingly, on this basis alone, plaintiffs' motion should be denied. (p23)
Without the civil rights protections expected by US Citizens, tribal citizenship IS second class citizenship. On this basis alone, the fake Hawaiian Indian Tribe should be rejected.
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http://www.staradvertiser.com/editorialspremium/20151023_rejecting_call_to_stop_aha_was_right_call.html?id=336535971
Honolulu Star-Advertiser, Sunday October 25, 2015, EDITORIAL
Rejecting call to stop 'aha' was right call
"Federal recognition" can be a contentious term within sectors of the Native Hawaiian community, but on Friday, Hawaii's indigenous people received a form of it from the courts.
In rejecting a motion seeking to block the election of delegates to an aha, or constitutional convention, U.S. District Court Judge J. Michael Seabright underscored the rights of all people to assemble and organize in this way. And as an act by a private entity, the election did not constitute a violation of government's constitutional protections.
He went on to affirm what has been clear in a century of case law, state constitutional provisions and statutes. The state and the federal government have maintained a special trust relationship with Native Hawaiian people since the overthrow of the monarchy and Hawaii's annexation, one that should support the quest for self-determination.
It's unquestionably good news for the private entity, the nonprofit Na'i Aupuni, which is organizing the aha delegates election in November, but a final chapter in this legal fight remains.
The plaintiffs, whose appeal is imminent, include non-Hawaiians who were excluded from the voter roll, and Hawaiians who objected to affirmations required in the most recent enrollment process.
The clock is ticking to file before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, but the attorneys will have to wait a bit. Seabright's carefully reasoned decision issued from the bench will be followed by a written ruling aimed at bolstering the arguments at the appellate level.
The core of the ruling is that the aha is a private assembly, one in which the government is simply not a player. This means there was no compelling public interest in stopping the election.
One of the charges in the complex case was that the Hawaiian-only election violated the 15th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
Quoting another ruling, Seabright said that provision precludes discrimination against voters in "elections to determine public governmental policy or to select public officials, not in private elections to determine private affairs."
Seabright correctly concluded the aha election by itself would not change public law, so there was no basis to intervene.
The complainants contended that the funding of the election process through a grant from the state Office of Hawaiian Affairs made it public. Seabright noted that the grant contract included a clause barring OHA's involvement in Na'i Aupuni's work -- which he said was enough separation to mean the activity of organizing the aha election was private.
Plaintiffs also challenged the pledges signed by about a third of the electorate -- those who enrolled through Na'i Aupuni. These enrollees had to affirm their agreement that Hawaiians had not relinquished sovereignty. The rest, enrolled in earlier initiatives by OHA, only had to prove they were Native Hawaiian.
However, Seabright was impressed neither by that argument, nor by the protest of those non-Hawaiians who were excluded. Those unwilling to agree with the extra statements could have joined the voter roll through other initiatives, he said, and could have withdrawn from the roll, so there was no First Amendment free-speech violation.
And if the state requires non-Hawaiians to have access to every private assembly, he said that essentially bars Native Hawaiians from ever being able to organize at all. And as Native Hawaiians are the only remaining indigenous group in the U.S. that has been precluded from establishing its own government, that would constitute an injustice.
Many historical events have led to this juncture. Former U.S. Sen. Daniel Akaka worked unsuccessfully to kickstart a process through Congress that would end in the federal recognition of Native Hawaiians as a political entity.
Other native groups have followed an alternative, administrative route to "nation within a nation" status, one that could be enabled now for Native Hawaiians. The Obama administration, sympathetic to the cause, has laid out a way a Native Hawaiian entity could seek such recognition through the U.S. Department of the Interior.
Whether or not the aha will lead to that point is uncertain. The Native Hawaiian community is split, even bitterly so, on whether sovereignty means any relationship with the U.S. at all.
That's a decision for another day. It's unrealistic to expect that the disagreements of this community can melt away and that Hawaiians, or any people of diverse opinion, could speak with one voice.
For now, the community can, and should, unite around the prospect of gathering in about a month's time to begin exercising that voice -- whatever the message ultimately will be.
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http://us3.campaign-archive2.com/?u=f9a371d0547f107d938233d66&id=a31ec049f3&e=4a7cf86850
Grassroot Institute of Hawaii, October 26, 2015, Press release
Plaintiffs File Appeal in Lawsuit Against Unconstitutional Election
Friday's ruling on injunction appealed to the Ninth Circuit
HONOLULU, HAWAII -- Oct. 26, 2015 -- Today, the Plaintiffs in Akina v. State of Hawai'i filed an appeal from the Order of Judge Michael Seabright denying their motion to halt a race-based election to establish a Hawaiian tribe in violation of the Constitution. On Friday, Judge Seabright announced his ruling against the Plaintiff's motion for a preliminary injunction. Though Judge Seabright has not yet issued his written opinion, the fact that the election process is ongoing persuaded the Plaintiffs of the importance of an immediate appeal.
"We feel confident that the appellate courts will stop a racially-divisive state-sponsored election which tramples on constitutional rights," said former Hawai'i Attorney General Michael A. Lilly who, along with Bob Popper and other attorneys at Judicial Watch, represents the Plaintiffs.
"Every day that this unconstitutional election is allowed to proceed is another day that Native Hawaiians are misled, people's rights are bypassed, and the will of the thousands of Hawaiians who have voiced their opposition to the state's nation-building scheme are ignored," said Keli'i Akina, Ph.D., President of the Grassroot Institute and one of the Plaintiffs in the case. "We must stop wasting time, money, and good will on a divisive and unconstitutional race-based election and begin looking for ways to improve the lives of everyone who lives in our state."
Speaking as a Plaintiff, Dr. Akina continued: "We believe that the ruling against our preliminary injunction was the wrong decision. The law is clear on the issues in this case, and we are certain that an appeal to a higher court will demonstrate that this election is harmful to Native Hawaiians and our constitutional principles."
The Notice of Appeal can be viewed at:
http://new.grassrootinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/106-Notice-of-Interlocutory-Appeal.pdf
To see all the documents for the case, go to:
http://new.grassrootinstitute.org/2015/10/akina-v-hawaii-the-documents/
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http://www.inversecondemnation.com/inversecondemnation/2015/10/tips-from-an-election-lawyer-for-setting-up-private-racially-based-elections-er-opinion-polls.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+inversecondemnationcom+%28inversecondemnation%29
Inverse Condemnation blog by property-law attorney Robert Thomas, who specializes in defending against eminent domain, and who also is the Hawaii legal representative for the Pacific Legal Foundation
October 26, 2015
Tips From An Election Lawyer For Setting Up Private Racially-Exclusive Elections, er ... "Opinion Polls"
1. Don't repeatedly refer to your private poll as an "election" and limit it to "voters" of only a certain race. Real "voters" who are excluded from your election .. I mean poll might get the wrong idea, like it's an election or something.
2. Don't use public money to fund said election ... "poll," even indirectly. Washing public money through a government agency to a nonprofit might give people who don't understand these things the wrong idea. Those fools might still consider it public money even though it is once-removed from official agency funding of your poll. Plus, it just looks bad, man.
3. Don't go on and on about how this election is to select "candidates" to be "delegates" to a "constitutional convention," when this is really like a Moose Lodge vote and a wholly private affair, and none of anyone else's damn business.
4. Don't pay attention when others say that the fact that your election process was a result of an act of the State Legislature makes it look like this was an election of great public interest backed by the state, or puts the private nonprofit conducting the election and a government agency into a "symbiotic relationship." Pshaw, what do they know?
If you fail to take heed, don't be surprised if you get sued. And if the District Court rejects the lawsuit on the basis your election is really a private poll and there's no "state action" which triggers the usual constitutional prohibitions on racially-exclusive elections, don't be too surprised if the Ninth Circuit sees it a different way.
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http://www.staradvertiser.com/editorialspremium/20151027_for_hawaiians_sovereignty_comes_with_a_few_deadlines.html?id=337391331
Honolulu Star-Advertiser, October 27, 2015
For Hawaiians, sovereignty comes with a few deadlines
By Richard Borreca (regular columnist)
America was not born on a timetable, but it appears that if a new nation-within-a-nation concept of Hawaiian recognition is to be created, the job is slated to be completed by June of 2016.
Last week, U.S. District Court Judge J. Michael Seabright rejected calls to halt the process.
Thanks to the financial backing of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, a process is underway so that Native Hawaiians can elect 40 delegates to a convention, or 'aha, that between February and April of next year would draft a constitution.
"Two months after 'aha concludes: If delegates recommend a form of Hawaiian government, a ratification vote may be held," OHA explains on its website.
Seabright ruled that the convention would not be a public organization and would not be making state law, nor would it select public representatives.
The plaintiffs, including Keli'i Akina, president of the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii, had claimed the opposite, that state money was going to pay for an election in which only Native Hawaiians were allowed to vote.
They argue that flies in the face of the U.S. Supreme Court Rice v. Cayetano decision, saying the state could not restrict eligibility to vote in OHA trustee elections. Previously only those of Hawaiian ancestry could vote.
Only those of Hawaiian ancestry can vote in the upcoming election to select delegates to the convention, but the Seabright ruling gives supporters the chance to move ahead, although it is expected that Akina and the other plaintiffs will appeal.
If time is short to draft rules for a national constitution for Hawaiian recognition, even more limiting is any sense of unity of purpose behind the calls for Hawaiian sovereignty.
The local process is closely linked to the federal Department of Interiors efforts to draft rules for what a Hawaiian national constitution could contain. While supporters of the federal rules say there are no restrictions, the preliminary federal rules say no gambling, no touching of Hawaiian Home Lands and no changing the 50 percent blood quantum requirements.
All of that does nothing to tamp down divisions within the Hawaiian community. At one extreme there are those who argue that the actual Hawaiian Kingdom still exists, and there are more moderates who are more concerned about a process to pay for past federal land grabs.
Supporters understand that the timing on this process is still the most urgent component.
The process is moving forward because President Barack Obama, since he was a U.S. senator, has been a strong supporter of bills to enable Hawaiian recognition through legislation sponsored by former U.S. Sen. Daniel K. Akaka.
When U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell recently announced the federal rules, she said: "Today's proposal is testament to the Obama administrations strong support for our nation's native peoples right to self-determination."
It was former President Bill Clinton who signed the Apology Resolution passed by Congress in 1993, so there is some indication that a Hillary Clinton presidency would also look favorably on a process of recognition, but there are no guarantees. And if the next president is a Republican, recognition would be a political impossibility.
So while much of the process is about gaining compromises and succeeding in the courts, for Native Hawaiians to succeed, they will also need to beat the clock.
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http://www.civilbeat.com/2015/10/roll-of-thunder-lifting-the-veil-on-nai-aupuni/
Honolulu Civil Beat, October 27, 2015
Roll of Thunder: Lifting The Veil On Na'i Aupuni
Many feel Na'i Aupuni is nothing but an elaborate attempt to force Hawaiians into making a decision they do not fully understand.
By Trisha Kehaulani Watson
Few freedoms chart the course of global history like the right to engage in meaningful governance. For this right, people have died, waged war, and walked through deserts for hours. Governance brings out the best in humanity, and the very worst in it.
Kanaiolowalu and Na'i Aupuni have brought out the very worst in modern Hawaiian governance. It realizes every fear of the Hawaiian community about a blind march towards federal recognition without meaningful or informed input from the larger Hawaiian community. It is an alarming political maneuver by a handful of Hawaiians committed to ignoring history and excluding the overwhelming majority of Hawaiians who remain alienated from this process.
History
Our beloved Queen Lili'uokalani yielded a nation with these words:
Now, to avoid any collision of armed forces, and perhaps the loss of life, I do, under this protest and impelled by said forces, yield my authority until such time as the government of the United States shall, upon the facts being presented to it, undo the action of its representative, and reinstate me in the authority which I claim as the constitutional sovereign of the Hawaiian Islands.
She yielded so that we who stand today may live. Yet, she never surrendered and she never gave up fighting to restore her beloved Hawaiian Kingdom. She, in her words, "would give the last of my blood; it is for (my people) that I would spend, nay, am spending, everything belonging to me."
Her descendants risked death by hanging. Our kupuna raised the voices to the rafters in Hawaiian churches calling upon all kanaka to affix their names and signatures to the Ku'e Petitions in opposition to American annexation. Yet, Na'i Aupuni ignores these important historical events instead dragging all Hawaiians down the aisle to a shotgun wedding with federal recognition.
A hallmark of good governance is fair and accurate representation. This holds particularly true in the formation stages of a new government when a people's needs must be well understood. Na'i Aupuni builds upon the failures of Kanaiolowalu, throwing good money after bad. This waste of Native Hawaiian trust resources needs to stop.
The Rise And Fall Of Kanaiolowalu
For all of this to make sense, a little history lesson is necessary.
In 2000, the U.S. Supreme Court held in Rice v. Cayetano that it was a violation of the 15th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution to have a state election exclusive for Native Hawaiians. At the time, only Native Hawaiians were allowed to vote for the Trustees of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. In their decision, the Court essentially held Hawaiians did not enjoy the same political protection Native American tribes held, and hence the frantic race to secure Hawaiian federal recognition began.
For over a decade, this effort focused on the Akaka Bill. The Office of Hawaiian Affairs poured millions of dollars into it. Groups formed to advocate and lobby for it. A narrative built around two central arguments: 1) Hawaiians will lose all their programs if we didn't secure federal recognition, and 2) if we didn't secure federal recognition while Senator Inouye was alive, we would never get it. Fifteen years later, the Akaka Bill has never passed. Senator Inouye is no longer with us. Hawaiian programs are still standing and just fine.
After the Akaka Bill route failed, advocates of federal recognition decided to attempt to bypass Congress by seeking state recognition first. This is Act 195 (2011) (known as Kanaiolowalu or the Native Hawaiian Roll Commission). The goal of this Act was to enroll Hawaiian voters for a future election. Act 195 failed rather miserably, turning out to be - as we say - a "political plum."
Upon passage, the Roll Commission set a goal of enrolling 200,000 Hawaiians, a fair goal – and this goal was still less than half the global population of Hawaiians. Yet, within its first two years of implementation (between the signing of the Act in 2011 and September 2013), less than 19,000 Hawaiians enrolled, despite having a $4 million budget from the Office of Hawaiian Affairs.
To increase enrollment, the State Legislature passed a second bill with far less fanfare than Act 195. Act 77 (2013) took the OHA registries from Operation 'Ohana, the Hawaiian Registry, and Kau Inoa and forcibly merged them into Kanaiolowalu. This in essence attempted to create the illusion of robust support for Kanaiolowalu where there was none. Many of the individuals on these registries signed up as scholarship or grant requirements – situations that had nothing to do with nation building.
The majority of people enrolled with Kanaiolowalu never actually signed up with the Native Hawaiian Roll Commission.
This created serious additional governance issues: the personal information in these registries was turned over without the individuals consent, individuals were not given the option to opt-in, removal of ones name was burdensome and that burden was placed on the individual.
Worst of all, without consent from any of the individuals on the list, Kanaiolowalu would then turn the entire list indiscriminately over to a private entity, Na'i Aupuni, without any assurances as to how the information is being safeguarded or used by a non-governmental agency.
Today, tens of thousands of Hawaiians are receiving election notices from Na'i Aupuni – an entity they never agreed could have access to their personal information. Does Na'i Aupuni have access to birth certificates? Or copies of other photo identification? How exactly was a state entity allowed to turn over personal information to a private non-governmental entity without the individuals approval?
The bottom line is that any claim of "huge numbers" of support for Kanaiolowalu or Na'i Aupuni is a complete fiction.
What Is Na'i Aupuni?
So by 2014 Kanaiolowalu was "mostly dead" and OHA Trustees put a stop on the blank check. Nonetheless, refusing to give up on that which they had wasted so much beneficiary funding, OHA still needed a way to move forward that was unattached to the State, for risk of violating the Rice decision.
They convened a group of Hawaiian organizations and attempted to get them to enter into a limited liability partnership (LLP) to convene an 'aha. Nearly everyone balked. Largely because the agreement pitched by OHA staff placed all the legal liability on the organizations, which would have been impossible for these organizations to assume. Particularly it was known these actions would invite lawsuits. It just demonstrates that the disconnect between OHA and the community was no longer a simple disconnect, but a chasm.
Unable to make this latest scheme work, OHA Trustees turned to one of their long time friends and allies to single handedly form a non-profit, Na'i Aupuni. Na'i Aupuni was incorporated on December 23, 2014.
As of October 24, 2015, the organizations incorporator has yet to name a single director or officer with the Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs. It does not make information about its meetings available to the public. There is no indication it has ever held a single meeting. According to their bylaws, they are only required to hold one meeting per year; therefore it is entirely possible the organization has yet to hold a single formal meeting.
It has no Hawai'i State General Excise Tax License. It has not filed with the Hawai'i Attorney Generals Office as a charity. It has not filed for tax-exemption status with the IRS – I have serious questions as to if they would qualify for tax-exempt status. Despite all of this, the organization filed for a multi-million dollar grant with the Office of Hawaiian Affairs and was awarded $2,598,000 by the Office on April 27, 2015.
For the descendants of people who prided themselves on integrity and excellence, we must ask ourselves: is this the best we can do? The answer, sadly, is no. Not by a long shot.
There is no trust here, nor should there be.
There were serious ethnical questions as to the Kanaiolowalu spending. For example, according to public documents, Kanaiolowalu issued $673,285.75 to Makauila Inc. a nonprofit co-founded in 2010 by one of the Roll Commissioners. Makauila was the largest single recipient of funding from Kanaiolowalu.
While that Commissioner stepped off the organizations board immediately prior to the organization receiving the funding, Makauila continued to work with his company, even sharing office space with his company, raising serious questions about the ethics of the Commission. This same Commissioner and others have now formed a slate to run as delegates in the upcoming 'aha, potentially securing themselves tremendous influence over the future of the Hawaiian community and its vast resources.
The sad reality is that an alarming number of the candidates running as delegates for the Na'i Aupuni 'aha financially benefitted from the Roll Commission.
Many, myself included, feel Na'i Aupuni is nothing but an elaborate attempt to coerce Hawaiians into handing over a powerful, reemerging national identity and force them into making a decision they do not fully understand. It is an effort to seize away Hawaiian trust resources by people who have sadly proven themselves untrustworthy.
Make no mistake: I firmly believe it is the final nail in the Queen's coffin.
Rather than herd and force Hawaiians into a process that is rushed and opaque, I choose instead to believe in my people. I choose instead to believe in a Hawai'i that is free and empowered by knowledge. I believe the state and federal governments can be our partners and friends – I have no ill will towards them.
Yet, if they consider themselves a friend of the Hawaiian people, they should require OHA to truly be neutral and provide equity to all positions, including independence, which federal recognition excludes under the Department of Interior proposal. Participants need to be fully educated and informed. Resources should be distributed equitability. That has not happened throughout this process.
Further, the delegate distribution appears to be completely arbitrary. There are no election rules. There is no accountability to the Hawaiian people for this funding. There is no information on how the decision regarding this critical process was decided. It is entirely plausible it was decided by a single individual with a long history of advocacy for federal recognition.
The truth is that if a critical mass of Hawaiians got together and made fully informed decision to pick federal recognition, it wouldnt bother me. But I believe to my core in real self-determination. I believe free and informed governance is a human right, and to see Hawaiians denying other Hawaiians that right is heart-breaking.
The illusion of fairness and opportunity Na'i Aupuni pitches is not enough. It creates only a shell of governance, leaving people deprived of dignity and true freedom.
We deserve better. Hawai'i deserves better.
Ho'opono
If Hawaiians have not come together, it is only because we have given them no rallying point -- no inspiration -- no true leadership. I have no doubt, none at all, that if real leadership were to emerge, Hawaiians would come together as a people.
To my Hawaiian brothers and sisters, do what you feel in your hearts you must, but do so from a place of education, prayer, and strength as our kupuna did. Know where you place your name and why, because it is not only your name, it carries the mana of all your ancestors who came before you and it binds all your descendants who will come after you. Place your name only with knowledge and a fulfillment of kuleana, because your name is something they can never take from you, you must hand it over to them freely -- so care for that gift wisely.
I have decided after deep prayer, many hours of careful study, and now with certainty that this process is flawed and dangerous. If you were to ask me what you should do: remove your name from the registry. Turn your back on this process. Demand something that brings us together – an inclusive, informed process. It is easily achievable with better leadership. A better way is possible.
Demand better.
Is there any one of the 500,000 of who truly believes this is the best we are capable of? That this represents the best of us? Queen Kapi'olani told us kuli'a i ka nu'u. Is this really our summit? Is this something we can be proud of? 'A'ole.
I have been told that I will be attacked for speaking out. I have been warned that speaking truth against the politically powerful will have consequences, and honestly, Im scared of those consequences. Who wouldn't be?
But I've decided Im more afraid of what my silence would bring. I'm more afraid of what morally bankrupt future Im condemning our children to if I don't speak out. So know simply that every word herein in diligently researched and heartfelt truth.
Offer to you my truth, whatever the consequences, so that you may have opportunity to find yours.
I leave you with this: many of us were blessedly taught by our kupuna. When we did something messy or sloppy, our kupuna did not care how long we had been at it. They did not care if could try to fix it. What mattered is that we were doing it wrong -- that our methods were sloppy or lazy. They knew when you short-changed the method your product always came out poho, wasteful. They always made us start again and do it correctly.
Na'i Aupuni is poho.
Its time to start again.
About the Author
Trisha Kehaulani Watson was born and raised in Manoa Valley on the island of Oahu. She is a graduate of Punahou School. She obtained her M.A. from Washington State University and her J.D. and Ph.D. from the University of Hawaii. She specializes in environmental and cultural resource conservation.
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http://www.staradvertiser.com/editorialspremium/letterspremium/20151027_halloween_spending_should_be_cut_back.html?id=337394351
Honolulu Star-Advertiser, October 27, 2015, Letter to editor
U.S. citizenship best choice for Hawaii
"Aloha Aina" rallies to create a new Native Hawaiian government, supported by veteran political activist Walter Ritte and Maui Democratic state Rep. Kaniela Ing, will not succeed because the majority of our U.S. citizens are not foolish enough to give up their rights provided under our U.S. Constitution ("'Aloha Aina rallies drawing crowds, but maybe not voters," Star-Advertiser, On Politics, Oct. 23).
Ritte said, "The trick right now is to take the energy for Hawaiian independence and sovereignty and see if there is interest in participating in electoral politics."
I believe the majority of our resident U.S. citizens who possess many rights and benefits would be foolish to give up such freedom for a race-based sovereign government, with citizens required to have a quantum of Hawaiian blood, and headed by individuals seeking political power and control over all our Hawaiian islands and its natural resources.
Wilbert W. W. Wong Sr.
Kaneohe
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http://www.indianz.com/News/2015/019380.asp
Indianz.com blog, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2015
Republicans push for federal recognition bill despite opposition
** Photo caption
Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) gestures at a House Subcommittee on Indian, Insular and Alaska Native Affairs hearing in Washington, D.C., on October 28, 2015. Still image from House Committee on Natural Resources / YouTube
Republican lawmakers vowed to move forward with a controversial federal recognition bill on Wednesday despite a lack of support from Indian Country and the Obama administration.
The United South and Eastern Tribes and the Ute Tribe of Utah are among the first to register official opposition to H.R.3764, the Tribal Recognition Act. The bill, which was just introduced last week, strips the Bureau of Indian Affairs of its ability to recognize tribes.
Yet Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska), the chairman of the House Subcommittee on Indian, Insular and Alaska Native Affairs, brushed aside the criticism. He accused unnamed lobbyists of influencing tribes to oppose the fast-moving measure.
"What bothers me is that Indian Country is not trying to solve problems," Young asserted at the hearing on Capitol Hill even though USET, the National Congress of American Indians and other tribal organizations have been calling for reforms to the federal recognition process for decades.
Indianz.Com SoundCloud: House Subcommittee on Indian, Insular and Alaska Native Affairs Legislative Hearing on H.R. 3764
http://www.indianz.com/m.asp?url=https://soundcloud.com/indianz/sets/house-subcommittee-on-indian-insular-and-alaska-native-affairs-october-28-2015
When Rep. Raul Ruiz (D-California), the top Democrat on the subcommittee, tried to explain why tribes oppose the bill, Young interrupted.
"Who do you think ginned these letters up?" Young asked.
"I think the Utes are deciding for themselves," Ruiz responded.
Young didn't seem to like the answer. He suggested that the tribe -- or anyone else from Indian Country who opposes the measure -- could face retribution for their positions.
YouTube: Legislative Hearing on the Tribal Recognition Act of 2015
http://www.indianz.com/m.asp?url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVrgRovWnT8
"When they get a chance to testify, we'll find out who represents them here," Young said, again referring to unnamed lobbyists.
Assistant Secretary Kevin Washburn, the head of the BIA, relayed the Obama administration's strong opposition to the measure. He questioned why he was the sole witness at the hearing -- no tribal leaders or petitioning groups were invited.
"It was like legislation by ambush because I never knew you were working on this bill," Washburn said of Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah), who introduced the measure on October 20 while hundreds of tribal leaders were at the NCAI annual convention in San Diego, California, last week. "I'm impressed you were able to keep it under wraps in a place like this."
Washburn said the bill places the status of dozens of already recognized tribes in doubt because it asserts that Congress -- and only Congress -- can determine which groups are worthy of a government-to-government relationship. By putting the decision-making power solely in the hands of 535 lawmakers, who remain unable to carry out basic functions like approving a budget for the federal government, petitioning groups might never get an answer from the United States.
Assistant Secretary Kevin Washburn, right, with National Congress of American Indians President Brian Cladoosby at the organization's annual conference in San Diego, California, on October 19, 2015. Photo by Indianz.Com
"It might just come over and just hang out there and no one ever get a firm no or a firm yes," Washburn testified.
Bishop, who serves as chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, promised an additional hearing to solicit the views of "Native Americans" on the bill. He also said he was open to changes regarding the criteria that will be used to judge petitions.
However, like other Republicans, Bishop vowed to move forward because he wants Congress to assert its authority. "The standards should be set in statute so that everyone knows what those [standards] are," he said.
The BIA's Office of Federal Acknowledgment would be required to evaluate petitions under the criteria set by law. But that would be the extend of the agency's role.
Interior Secretary Sally Jewell and Assistant Secretary Kevin Washburn visited the Shinnecock Nation of New York on October 1, 2015, for the launch of the Tribal Solarthon. The Shinnecock Nation is the last tribe whose federal recognition was approved and finalized by the BIA after an administrative appeal. Photo from Shinnecock Nation / Facebook
"Ultimately it would come back to Congress to fulfill the Congressional responsibility of actually making the designation," Bishop said.
Historically, tribes have secured recognition through treaties, acts of Congress, federal court decisions or executive orders issued by the president of the United States. But the legislative and judicial branches have deferred to the BIA since 1978, when the federal acknowledgment process was established.
The slow-moving and costly process has been criticized almost from the start and it typically takes decades for groups to complete. Reform efforts, though, have not gained much traction either in Congress or in Indian Country.
That changed when the Obama administration announced a series of significant changes to the process, including the criteria used to judge applications. Opposition from Congress and some tribes -- some of whom voiced complaints at a hearing in April -- prompted Washburn to scale back the Part 83 reforms that he finalized them in June.
Former Chief Kevin Brown of the Pamunkey Tribe, center, is blessed with an honor song during the National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development's New Day Now rally at the U.S. Capitol on June 16, 2015. The Pamunkey Tribe is the last group to win federal recognition from the BIA but its status has not been finalized due to a pending appeal. Photo by Indianz.Com
At the hearing yesterday, Young, Bishop and other Republicans made repeated reference to that testimony from April as grounds for taking action. But no tribal leaders have testified since the rule was finalized.
"Although this is a compromise, NCAI greatly appreciates the effort and commitment from the administration to get these regulations finalized and to improve the process," NCAI President Brian Cladoosby said in a press release at the time. "NCAI has been pushing for years for all tribes seeking recognition to have a fair and equitable process."
Even though Congress has always had the authority to recognize tribes, lawmakers are extremely reluctant to exercise their powers. The last stand-alone recognition bill was in the mid-1990s.
Two tribes were able to secure legislative recognition in 2000 as part of an omnibus Indian package that passed in the final days of the 106th Congress and was signed into law during the final days of the Clinton presidency.
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http://www.staradvertiser.com/newspremium/hawaiinewspremium/20151029_ritte_ends_his_candidacy_for_hawaiian_convention.html?id=338251902
Honolulu Star-Advertiser, October 29, 2015
Ritte ends his candidacy for Hawaiian convention
The activist opposes the political regimen as failing to be "pono"
By Timothy Hurley
Veteran Molokai activist Walter Ritte Jr. formally renounced his candidacy to the Native Hawaiian convention Wednesday and called for the boycott of a self-governance process he described as rigged.
The move comes just days before ballots are scheduled to be sent to more than 90,000 people registered with the Native Hawaiian Roll Commission.
While none of the other 209 candidates for the Na'i Aupuni convention joined Ritte on the steps of Hawaii Hall at the University of Hawaii at Manoa on Wednesday morning, Ritte did speak with 75 supporters behind him, including members of the Royal Order of Kamehameha I, which issued its own repudiation of the Na'i Aupuni process.
Alika Desha, the group's chancellor, declared that the kingdom of Hawaii still exists and that the organization cannot support anything that might undermine that fact.
In a related development, the plaintiffs in a lawsuit trying to stop the election have appealed a U.S. district judge's ruling that has cleared the way for the election.
The appeal was filed Monday with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals by four Native Hawaiians and two non-Hawaiians who filed suit in August, claiming the election is race-based, discriminatory and in violation of the U.S. Constitution.
Na'i Aupuni, a group of five volunteer and unpaid directors with ties to Hawaiian royalty, is overseeing the election and convention with nearly $2.6 million given to it by the state's Office of Hawaiian Affairs.
Voting is scheduled to take place throughout November, with the convention planned to begin in February. Forty delegates representing Hawaiians across the state and on the mainland may consider proposals for Native Hawaiian self-governance, according to Na'i Aupuni.
Ritte, a former OHA trustee and Hawaiian activist going back to the 1970s, told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser last week that he had a change of heart and was planning to withdraw from the election.
"I cannot participate in a process that is not pono," Ritte declared Wednesday, using the Hawaiian word for "just."
Ritte said he originally planned to work within the convention to stop proposals related to "federal recognition," or the nation-within- a-nation model. He said he's against Hawaiians being turned into Indians.
But he said it has become increasingly apparent the process is "rigged to fit very specific agendas" — specifically those supported by the OHA board of trustees, which he said is now more aligned with the objectives of the state and the U.S. government.
With OHA as its benefactor, the convention is designed to produce a new constitution and referendum with the potential to negotiate with the state and extinguish Hawaiian claims to crown and government lands once and for all, he said.
"We need to stop this hewa (mistake) Na'i Aupuni, its fake pathway to nationhood and its disillusioned vision of sovereignty," Ritte said. "We must hold fast to our rightful kingdom."
Na'i Aupuni responded by issuing the following statement: "Na'i Aupuni encourages Native Hawaiians to voice their opinion on the election process because the voters and delegate candidates should hear all voices.
"However, the fact that some Native Hawaiians protest because they are concerned that their desired outcome will not be accepted emphasizes the need for a Native Hawaiian convention. Without a process where elected leaders can discuss various options and issues to find a consensus, the Native Hawaiian community will never proceed forward in unity. The outcome of the Na'i Aupuni process, which involves 90,000 potential voters and 200 candidates, cannot be predetermined but it will be an important first step toward achieving Native Hawaiian solidarity."
Last week Kamana'opono Crabbe, CEO of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, said that despite what some people believe, OHA has maintained neutrality and there is no predetermined outcome for Na'i Aupuni.
"It's purely for the purposes and goals of determining what options and direction Native Hawaiians want to go," Crabbe said.
In denying a motion to block the election on Friday, U.S. District Judge J. Michael Seabright said he was convinced that Na'i Aupuni is sufficiently independent despite its origins in the 2011 state Legislature and OHA funding.
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http://www.civilbeat.com/2015/10/nai-aupuni-offers-possible-path-toward-common-ground/
Honolulu Civil Beat, October 29, 2015
Na'i Aupuni Offers Possible Path Toward Common Ground
Despite misconceptions and divisions over forming a Native Hawaiian constitution and government, Native Hawaiians can make what they will of it.
By Zuri Aki
Hawaiian sovereignty was stolen -- snatched by a thief in the night. It was taken from the Hawaiian people by a racist group of men in collusion with the United States government under the administration of President Benjamin Harrison.
The taking of Hawaiian sovereignty is an age-old story with which many residents of the Hawaiian Islands -- perhaps most -- are all too familiar. To the utter dismay, the heart-felt sympathy or sorrowful empathy of these residents, the story of the Hawaiian fight for justice has never been silent, manifesting itself in street-side protests, media-covered marches, courtroom challenges, social media memes, op-eds like this one and so on.
To many non-Kanaka Maoli (non-Native Hawaiians), the Kanaka Maoli people seem angry -- and we are. To others, we seem hurt; we are that, as well. To the rest, we seem intolerant, excluding, spiteful. But we are not. We just want to live by our terms in a way that is not hostile to our identity as Kanaka Maoli and the 'aina (natural world) to whom we (those who have been disconnected from the culture) maintain a familial relationship.
For a great many Kanaka Maoli, our lives begin under oppression. Our childhood is spent immersed in injustice. The love of our parents and their expression of it are mired in the grief of their struggle to raise us in a world unaccommodating to them. The wisdom of our grandparents is encumbered by the misery associated with the loss of their world; they share the memory of the places they knew as a child and weep for their grandchildren who will never see them. Pieces of us are lost in each passing generation.
From the time we are born, Kanaka Maoli are well versed in struggle. We are tortured by the pain and suffering of generations before us, and that great weight becomes heavier as time goes on. We inherit this affliction, and we bear that great burden on our shoulders, hoping never to pass it on to our future generations. Yet we are still expected to carry ourselves like everyone else: never asking for help; being criticized and called racist for maintaining trusts, services and programs that benefit only Kanaka Maoli, as if inter-generational trauma and ongoing social injustice were not enough to explain why we need help to survive.
We go to school, like others do. We go to work, like others do. But we do so under great hardship. For us, daily life is different. The cross-island morning and evening commute to town can be agonizing, not simply from traffic woes, but because it is a constant reminder of our world being paved under. It is the way we are looked at when we speak our language. It is the cultural misappropriation we experience all around us. It is the increasing loss of the character of the place that our ancestors once knew.
Nearly 123 years ago, Hawaiian sovereignty was stolen. Our ability to govern ourselves and to make decisions -- by us, for us -- was taken. That wrong was never made right despite the assertion of two U.S. presidents to do just that. As a people, we have endured over a century of forced assimilation, and it should be obvious, through the stories we tell to this day, that we desire to exercise our right to self-determination as a distinct group of people on this planet, whose only homeland is the Hawaiian Islands.
In The Pursuit Of Self Determination
Kanaka Maoli have endeavored along many paths to self determination. Today, one such path is making headlines; it is the subject of ongoing intellectual discussion, adversarial exchanges, heated debates, and the occasional chit-chat at a backyard BBQ. This path is through Na'i Aupuni.
There are an incredible number of misconceptions concerning Na'i Aupuni, and it has created a very pronounced division between the Kanaka Maoli people -- most distinctly between U.S. federal recognition ("fed-rec") advocates and independence advocates.
These misconceptions are often the product of the ever-diverging social-political-economic statuses of individual Kanaka Maoli (rich vs. poor, haves vs. have nots) and their inability to connect with one another; a growing lack of confidence in agencies such as the Office of Hawaiian Affairs ("OHA") and Department of Hawaiian Home Lands ("DHHL"), which serve Kanaka Maoli but are not always perceived to be equitable in their treatment of us; and an absolute (or very near absolute) mistrust for the State of Hawaii and the United States federal government for past injustices and, arguably, ongoing injustices. These are just some of the reasons, that when mixed together, create a very volatile situation highly adverse to consensus over issues such as, in this case, self-determination.
In clarity, Na'i Aupuni is a path for Kanaka Maoli to tread upon in the pursuit of self determination. Na'i Aupuni is not the perfect path and it certainly has its flaws; but it is what Kanaka Maoli make of it. Perhaps therein lies one of the flaws: the lack of Kanaka Maoli participation (less than 25 percent of the population). This flaw, however, should not be attributed to Na'i Aupuni alone; rather, it should be shared by every organization and individual who either supported it or rejected it, without sufficiently educating and properly informing the Kanaka Maoli people (or themselves, for that matter) on what Na'i Aupuni really could achieve with regard to Kanaka Maoli self-determination.
Na'i Aupuni does not force us onto a single political path. We have many options, and we should be demanding that each of those options be considered. For that, we need more time in this process.
The division between pro-fed-rec and pro-independence Kanaka Maoli may always exist. However, both sides can certainly agree upon the need to exercise our right to self-determination. Moving forward requires that we find common ground – that solid foundation upon which we can rebuild.
It behooves every Kanaka Maoli interested in self-determination to find and to fight for that common ground. We can start there; and it is entirely possible for us to use the Na'i Aupuni convention to establish that common ground, to put our great minds together, and to find a way to better our condition and alleviate the burden each of us carry for the sake of future generations.
About the Author
Zuri Aki has a B.A. in Hawaiian Studies from the University of Hawaii at Manoa and is a J.D. candidate at Richardson School of Law focusing on International Law and Environmental Law. He is the founder of the political watchdog organization, Makawalu, and the environmental conservation organization, The Aina Project.
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http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/10/30/historic-election-could-return-sovereignty-to-native-hawaiians.html
Aljazeera America October 30, 2015
Historic election could return sovereignty to Native Hawaiians
More than a century after overthrow, a 30-day vote begins November 1 for delegates to a constitutional convention
by Brittany Lyte
KILAUEA, Hawaii -- In 1893, Queen Liliuokalani, the last monarch of Hawaii, yielded power to a group of businessmen backed by Marines in order to avoid the bloodshed of her people. She did so believing that the U.S. government, when presented with the facts, would eventually restore the Hawaiian kingdom. Instead, the coup led to the dissolution of Hawaiian sovereignty and the tropical archipelago's eventual admission to statehood.
Now, more than a century after the overthrow, a historic election seeks to return sovereignty to Native Hawaiians, a people still stinging from the bitter ruin of colonization, when Hawaiians had their lands stolen, their hula outlawed and their language purged from schools.
On Nov. 1, a 30-day voting period will open to more than 100,000 Hawaiians certified by the state-sanctioned Native Hawaiian Roll Commission to elect delegates who will represent them in Honolulu this winter at an eight-week constitutional convention for self-governance. More than 200 Hawaiians on the mainland and across the islands are campaigning for 40 seats at the planned assembly, where the paramount task will be to draft a document that guides the creation of a new government by and for Native Hawaiians.
Native Hawaiians are the only indigenous group in the U.S. without their own political structure.
"People come to Hawaii and think it's just a tourist destination," said Rowena Akana, a trustee of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs and a candidate in the upcoming election. "They know nothing about how the natives here have suffered and still suffer today. This election is very important because it's an opportunity to seek some reparation. This is our chance to make a comeback."
The nation building process is being organized by Na'i Aupuni, a private nonprofit. In Hawaiian language, na'i means "the one who conquered" and aupuni means "created the kingdom."
Election results will be announced Dec. 1.
A cycle of grief
The 122-year absence of a government focused on the issues and needs of the Native Hawaiian community has bred chaos, said Robin Danner, who was appointed to the Native Hawaiian Roll Commission by former Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie. The commission, led by former Hawaii Gov. John Waihee, was formed in 2011 with a mission to assemble a list of qualified and interested Native Hawaiian voters.
"For the first time in over a hundred years, there will be a definitive voice on Native Hawaiian issues," Danner said. "A definitive and recognized government to speak for our culture, our people, our issues, instead of county or state government attempting to have a sub-committee within their agencies or structures to mouthpiece the value of native viewpoints, which has not worked well at all."
A prime example of the philosophical divide over land and resource management nherent in the relationship between the state and the Native Hawaiian community is the battle over plans to build the world's most powerful telescope atop Mauna Kea, a 32,000-foot volcano on the Big Island of Hawaii where ancient Hawaiians believed the gods lived. Protesters have halted the construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) for six months and counting, claiming that the mountain's cultural significance is being sacrificed for science.
Gov. David Ige has ordered several of the dozen telescopes already located on the mountain to be decommissioned. But he has refused to stop the TMT construction. With protesters still on the mountain, the case is being heard by Hawaii's Supreme Court.
Off the mountain, and in everyday life, the Native Hawaiian community is plagued by poverty, homelessness and the erosion of native traditions. Hawaiian students rank among the lowest groups nationally in reading. Hawaiian high school graduation and college acceptance rates fall below the national average. The high cost of living in the island chain, widely viewed by outsiders as a carefree palm tree paradise, has many native families focused on just trying to survive.
"Being native in the United States is like living a cycle of grief," Danner said. "Because being native in the United States is to have lost something powerful. First, you're depressed. Then you're angry. Then there is some acceptance and then you get to a point where you say, 'What am I going to do about it?' As a people I think we are at the stage where we are ready to do something about it."
Rebuilding a culture
Momentum has been building for decades. Since the Native Hawaiian renaissance in the 1970s, Hawaiians have been working to rebuild their culture. Along with these successes are hard-fought efforts to return a measure of self-determination to the Hawaiian people.
"We really don't have a place where our people can vote in leaders who can come together to debate and come to a consensus on issues that are important to us," said Bill Meheula, an attorney for Na'i Aupuni, the non-profit organizing the election. "Instead what you have is a number of different groups advocating things with no way of collectively moving forward."
This election, he said, could change that.
An attempt to halt the election on the grounds that it's discriminatory and therefore unconstitutional was shot down by a federal judge nine days before the start of the voting period. U.S. District Court Judge Michael Seabright said Na'i Aupuni is a private election, and private elections are permitted to limit voter eligibility by race.
The injunction motion is part of a lawsuit brought forth by the conservative interest group Judicial Watch and the public policy think tank Grassroot Institute, which is based in Honolulu. The plaintiffs include two non-Hawaiians who aren't eligible to participate in the election and four Hawaiians who argue that it's discriminatory.
"The real harm of this election is it fosters a kind of racial discrimination that damages our greatest product in Hawaii, the aloha spirit," said Keli'i Akina, president of Grassroot Institute. "The net effect of a race-based election to establish a race-based government will only serve to divide people from one another. Racial tensions are already on the rise in the nation and it's a terrible thing to also see this becoming the case in the Aloha state."
The plaintiffs are expected to appeal the court's decision.
The stakes are raised
The stakes were raised in September when the U.S. Department of Interior published a draft administrative rule outlining the process by which a Native Hawaiian government, once formed, could seek a formal government-to-government relationship with the United States. Native Hawaiian advocates have sought a rule that would open the door to federal recognition of a Native Hawaiian government for decades. All told, there are 566 American Indian and Alaska Native tribes with a federally recognized form of self-governance.
Citizens of a federally recognized Native Hawaiian government would be eligible for a special kind of dual citizenship. They would be able to become citizens of whatever form of native governance the Hawaiian community decides to create while also retaining all the benefits of American citizenship. These are the rights former U.S. Sen. Daniel Akaka spent more than a decade trying to secure for Hawaiians through the passage of what's popularly known as the Akaka bill.
Not all Hawaiians, however, support federal recognition. Some want nothing to do with the U.S. government that overthrew Queen Liliuokalani.
Not all Hawaiians, however, support federal recognition. Some want nothing to do with the U.S. government that overthrew Queen Liliuokalani.
Congress formally apologized for the overthrow of the Hawaiian kingdom in 1993 in a joint resolution that acknowledges that the overthrow was "illegal" and expresses its "deep regret to the Native Hawaiian people" as well as its support for reconciliation. The resolution has fueled the desires of some Hawaiians who are seeking to reinstate the Hawaiian kingdom, dissolve the State of Hawaii and do away with the U.S. government entirely.
Whether a new Native Hawaiian government should seek a government-to-government relationship with the U.S. or total independence is expected to be one of the primary issues that the elected delegates will debate at the planned constitutional convention. It's a debate that no doubt will be heated.
"In any ethnicity you're not going to have total buy-in on any important issue," said Meheula, the Na'i Aupuni attorney. "We're no different on that than anyone else. The fact that we don't have a government, I think, exacerbates the tendency for us to not agree with each other. A government is how people reach agreement. It's that total process of electing leaders to debate the issues with transparency that lends itself to reaching general consensus in any community."
Melody MacKenzie, director of the University of Hawaii's Ka Huli Ao Center for Excellence in Native Hawaiian Law, said she believes Hawaiians on both sides of the debate can work together to create a political structure that will help ensure that Native Hawaiian culture not only survives, but thrives.
"To me, it's ironic that we've been colonized and we've been taught by the American system to each have our own voice and opinion, yet now the fact that we each have our own opinion makes us seem divisive," MacKenzie said. "Ultimately, what we all want is what's best for our people. This election is an opportunity for a large group of us to come together with some realistic expectation that we're going to come to a resolution and finally figure that out."
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http://www.civilbeat.com/2015/10/todd-simmons-the-cost-of-sitting-out-delegate-elections-and-the-aha/
Honolulu Civil Beat, October 30, 2015
The Cost Of Sitting Out Delegate Elections And The 'Aha
There are many reasons to criticize the coming elections for a convention on Native Hawaiian governance. But the reasons to participate are more persuasive.
By Todd Simmons, opinion editor
When a big daily newspaper I worked for years ago offered a plum reporting job to my best friend, we were both excited.
But it didn't take long for her to take me aside to share a heavy concern -- namely, her suspicion that the newspaper was interested in her chiefly because of her race, and she had no interest in being the newsroom's token African-American.
It was a reasonable suspicion. Though she was (and is) smart and accomplished, the newspaper's ownership and management was (and is) sharply conservative and had a well-earned reputation for bigotry in multiple areas. But the job opportunity was nevertheless a solid one, and my advice to her boiled down to a single idea:
Even if they want you to be their token, that doesn't mean it's the role you have to play. You can make of the opportunity whatever you want -- that part's up to you.
She took the advice and the job, and in her all-too-brief tenure, won acclaim for her exceptional work there before moving into even greater success in statewide and national politics and advocacy.
I thought of her many times this past week as the number and volume of voices weighing in on the potential creation of a Native Hawaiian government grew louder and more conflicted.
Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiians) face a decision this fall similar in many ways to the choice my friend had years ago: whether to accept an invitation that is quite possibly flawed and being extended by some whose motives may be suspect, but that may well be exactly the right opportunity.
The invitation in this case comes in the form of the chance to participate in the election of delegates to an upcoming 'aha, or convention. The election is being conducted by the relatively new and little-known organization Na'i Aupuni ahead of a longer-term goal: forming a Native Hawaiian government.
If you're looking for criticism and critics of Na'i Aupuni and this process, you don't have to look far. The group's efforts to build a valid roll of Native Hawaiian potential voters draws from previous failed and maligned efforts to do the same thing. Its definition of who can or can't be such a voter has been legally challenged as improperly race-based and in conflict with traditional Hawaiian values of inclusion.
And a bitter mix of mythology, suspicion and accusation, driven by a long history of spectacular U.S. larceny and shameless broken local promises, has caused a great many Kanaka Maoli to give the process an enormous collective side eye.
Nevertheless, on Sunday, ballots will begin going to about 95,000 registered voters, who will be asked to choose 40 convention delegates, which have been apportioned based on the population of the seven inhabited Hawaiian islands and Hawaiians living out of state. Voting will end Nov. 30, and results are scheduled to be announced the following day.
To some, it's a process that can only rightfully be rejected or ignored -- the flaws are simply insurmountable. But is that really the most self-beneficial way for Native Hawaiians to judge this process?
Consider: In U.S. federal elections, a chorus of voices reminds us every four years that the Electoral College is a dated and problematic way to choose a president that can skew the expressed will of the electorate. And this: In the infamous Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission decision, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed virtually unlimited corporate giving to political campaigns, facilitating unprecedented money wars to purchase elections.
But is either of the above a legitimate reason not to participate in our elections? Should we voters sit out the 2016 cycle, and instead point piously at these flaws and perhaps others as justification? Or are our collective interests better served by engaging, even if that engagement primarily means pointing out structural or process issues that should be addressed?
I certainly don't mean to be disrespectful of points of view articulated most audibly this week by longtime activist Water Ritte, who dropped his bid to be elected a delegate and publicly urged Native Hawaiians to reject the election, and Trisha Kehaulani Watson, whose impassioned, eloquent case against the Na'i Aupuni-led process was published by Civil Beat earlier this week.
But it strikes me that refusing to participate leaves those most interested in Native Hawaiian self determination in no different a place than they are in now -- inadequately represented with no governing body dedicated to their interests.
The 'aha being organized is not bound by any requirements regarding its outcome or lack thereof. Delegates, ostensibly guided by community input, would only be empowered to come up with ideas, plans or documents that could then be put in front of voters for possible approval or rejection.
And there are many worthy ideas that would be entirely appropriate for consideration at this stage. Refining the rules regarding who can qualify as a voter in the Native Hawaiian government formation process, for instance. Creating at least the framework for a plan that would draw more people and organizations into government-building might be another.
How about opening a public dialogue on the U.S. Department of the Interior's proposed rules for engaging a government-to-government relationship with a Native Hawaiian government with regard to what changes might be desirable or necessary? (If you haven't yet read this document, its eight pages deserve your attention.)
The point is this: The election of delegates is simply the first step toward these and other legitimate questions being given voice in a forum that -- regardless of your thoughts about its formation — counts. Who represents the community in that forum, what information goes into it and what outcomes come from it will be determined solely by Native Hawaiians who vote.
If you're such a potential voter, and you care about any of those things, you do yourself and your community a disservice by not participating. Make of the opportunity what you want -- it's up to you.
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http://www.staradvertiser.com/editorialspremium/letterspremium/20151030_letters_to_the_editor.html?id=338644012
Honolulu Star-Advertiser, October 30, 2015, Letter to editor
Lawmakers can't also serve 'aha
The election of delegates to a Native Hawaiian constitutional convention ('aha) is going forward. The 'aha will be held on Oahu over the course of eight consecutive weeks (40 work days, Monday through Friday), between February and April 2016.
The Na'i Aupuni delegate election guide, distributed with the Oct. 25 Honolulu Star-Advertiser, shows that both state Sen. Brickwood Galuteria and state Rep. Kaniela Ing are candidates.
Can someone explain how Galuteria and Ing, if elected to the 'aha, will be able to competently fulfill both their legislative and delegate duties when the terms of the two bodies coincide? The Legislature is in session from mid-January until early May. Both men must make a choice, one or the other. If not, their constituents and the public at large will be shortchanged.
Lynne Matusow
Downtown Honolulu
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http://www.staradvertiser.com/editorialspremium/20151030_all_hawaiians_have_voice_on_sovereignty.html?id=339111632
Honolulu Star-Advertiser, October 31, 2015, EDITORIAL
In all their public presentations, leaders of Na'i Aupuni have stressed that the nonprofit simply aims to stay the course toward conducting the planned election of delegates for a Native Hawaiian constitutional convention, or 'aha. About the outcome of those discussions, they said, they are agnostic.
It appears not everyone believes them, and at least one prominent leader has cast a no-confidence vote on the whole process. Opting out is a valid form of registering protest, but in this case, it's not a very effective one.
Longtime Hawaiian activist Walter Ritte, until this week a candidate for one of the delegate spots, has pulled out of the race. Ritte asserted that the process is "rigged to fit very specific agendas" -- specifically he said, those supported by the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, which provided Na'i Aupuni with funding for the election.
Additionally, the long-established civic organization, the Royal Order of Kamehameha I, has stated its own opposition to the 'aha, for much the same reason.
Alika Desha, who is chancellor for the long-established civic organization, said his group cannot support what some will see as an agenda that will undermine the argument made by his and other Hawaiian organizations: that the kingdom of Hawaii still exists.
This is a deeply held principle for many of the civic organizations, which emerged nearly a century ago to maintain continuity of advocacy for Native Hawaiians in the absence of their own government, overthrown in 1893.
And OHA -- in the past an advocate for the creation of a "nation within a nation" through federal administration -- has distanced itself from the process by financing it through a nonprofit. The fact that this is seen as a fig leaf by Ritte and the Order, as well as by conservative organizations such as the Grassroot Institute that oppose the whole sovereignty movement, is ironic.
But those looking at the 'aha process with a cynical eye need to step back and consider what they are giving up by refusing to participate.
Consider that Kamana'opono Crabbe, chief executive officer of OHA who has criticized the federal-recognition path himself, has confirmed that OHA has maintained its neutrality and is not driving any particular outcome from the Na'i Aupuni process.
Consider that the departure of people such as Ritte could sap the credibility from the election in the eyes of some potential voters, discouraging them from engaging in it.
Finally, consider that a diminished presence of any perspective only ensures that the outcome will be shaped by those who remain.
In the end, the only objective served by an 'aha that is less than broad-based will be the preservation of the status quo, with experienced office-holders and established power-brokers firmly steering things.
The marketplace of ideas is the essence of democracy, and if self-determination means anything, it should mean that the people themselves determine their future -- all the people. In this case, heading for the exits produces nothing of value.
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Ka Wai Ola [OHA monthly newspaper], November 2015, p 3.
MESSAGE FROM THE CEO
OPTIMISTS WANTED
Aloha mai kakou,
Are you a glass-half-full sort of person? When opportunity knocks, do you answer the door? Are you a person who thinks our best days might just be ahead of us? Are you the type of person who loves the journey, and the pursuit of a better future for all of us?
If so, you're the type of person we need to help us build a nation. There's a lot of criticism coming from all sides on the process that's underway right now as we seek to reestablish a Hawaiian Nation. There's also a lot of criticism of U.S. Department of the Interior's rulemaking that would establish a process a future Native Hawaiian government could use to be recognized by the federal government.
But the one thing we have to remember is this is a process. Is the process perfect? Of course not. No process ever is. But the magic happens when people make the most of an imperfect situation.
A lot of people are trying to poke holes in the process, and I would challenge them to stop poking holes and help us shore things up. Many people are making assumptions and predictions about what the results of a Native Hawaiian 'aha will be. They're making assumptions and predictions about what will happen if the DOI adopts a rule.
I can't and won't predict the outcome of any of these processes. No one can. But if people from various viewpoints can work together, the product will be better than any prediction.
So vote for delegates who you can believe in. Bring your mana'o to he table at an 'aha. Get involved in the ratification process.
We can make the world a better place.
What is unacceptable is the status quo. It is our kuleana to do better for our lahui. Those who are lobbing criticism from afar, those encouraging people to reject the process are really advocating for the status quo. It is a form of apathy. We can continue to grumble for another hundred years or we can do something about better education for our children, improved health services to heal our people and build an economy that is kanaka-based.
Let me put it this way. There's a road in front of us. There are many ruts and potholes. It hasn't been paved in years. In fact, portions are no better than a dirt road. We can choose the adventure of heading down that road knowing despite its flaws it will lead to a better future. Or we can stop and refuse to move.
If our ancestors did not choose to head into the unknown on their wa'a facing all of the dangers of canoe travel would we even be here today? But since we are here, don't we owe it to them and the next generation of Hawaiians to embrace the unknown to make a better life for everyone?
Won't you join me on this journey?
'0 au iho no me ke aloha a me ka 'oia'i'o,
Kamana'opono M. Crabbe, Ph.D.
Ka Pouhana/Chief Executive Officer
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Ka Wai Ola [OHA monthly newspaper], November 2015, pp. 5 and 25
Interior proposes Native Hawaiian Rule
Rule hailed as Obama commitment to support Native Hawaiians
By Ka Wai Ola staff
In a move hailed as groundbreaking and momentous, the U.S. Department of the Interior proposed a pathway for Native Hawaiians to establish a formal governmental relationship with the United States.
According to the Interior Department, the rule "does not attempt to organize a Native Hawai-ian government or draft its constitution, nor does it dictate the form or structure of that government. Rather, the proposed rule would establish an administrative procedure and criteria that the (Interior) Secretary would use if that Native Hawaiian community forms a unified government that then seeks a formal government-to-government relationship with the United States."
The department is seeking public input on the proposed rule and wants to know whether it should amend any of the provisions in the rule. The comment period ends on Dec. 30.
"Today is a momentous day for our Native Hawaiian community," said Office of Hawaiian Affairs Ka Pouhana Chief Executive Officer Kamana'opono Crabbe. "This rule shows the ObamaAdministration's commitment to Hawaiians and other native people by supporting self-governance for the Native Hawaiian community. While the United States has long supported Hawaiians as a native people, this proposed rule addresses an injustice by allowing Native Hawaiians to receive the benefits of a government-to-government relationship that has been denied them. It is clear the Department of the Interior agrees it will be the Native Hawaiian community -- and not the federal government -- that would decide whether to organize a Native Hawaiian government, and whether that government would seek to pursue a relationship with the United States:"
"This issue has been discussed for many years, and I support President Obama and the Department of the Interior's efforts to move it forward. I urge the public, particularly Native Hawaiians, to comment on this possible pathway for the United States and Native Hawaiians to establish a government-to-government relationship. The public comment period for the proposed rule is an invitation for the public to participate in the rule-making process," said Gov. David Ige.
"We commend President Obama and Secretary Jewell for their commitment to the Native Hawaiian people's right to self-governance in a manner that is on par with other indigenous nations recognized by the United States," says Annelle Amaral, President of the Association of Hawaiian Civic Clubs and member of Imua Hawaii, a consortium of leaders from Hawaiian organizations. "The Departments of Interior and Justice have worked tirelessly to engage in a process that has been transparent and open to public input. We appreciate their efforts to give this proposed rule a lengthy open comment period so we can ensure that our community is engaged."
Davianna McGregor, Professor of Ethnic Studies at University of Hawaii at Manoa, and member of Imua Hawai added, "Our consortium wants to empower our people to understand how this proposed federal rule can fit within our community's overall efforts towards exercising greater self-determination in our own affairs. As a community, we have demonstrated an ability to solve our own challenges when empowered to do so, and I see the proposed rule as a significant tool towards our ability to achieve our shared goals"
"Will U.S. Federal Recognition prevent us as Native Hawaiians from achieving independence from America in the future? Will it stop the Kingdom of Hawaii that includes non-Hawaiian citizens from achieving independence from America in the future? The answer is no, but only if that is what the people want," said Lilikala Kame'eleihiwa, senior professor and director at the Kamakakuokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies.
"The United States has a long-standing policy of supporting self-governance for Native peoples, yet the benefits of the government-to-government relationship have long been denied to Native Hawaiians, one of our largest indigenous communities. Today's proposal is testament to the Obama Administration's strong support for our nation's Native peoples' right to self-determination," said Interior Secretary Sally Jewell.
"This is yet another attempt by the Department of the Interior to do an end run around Congress by assuming powers it simply does not have," stated Keli'i Akina, President of the Grassroot Institute. "The Congress has clearly indicated that they -- and not the DOI -- have the power to recognize a Native Hawaiian government. On multiple occasions they considered and decided not to pass the Akaka bill, demonstrating that the Constitutional concerns in the creation of a race-based government were real and unavoidable."
The rule dictates the process for the Department of the Interior to follow if approached by a Native Hawaiian government sets up a list of eight criteria for the department to use.
The United States has a long-standing policy of supporting self-governance for Native peoples, yet the benefits of the government-to-government relationship have long been denied to Native Hawaiians, one of our largest indigenous communities. Today's proposal is testament to the Obama administration's strong support for our nation's Native peoples' right to self-determination," said Interior Secretary Sally Jewell.
** photo caption
The Office of Native Hawaiian Relations from the U.S. Department of the Interior set up a website that provides information regarding Procedures for Re-establishing a Government-to-Government Relationship with the Native Hawaiian Community. - Photo: Francine Murray
** An inset that was too dark to scan describes several ways to submit comments on the Department of Interior Notice of Proposed Rulemaking.
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Ka Wai Ola [monthly OHA newspaper], November 2015, page 7
WHY IT IS IMPORTANT TO VOTE IN THE HAWAIIAN ELECTION
By the Na'i Aupuni Board of Directors
In the month of November, Hawaiians have an opportunity to participate in a historic
election of delegates to an 'Aha, or Hawaiian constitutional convention, to determine whether to reorganize a Native Hawaiian government.
More than 90,000 Hawaiians have been certified to take part in the election of delegates and more than 200 Hawaiians have stepped forward to run. The candidates will vie for 40 delegate positions to the 'Aha.
This is an opportunity for Hawaiians to come together and talk. What will happen at the 'Aha and what will ultimately be decided is not predetermined. It is, however, an 'Aha for Hawaiians to discuss our future.
At the 'Aha, the elected delegates will share, compare and test their different ideas and explore what self-determination could look like. They may also consider offering a proposed governing document to registered Hawaiians (or other voter groups if the delegates so decide) for a ratification vote.
We would like to share with you why we believe it is important to vote in this election.
Hawaiians have historically been frustrated by federal, state and local governments exercising decision-making authority over issues that are of grave concern to us. Those frustrations continue.
Hawaiians have worked hard over the years to regain their lands and their rights. The Hawaiian Home Lands trust, the public land trust, and the Office of Hawaiian Affairs are attempts to right the wrongs done and return what was taken. But, like many things, the issues are complicated and the outcomes have not been perfect.
The directors of Na'i Aupuni will not determine which delegates get elected, nor will they determine what is discussed or agreed upon at the Aha; that is for the delegates to decide -- delegates elected by Hawaiians. Na'i Aupuni's kuleana is to put the process in motion and facilitate an election and 'Aha for Hawaiians. The 'Aha has the potential to positively change the lives of Hawaiians for generations to come.
This election and the 'Aha process can make a positive difference. We encourage you to be part of that history, to vote and participate.
Mahalo,
The Na'i Aupuni Board of Directors:
J. Kuhio Asam, president
Pauline Namu'o,
vice president
Kealoha Ballesteros,
secretary/treasurer
Gerry Miyamoto
Selena Lehua Schuelke
About Na'i Aupuni
Nal Aupuni is an independent organization made up of a volunteer board of directors from the Hawaiian community. It exists solely to help establish a path for Hawaiian self-determination and is guiding an election, convention and possible ratification process where all Hawaiians who wish to participate can be heard. Na'i Aupuni was formed in December 2014 and is separate and independent from the Office of Hawaiian Affairs and the State of Hawaii. For further information about Na'i Aupuni and the upcoming elections, please visit
http://www.naiaupuni.org/.
** Photo caption
Na'i Aupuni board of directors are, back row from left: Kealoha Ballesteros, Gerry Miyomoto and Lehua Schuelke. Seated, from left J. Ohio Asam and Pauline Namu'o. - Courtesy photo
---
This article was submitted by Na'i Aupuni. The views and opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs or the editorial staff of Ka Wai Ola.
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Ka Wai Ola [monthly OHA newspaper], November 2015, page 24
Monthly column by Carmen Hulu Lindsey, trustee for Maui
Why I never enrolled in Kana'iolowalu or any other roll
Trustee's note: This column is guest written by Dr. Ku Kahakalau, Director, Ku A Kanaka
Greetings. My name is Dr. Ku Kahakalau and I am Hawaiian. So was my father Robert Kahakalau and my grandfather William Keahonui Kahakalau who was a fluent, eloquent and kolohe native speaker of our melodious Hawaiian language, which I have studied and taught for the past 30 years. My great grandfather Daniela Kekino Kahakalau was President of Hui Aloha o Kalihi-uka and a strong supporter of King Kalakaua and Queen Lili'uokalani.
Neither I, nor any of my family members have ever relinquished our right to be Hawaiians, to speak our language, to malama the 'aina and to live according to the values of our kupuna. Consequently, my husband and I raised our daughters as Hawaiians. In fact, my oldest daughter's first English sentence was: Marna Hawaiian, Papa Hawaiian, 'I'ini Hawaiian.
When I first started to educate myself about the U.S. occupation of Hawaii in the late 1970s, the independence movement was led by Poka Laenui, or Hayden Burgess, as he was known then, and a small group of supporters. Pretty much all others, including myself, who were supporting Hawaiian sovereignty then, which were really not that many, were for a nation-within-a-nation model. Much has changed since, as was clearly evident at the 2014 DOI meeting in Keaukaha, where our ohana, along with 100% of everyone else who testified, demanded independence.
I believe this major shift is a direct result of the following:
* Almost 50 years of research, which not only clearly exposed the numerous illegal actions of the U.S., but also demonstrated the overwhelming resistance of our kupuna to be colonized and reaffirmed that the inalienable right of Hawaii, as a distinct geographic archipelago and Hawaiians as a distinct cultural and ethnic group, to be an independent nation with its own independent Hawaiian government, as chosen by its people, has never been relinquished, or legally extinguished.
* New laws like the 2007 UN Declaration of Indigenous Rights, which clarifies our rights as Indigenous peoples not just to independence, but also to control our own education and welfare.
* The failure of U.S.-controlled "sovereignty" to bring about positive change in education, health, socio-economic development etc. for Native Americans.
* Movements in other parts of the world, like the reunification of Germany and the Arab Spring, which proved to our generation that rulers and governments acting against the will of the people can and should fall.
It is for these reasons, that I did not kau inoa, or sign up with Kana'iolowalu to enroll in a process of sovereignty, controlled and/or funded by OHA, i.e. the Hawaii State government, and why I do not and will not support Na'i Aupuni.
In fact, as an educated Hawaiian, I am 100% convinced, that we, the Hawaiian people, do not need any involvement by either the Hawaii State government, nor the U.S. federal government, to design, implement and evaluate our process of re-establishing an independent Hawaiian nation. Because to expect the fox (federal and state government) to take care of the hens (Hawaiians and Hawaii) makes no sense whatsoever. Indeed, the kuleana, or responsibility to reestablish our Hawaiian government is clearly a Native Hawaiian kuleana.
I humbly ask all who put their name on some list in the past for various reasons, including fear of being left out, to educate yourself by going to
protestnaiaupuni.word-press.com
for facts, information, forms and calls to action. Then do what our kupuna taught us to do: pule and listen to your na'au. Know, that whatever your decision is, I will continue to aloha you as a kanaka.
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