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Hawaii Legislature 2023 (and Honolulu County Council) -- Bills and Resolutions Related to Hawaiian Sovereignty and Racial Entitlement Programs. Text, testimony, and outcome.

Webpage published February 20, 2023 (Washington's Birthday) and then updated until end of session in May, whenever a new bill or resolution relevant to Hawaiian sovereignty was introduced and got a committee hearing. As of February 17 there were already 19 bills on which Conklin had submitted testimony on behalf of the Center for Hawaiian Sovereignty Studies. This webpage also includes a link to a separate webpage regarding a resolution adopted by Honolulu County Council declaring November 28 to be "La Ku'oko'a" -- "Hawaiian Independence Day" in honor of the 1843 joint proclamation by France and Britain recognizing the Kingdom of Hawaii as an independent nation.

Here is an internal search engine allowing you to find all pages on this website which discuss the topic you're interested in.

BACKGROUND ON HAWAIIAN RACIAL ENTITLEMENT PROGRAMS IN THE STATE LEGISLATURE, AND EFFORTS TO PROTECT THEM BY CREATING A FEDERALLY RECOGNIZED HAWAIIAN TRIBE THROUGH AN ACT OF CONGRESS (THE AKAKA BILL 2000-2012) OR A REGULATION ENACTED BY PROCLAMATION OF THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF INTERIOR (43CFR50, developed 2013-2016 and proclaimed on October 14, 2016 by publication in the Federal Register to take effect on November 14, but available for implementation at any time in future years without needing approval by Congress or the State of Hawaii)

The Hawaii legislature is dominated by Democrats, most of whom are far to the left on the political spectrum. Legislation focusing on ethnic Hawaiians is often explicitly and shockingly favorable to racial supremacy, racial separatism in the tribal concept, and/or restoration of Hawaii as an independent nation. That's because ethnic Hawaiians as a group are the state pet: see "NATIVE HAWAIIANS AS THE STATE PET OR MASCOT: A Psychological Analysis of Why the People of Hawaii Tolerate and Irrationally Support Racial Separatism and Ethnic Nationalism" at
https://www.angelfire.com/hi2/hawaiiansovereignty/hawnsasmascots.html

Hawaii has hundreds of racial entitlement programs. See webpage "For Hawaiians Only. Webpages identifying and describing government funded racial entitlement programs providing benefits exclusively to Native Hawaiians using taxpayer dollars from the U.S. and State of Hawaii." at
https://www.angelfire.com/big11a/ForHawaiiansOnly.html

These programs provide financial benefits or governmental authority (such as advisory councils or fishing rights) exclusively to people who have at least one drop of Hawaiian native blood. People without a drop of the magic blood cannot receive benefits or serve on these special commissions. Racial entitlement programs are stepping stones to political sovereignty. The Akaka bill in Congress was pushed hard but unsuccessfully during the period 2000-2012. After that a four-year process within the U.S. Department of Interior created a new pathway for federal recognition for a Hawaiian tribe through a regulation 43CFR50 proclaimed in the Federal Register on October 14, 2016. That regulation allows ethnic Hawaiians to be get federal recognition solely through an administrative process in the U.S. Department of Interior without needing approval from either Congress or the State of Hawaii. One of the primary purposes of that 16 year effort has been to provide a legal defense against lawsuits to abolish racial entitlement programs on the grounds that they violate the 14th Amendment clause requiring that government must treat all people equally under the law regardless of race. Federally recognized tribes are allowed to discriminate, including tax-supported racial entitlement programs; but federal, state, and local governments are not. During the four years from 2017 through 2020 there was no significant activity to create a Hawaiian tribe either in Congress or through the Department of Interior regulation, probably because everyone realized that President Trump, along with the Republican-controlled Senate, would block any such effort. During 2021 and 2022 the Biden administration, and his Native American Secretary of Interior, caused expectations to rise that somehow a Hawaiian tribe will be created. That expectation is heightened by the fact that Hawaii Senator Schatz is chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee and Hawaii Congressman Kai Kahele, who served during 2021-2022, is ethnic Hawaiian (He chose not to seek re-election to Congress in order to run a campaign for Governor, which he lost).

Legislation in Hawaii for racial entitlement programs or race-based political power is usually passed unanimously, showing no difference between Democrats and Republicans. Most Republicans in Hawaii might be called RINOs (Republicans in name only). In previous years there might be an occasional "Nay" vote by the lone Republican Senator Sam Slom, who is politically conservative. As the only Republican in the Senate he was automatically a member of every committee but therefore was physically unable to attend most committee hearings. However, Senator Slom suffered major health issues in 2016 and was defeated for re-election. The Hawaii state Senate during 2017-2018 was the only state legislative body in the U.S. where all members belong to a single political party. For 2019-2022 there was one alleged Republican in the Senate (Kurt Fevella), but he is ethnic Hawaiian, engages in political activism favoring Hawaiian racial entitlement programs, and leans left and votes the same way as the Democrats on nearly every item. In November 2022 another ethnic Hawaiian former news reporter and sovereignty supporter, Brenton Awa, ran for state Senate as a Republican and won; he is now serving alongside Fevella during 2023-2024. In the state House, which has 51 Representatives, only 6 are Republicans; and their longtime leader Gene Ward was a strong pusher of the Akaka bill and remains a strong supporter of racial entitlement programs.

The bills and resolutions covered in this webpage are troubling. The public should study them to get a grasp of how real are the dangers of racial separatism and ethnic nationalism in Hawaii. Citizens should phone or write to their legislators to express outrage when a legislator sponsors or votes in favor of bills and resolutions like these, which are both dangerous and ridiculous.

HOW THIS WEBPAGE TRACKS HAWAII LEGISLATION DURING 2023

Each bill or resolution has its own webpage on the legislature's website. On that webpage there are links to full text of the bill or resolution, list of all the committee hearings including a record of how each legislator voted, a pdf file containing all the written testimony, and the official committee report for each committee. If a bill or resolution is introduced in either the House or Senate and also has a duplicate companion introduced in the other chamber, links are provided to the webpages for both of them. Full text is also provided of the testimony of Ken Conklin on behalf of the Center for Hawaiian Sovereignty Studies. Conklin's testimony was provided to each committee, usually as a formatted pdf file on letterhead, or occasionally as unformatted shorter comment. Conklin's testimony can be seen in each committee's file of all testimony; but is also provided here on this webpage in simple text to save bandwidth. Some bills appropriate millions of dollars (or hundreds of millions of dollars!) while other non-monetary bills or resolutions are focused on culture or language. Items are generally listed here in order of the date when the first hearing for a bill or resolution is scheduled, or its clone companion is scheduled in the other chamber.

This webpage was created on February 20, 2023 after numerous different bills (not counting cloned companions) had already had hearings held or scheduled in either the House or Senate, or both, for which Ken Conklin submitted testimony. Items are listed approximately in chronological order according to the date of their first hearing. More items were added to this webpage through the end of the legislative session in May, as new items got introduced and had committee hearings and Ken Conklin submitted testimony. However, ordinarily only Conklin's testimony on the first version of a bill or resolution was posted here. Amended versions of bills or resolutions and new testimony can be tracked through the legislature's webpage for that item as listed below.

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REFERRAL TO A SEPARATE WEBPAGE REGARDING A RESOLUTION ENACTED BY THE HONOLULU COUNTY COUNCIL.

A resolution was introduced in December 2022, considered in committee and amended in January and February 2023, and passed by the full Honolulu County Council in February 2023, calling on the Mayor to declare November 28 as "La Ku'oko'a" -- "Hawaiian Independence Day" -- in honor of a joint proclamation signed on November 28, 1843, by low-level diplomats from Britain and France, recognizing the Kingdom of Hawaii as an independent nation. The resolution superficially appears to be merely a commemoration of a historical event from 180 years ago. But the first draft of the resolution, and even its toned-down amended final version, are a thinly veiled show of respect to today's Hawaiian race-nationalist independence activists including at least two members of the 9-member Council. Those two members made it clear that the Honolulu county resolution is part of a coordinated campaign by the state legislature and all 4 county councils to commemorate and rejuvenate this Hawaiian independence holiday. Full text of the original and final versions of the resolution, along with Ken Conklin's 3-page and 21-page written testimonies, are provided in a separate webpage at
https://www.angelfire.com/big11a/CCHonResoLaKuokoa.html

The original resolution was virulently anti-American and bitterly complained about American colonial oppression of Native Hawaiians and alleged U.S. military invasion and overthrow of the monarchy. Conklin's testimonies, especially the 23-page one, might have been responsible for significant changes in the content and tone of the amended final version. It may also have educated some members of the Council regarding issues they were previously unaware of, including the racialized usage of the word "Hawaiian" and the phrase "aloha 'aina", and the fact that the Republic of Hawaii was recognized as the rightful successor government through letters of recognition personally signed by Kings, Queens, and Presidents of the same nations who had formerly recognized the Kingdom government of Hawaii, including Britain's Queen Victoria.

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Original version as introduced:

Resolution 22-262

URGING THE CITY ADMINISTRATION TO FORMALLY RECOGNIZE AND OBSERVE NOVEMBER 28TH AS LA KUOKO�A, HAWAIIAN INDEPENDENCE DAY.

WHEREAS. on January 16, 1893, United States troops invaded the Hawaiian Kingdom, without just cause, and forced the conditional surrender of Queen Lili�uokalani, who surrendered to avoid the loss of life; and

WHEREAS, England and France formally recognized the sovereignty of the Kingdom of Hawaii with the signing of the Anglo-Franco Proclamation on November 28, 1843; and

WHEREAS, the United States also verbally acknowledged the sovereignty of the Kingdom of Hawaii; and

WHEREAS, these acknowledgements were the result of the efforts of emissaries Timoteo Haalilio, William Richards, and George Simpson; and

WHEREAS, in December of 1893, President Cleveland declared that the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom was committed without the authority of the United States Congress; and

WHEREAS, despite the illegality of the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii, the United States annexed Hawaii in 1898 at the urging of President William McKinley, and Hawaii became a territory in 1900 and a state in August of 1959; and

WHEREAS, in 1993, 100 years after the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii, President Bill Clinton signed legislation formally apologizing for the role of the United States in the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom; and

WHEREAS, since the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii, the people of Hawaii have worked tirelessly, sometimes under threat of violence, to maintain the language, culture, and practices of Hawaii; and

WHEREAS, La Ku�oko�a represents an affirmation of the legitimacy of the sovereignty of the Kingdom of Hawaii, honors the Hawaiian identity, and celebrates the patriotism the Hawaiian people feel for Hawaii; and

WHEREAS, the City Council believes that it is more important than ever to remember and to celebrate the deep aloha ama (patriotism) that the kamaaina feel for Hawaii and to reaffirm the legitimacy of the sovereignty of the Kingdom of Hawaii; now, therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED by the Council of the City and County of Honolulu that it urges the City Administration to formally recognize and observe November 28th as La Ku'oko�a, Hawaiian Independence Day; and

BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED that copies of this resolution be transmitted to the Mayor, the Managing Director, and the Executive Director of the Mayor�s Office of Culture and the Arts.

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Final version as passed

Resolution 22-262-CD1

RESOLUTION URGING THE CITY ADMINISTRATION TO FORMALLY RECOGNIZE AND OBSERVE NOVEMBER 28TH AS LA KUOKO�A, HAWAIIAN INDEPENDENCE DAY.

WHEREAS, prior to the arrival of the first Europeans in 1778, the Native Hawaiian people lived in a highly organized, self-sufficient, subsistent social system based on communal land tenure with a sophisticated language, culture, and religion; and

WHEREAS, the chiefdoms of the Hawaiian Islands were unified as Ko Hawaii Pae Ama (�The Hawaiian Islands�) in 1810 under Kamehameha I; and

WHEREAS, on April 8, 1842, King Kamehameha Ill pursued the preservation of sovereignty and self-governance of the Hawaiian Kingdom; consequently, he commissioned Timothy Haailio, William Richards, and Sir George Simpson as emissaries to travel to the United States, Great Britain, and the French Kingdom to secure the recognition for the Hawaiian Kingdom; and

WHEREAS, Great Britain and the French Government formally recognized the Kingdom of Hawaii as a sovereign and independent Kingdom, acknowledged through the Anglo-Franco Joint Proclamation on November 28, 1843, followed by the United States on July 6, 1844; and

WHEREAS, King Kamehameha Ill directed his Minister of Foreign Affairs, Robert Crichton Wyllie, to recognize and celebrate the anniversary of Hawaii�s welcome into the family of nations; the year 1847 marked the first official celebration of Hawaiian Independence Day, L� Ku'okoa; and

WHEREAS, from the 1850s and 1870s, Hawaii celebrated L� Ku�okoa with I��au. mele. marches, and ho�olaulea; and

WHEREAS, in 1896, the Republic of Hawaii enacted (Act 66) L� Kuokoa on the codified list of national holidays; and

WHEREAS, despite the illegality of the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii, the United States annexed Hawaii in 1898, and Hawaii became a territory in 1900, and a state on August 21,1959; and

WHEREAS, La Kuoko�a represents an affirmation of the validity of the historical independence of the Kingdom of Hawaii, acknowledges and honors the Kingdom and its subjects, and commemorates the patriotism the Hawaiian people feel for Hawaii Nei past and presently; now, therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED by the Council of the City and County of Honolulu that the City Council believes that it is more important than ever to remember and to celebrate the deep aloha ama (patriotism) that the kamaaina feel for Hawaii and to reaffirm the legitimacy of the historical independence of the Kingdom of Hawaii; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the City Council urges the City Administration and the Hawaii State Legislature to formally recognize and observe November 28th as La K�okoa, Hawaiian Independence Day; and

BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED that copies of this resolution be transmitted to the Honorable Governor Joshua B. Green, the Honorable Senate President Ronald D. Kouchi, the Honorable Speaker of the House of Representatives Scott K. Saiki, the Honorable Mayor Rick Blangiardi, the Managing Director Michael D.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS REGARDING THE HAWAII STATE LEGISLATURE 2023: List of bills and resolutions on which Conklin testified, in the order they appear below, for the 2023 Hawaii Legislature. Scroll down to find the one that interests you. They are in approximately chronological order of when each item had its first committee hearing, not necessarily in the order of their importance. Full text of Conklin's testimony on each item is presented in the same order, below the table of contents, along with links to the legislature's webpage for each item to find the text of the bill or resolution, the chronology of actions and votes on it (including names of yeas and nays), and a file of all the written testimony presented at each hearing.

SB16 RELATING TO HAWAIIAN AS AN OFFICIAL LANGUAGE OF THE STATE OF HAWAI�I.
Requires that the Hawaiian version of a law be held binding if the law in question was originally drafted in Hawaiian and then translated into English.

SB32 PROPOSING AN AMENDMENT TO THE HAWAII STATE CONSTITUTION TO REQUIRE THE REAPPORTIONMENT COMMISSION TO ESTABLISH A REAPPORTIONMENT PLAN TO DRAW DISTRICT LINES FOR THE MEMBERS OF THE OFFICE OF HAWAIIAN AFFAIRS BOARD OF TRUSTEES.
Amends the State Constitution to require the Reapportionment Commission to establish a reapportionment plan to draw district lines for the total number of members of the board of trustees of the office of Hawaiian affairs.
AND
SB52 RELATING TO THE ELECTION OF MEMBERS TO THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE OFFICE OF HAWAIIAN AFFAIRS.
Amends the process for electing members to the Office of Hawaiian Affairs Board of Trustees. Requires the Reapportionment Commission to establish a reapportionment plan for the members of the Board of Trustees of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs so that they are elected according to their respective districts, rather than an at-large statewide election for each seat.

SB278 RELATING TO PRINCE JONAH KUHIO KALANIANAOLE.
Requires certain public buildings near mass transit projects and on Hawaiian home lands to display portraits of Prince Jonah Kuhio Kalanianaole.

SB731
RELATING TO HAWAIIAN INDEPENDENCE DAY.
Designates November 28 of each year as La Kuokoa, Hawaiian Independence Day, to celebrate the historical recognition of the independence of the Kingdom of Hawaii.

SB732 RELATING TO STATE HOLIDAYS.
Designates the second Monday in October of each year as Indigenous Peoples' Day. Establishes Indigenous Peoples' Day as a state holiday

HB1313
RELATING TO HAIKU VALLEY.
Establishes the Haiku valley cultural preserve commission with OHA to provide policy and management oversight of the Haiku valley cultural preserve. Establishes the Haiku valley cultural preserve special fund. Initiates the process of conveying Haiku valley

SB733 RELATING TO HAWAIIAN CULTURE.
Requires the Office of Hawaiian Affairs to establish and maintain Hawaiian cultural centers within the State. Requires the Office to submit reports to the Legislature regarding the Office's compliance with this Act. Appropriate moneys for the planning and design of the first Hawaiian cultural center.

HB571 RELATING TO THE KAHO�OLAWE ISLAND RESERVE COMMISSION.
Appropriates funds for the Kaho�olawe island reserve commission. Appropriates funds for three full-time equivalent (3.0 FTE) permanent positions.

SB57 RELATING TO THE JUDICIARY'S �OLELO HAWAI�I INITIATIVES.
Appropriates funds for staff positions and various services to support the Olelo Hawaii Initiatives.

HB 133 RELATING TO THE BUDGET OF THE OFFICE OF HAWAIIAN AFFAIRS.
Appropriates moneys to fund the operating expenses of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs for the fiscal biennium beginning on 7/1/2023, and ending on 6/30/2025.

SB448 RELATING TO THE DEPARTMENT OF HAWAIIAN HOMELANDS.
Exempts housing development for the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands from general excise tax and school impact fee requirements. Extends the issuance of county affordable housing credits to the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands.

SB1609 and HB1508 RELATING TO NATIVE HAWAIIAN AFFAIRS.
Appropriates funds for certain departments and agencies to provide grants to tax-exempt nonprofit organizations that have experience and expertise in supporting and advancing Native Hawaiian communities.

SB740 RELATING TO NATIVE HAWAIIAN BENEFICIARIES.
Requires the department of Hawaiian home lands to digitize its applicant, beneficiary, and lessee records by creating an interactive digital database software program to be completed and available for use no later than 7/1/2024. Appropriates moneys.

SB874 RELATING TO SCHOOL IMPACT FEES.
Exempts certain housing developments from assessments of school impact fees

HB567 RELATING TO THE DEPARTMENT OF HAWAIIAN HOME LANDS.
Exempts any housing development for the department of Hawaiian home lands from general excise tax and school impact fee requirements. Makes permanent the exemption of housing developed where new housing units are created by the department of Hawaiian home lands from school impact fee requirements. Lapses the appropriation provided under Act 279, SLH 2022, and appropriates funds for the purposes of Act 279, SLH 2022 for the current fiscal year. Makes permanent the issuance of county affordable housing credits to the department of Hawaiian home lands.

SB741 RELATING TO THE HAWAIIAN HOMES COMMISSION ACT.
Excludes from any waiting list maintained by the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands any lessee or successor who sells or transfers their lease on a tract of Hawaiian home lands.

SB1014 RELATING TO INDEPENDENT LEGAL COUNSEL.
Allows the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands to retain independent legal counsel. Authorizes the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands to use the services of the Attorney General as needed. Provides that funds owed to independent legal counsel shall be paid by the State.

HB758 RELATING TO NATIVE HAWAIIAN TRADITIONAL AND CUSTOMARY FISHING PRACTICES.
Authorizes the department of land and natural resources to issue special activity permits for the purpose of recognizing and protecting individuals exercising their Native Hawaiian traditional and customary rights.

SCR104/SR93 URGING THE UNITED STATES CONGRESS TO PASS THE HAWAIIAN HOME LANDS PRESERVATION ACT, H.R. RES. 9614, 117TH CONG. (2ND SESS. 2022), TO LOWER THE REQUIRED MINIMUM BLOOD QUANTUM FOR CERTAIN DEPARTMENT OF HAWAIIAN HOME LANDS SUCCESSOR LESSEE BENEFICIARIES FROM ONE-QUARTER NATIVE HAWAIIAN BLOOD TO ONE THIRTY-SECOND.

GM502 Submitting for consideration and confirmation as the Attorney JDC General, Department of the Attorney General, Gubernatorial Nominee, ANNE LOPEZ, for a term to expire at noon on 12-07-2026.

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FULL TEXT OF KEN CONKLIN'S TESTIMONY ON EACH BILL OR RESOLUTION, AND LINKS TO LEGISLATURE'S WEBSITE WHERE THE PROGRESS OF EACH ITEM IS TRACKED AND FILE OF ALL TESTIMONY IS PROVIDED

Bill text (including all amended versions), history, committee hearings, pdf of all testimony submitted to each committee, YEAs and NAYs, committee reports:
https://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/session/measure_indiv.aspx?billtype=SB&billnumber=16&year=2023

Ken Conklin's TESTIMONY IN OPPOSITION, as improved for hearing on 2/2323 in Senate Judiciary Committee

SUMMARY AND INTRODUCTION My dear legislators: Would you vote to pass a bill that's written in a language you are not fluent in? Would you be willing to rely on an English translation of it provided by someone (a) who stands to benefit greatly by getting you to vote for it; and (b) who gives you an English translation which changes or distorts what the bill actually means in its original language as written, knowing that the inaccuracies in the English version will cause you to like what you're reading even though you would dislike what was actually stated in the original version; and (c) who intentionally fails to remind you that the bill's meaning in its original language is the meaning that really counts? The only way you can logically vote in favor of this bill is by saying "Yes" to all three (a), (b), (c). If enacted, this law immediately becomes a "sleeper agent" affecting all bills in the future that are written in Hawaiian first before being translated into English -- even years after this bill itself is forgotten, legislators will vote on bills whose Hawaiian-language meaning is the official one even though they do not understand Hawaiian and they mistakenly think they are voting on what it says in English (which could be very different from how it will actually be interpreted by attorneys and judges who are certified as having expertise in Hawaiian).

In your desire to vote in favor of this bill because you wish to honor and display respect for Hawaiian language during "Hawaiian language month", please do not allow that emotion to sway you into making a very unwise decision. I speak Hawaiian with moderate fluency -- probably better than anyone on this committee. 30 years ago when I came to live permanently in Hawaii I immediately enrolled in night school courses in Hawaiian language, history, and culture for three years precisely because I had fallen in love with the language, people, and culture of my hanai homeland. Thereafter I have continued to learn further and more deeply. I have also discovered the existence of attitudes and political goals which are extremely divisive and dangerous to the Aloha Spirit and to Hawaii's future as a multiracial, multicultural society. This bill aligns with those negative goals.

Please bear with me as I explain what's really happening with this bill

I'm asking you to do two things before you vote. (1) Try out the little experiment I propose where you will read an actual bill that was written first in Hawaiian and then in English -- where I want you to read only the Hawaiian version that comes first and then stop and explain to yourself what it means, before you read the followup English version to discover how bad your understanding was. (2) Read my analysis of how an extremely important short Hawaiian-language phrase in the Mahele law of 1848 has become twisted to a very different meaning in the English-language interpretation of it that was relied upon in the PASH decision and continues to shape the way "Native Hawaiians" are mistakenly given special race-based benefits deriving from the mutant interpretation.

EXPLANATION

First let's note that this bill is written entirely in English. Now, why in the world would that happen in view of the main purpose of this bill? It seeks to establish that if a bill is written first in Hawaiian and then translated into English, the Hawaiian version shall take priority as the official version. So why not write this bill first in Hawaiian and then provide an English translation? Indeed, why not write this bill solely in Hawaiian with no English at all? Would the members of this committee feel comfortable with that?

Would you feel confident that you understand what you are enacting? No? Then why in the world would you even so much as fool around with the idea of making the Hawaiian version of a bill take priority over the English version in case of a dispute later on over how it should be interpreted or implemented? This bill is so poorly written, and lacking in detail -- it's surprising that the bill is getting a hearing (or perhaps that's not so surprising after all, considering that hearing the bill is a virtue signal to celebrate "Hawaiian language Month"). But there were bills two years ago and four years ago along the same lines. Those bills failed, and were also poorly written, but at least they had more detail. The best thing about SB701 and SB195 from year 2019 was that they were written in Hawaiian language first, and then had English translations of their various sections. Thus those bills give us an opportunity to do a thought-experiment. Let's put the members of this committee to a test where you can judge for yourselves whether you could possibly be serious about enacting the concept "that the Hawaiian version of a law be held binding if the law in question was originally drafted in Hawaiian and then translated into English." Here is a link to full text of SB701 from year 2019:
https://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/session2019/Bills/SB701_.pdf

Go ahead now. Read the first part of that bill, which is in Hawaiian, and then stop the first time you encounter the subordinate English translation. Did you understand it? Even if you as an individual are one of the rare legislators who speaks Hawaiian fairly well, do you understand what you read with sufficient confidence to vote for it even if it was highly controversial? More importantly, do you seriously believe that your colleagues in the legislature are competent to vote on it? If necessary, continue this thought-experiment by reading only the Hawaiian portion of each subsequent part of the bill, and then summarizing its main concepts in whatever language you prefer, before you read the English translation. A majority of your fellow legislators whose fluency in Hawaiian language is moderate or even non-existent will be relying entirely on the English translation, but they will actually be voting on what the Hawaiian version says, according to the injunction "that the Hawaiian version of a law be held binding if the law in question was originally drafted in Hawaiian and then translated into English."

If you'd like another example, run the thought-experiment with SB195, also from year 2019:
https://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/session2019/Bills/SB195_.pdf

Giving priority to Hawaiian language is a political stunt to bolster ethnic pride and get votes from a constituency that demands visible tokens of validation and status; but it has no practical usefulness. It seems likely that every person outside Ni'ihau who speaks Hawaiian also speaks English with greater fluency. Hawaiian activists, following the lead of Princess Ruth Ke'elikolani (hoo dat?), sometimes insist on speaking Hawaiian in the courtroom or when giving speeches, interviews, or testimony; but they are perfectly capable of speaking and understanding English. Nobody NEEDS to speak or hear Hawaiian to express himself or to understand what someone is saying -- the activists demand it to score a political point; and sometimes to simply "gum up the works" when there is testimony on an environmental impact statement regarding telescopes on Mauna Kea or construction on a military base. Please see a large and detailed webpage "Hawaiian Language as a Political Weapon" at
https://www.angelfire.com/big09/HawLangPolitWeapon.html

Kaleikoa Kaeo is a community college instructor who speaks English fluently. In fact he teaches classes using English as the language of instruction, makes fiery political speeches in English, and has also learned to speak Hawaiian fluently. He demanded to give court testimony in Hawaiian, not because he is unable to speak English, but merely as a stunt -- a form of Hawaiian sovereignty street theatre or political activism.

Kaleikoa Kaeo took his inspiration from the wealthiest person in Hawaii in the 1860s and 1870s, Princess Ruth Ke'elikolani, who could speak perfectly good English but refused to do so when politicians or journalists visited her -- she took great pleasure in humiliating them by forcing them to hire translators. She felt she was having a political and "moral" victory by forcing them to use Hawaiian. Is that what legislators and Hawaiian language zealots doing with this bill?

Hawaii is filled with the Aloha Spirit. Our people are kind and generous, and show our good will to people who cannot speak English by allowing them to give testimony in their own language and by providing them at our own taxpayer expense with interpreters who have been certified by the court to be fluent in both their own language and English. But Kaleikoa Kaeo's political stunt was neither kind nor generous. It did not display good will, let alone the Aloha Spirit. He could easily have spoken English, but he chose to speak Hawaiian as a way to FORCE everyone else to either learn Hawaiian or to spend taxpayer dollars to hire speakers of Hawaiian. That's what today's bill in our legislature is all about -- a political stunt that would inconvenience everyone and cost a lot of money over time merely for the sake of cultural/ linguistic chauvinism.

Hawaii has large numbers of people from many ethnic backgrounds who speak different languages in their homes; but we all come together in shared spaces where we are expected to speak English. Inability to speak English is treated as a disability or handicap. People who cannot speak English are given special accommodation to help them communicate in their own language, just as someone who is deaf gets a sign-language interpreter, someone who is blind is allowed to use a seeing-eye dog even in places where dogs are not normally allowed, and someone who cannot walk is allowed to use a wheelchair and elevator. Kaeo who is fluent in English but insists on speaking Hawaiian is like a marathon runner who might demand just for fun to come to court in a noisy wheelchair with a taxpayer-supplied assistant to push it for him.

If this bill were enacted into law, the Hawaiian language content of a bill would be the official law even though your comprehension of its meaning came only from the English-language version. And you can be quite sure that Hawaiian-language zealots would give top priority to writing many important bills in Hawaiian before getting them translated into English, thereby invoking the new rule that the Hawaiian version takes priority. Would your expertise in Hawaiian be sufficient to enable you to detect kaona (wat dat?) -- subtle double meanings that you would never vote for if you knew they were in the law you just finished enacting? Kaona were widely used orally in ancient times and later in Hawaiian language newspapers, as a sort of secret code, so that insiders "in the know" about obscure cultural metaphors would understand hidden social or political meanings in poetry or songs. For example, a hula might seem to be about a bee spreading pollen while flitting from flower to flower sipping nectar; but in reality one of its hidden meanings was about a man "spreading his seed" while engaging in intimate activities with one after another young ladies. On a more serious note, a phrase that seemed to be celebrating a needle piercing a white plumeria flower while stringing a lei might actually be an incitement to hurl a verbal or actual spear at a haole opponent.

Perhaps you're aware that there are some Hawaiian sovereignty activists who would love to get you to enact laws whose legally binding meaning in Hawaiian language would undermine or even overthrow the [fake!] State of Hawaii and replace it with a rejuvenated Kingdom; even though the merely advisory subordinate English translation being relied upon to solicit votes appears to pertain only to plowing on a farm as a way to turn over the soil. ("Huli" is to turn over, whether it refers to plowing the soil on a farm or inciting to violent political revolution.)

TRANSLATING HAWAIIAN INTO ENGLISH: THE MAHELE PHRASE "KOE NAE KE KULEANA O NA KANAKA."

I conclude this testimony by citing an extremely important example from Hawaiian history illustrating how a single phrase, and especially an individual word in that phrase, has been subjected to deliberate distortion over time because of what the word meant in Hawaiian when proclaimed into law seventeen decades ago and what it has come to mean in English since then. The phrase in the Mahele laws beginning in 1848 and culminating in the Kuleana Act of 1850 is: "koe nae ke kuleana o na kanaka." The individual word whose meaning has morphed is "kanaka."

When private land ownership was created by granting royal patent deeds during the unfolding stages of the Mahele, chiefs were given huge swaths of land, while peasants living on and farming individual parcels were given the right to have fee-simple ownership of their parcels. The problem was that the chief's land completely surrounded the peasant's small parcel, thus making it necessary for a peasant to trespass through the chief's land in order to gather materials necessary for daily life, or to go to the ocean for fishing. So in the interest of what we today might call "social justice", the chief's royal patent deed gave him ownership "but reserving the rights of the people" [for gathering or shoreline access]. That Hawaiian phrase �koe nae ke kuleana o na kanaka� today is always translated to mean "reserving the rights of the native tenants." However, there was nothing racial about the word "kanaka" back in 1850, although today it has come to refer to so- called "Native Hawaiians." The word "kanaka" simply meant person, or human being, with an implication that it might be referring to a servant or peasant. If you look up "kanaka" in the big Pukui/Elbert dictionary you will find no racial terms. Furthermore, the word "kanaka" does not mean "tenant" -- that word is "hoaaina." Although non-natives made up only a small percentage of Hawaii's population in 1850, the rights reserved to the "kanaka" in the Kuleana Act were reserved for ALL the "people" regardless of race and regardless whether they were tenants under a particular chief.

The Hawaii Constitution Article 12 Section 7, and also the PASH decision by the Hawaii Supreme Court, include racial restrictions which are modern distortions and simply do not grow out of the Mahele or the Kuleana Act. "The State reaffirms and shall protect all rights, customarily and traditionally exercised for subsistence, cultural and religious purposes and possessed by ahupua�a tenants who are descendants of native Hawaiians who inhabited the Hawaiian Islands prior to 1778, subject to the right of the State to regulate such rights." The traditional and customary rights of native Hawaiians from before 1778, and still possessed under the Kuleana Act of 1850 -- those terms describe what rights are being referred to, but those terms should NOT be construed as limiting those rights to members of any particular racial or ethnic group. By interpreting those rights to be possessed by ALL Hawaii's people, we would ensure equality under the law for everyone including ethnic Hawaiians. The fact that my interpretation of "koe nae ke kuleana o na kanaka" is so unusual should serve as an important illustration of why it is dangerous to give primacy to a language which very few people understand with sufficient fluency -- especially when the only people who do have sufficient fluency have been trained by teachers and institutions which are politically active; and the students mastering the language under their tutelage have been indoctrinated with their political views and will interpret the meaning of laws in a manner that facilitates their political agenda.

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TESTIMONY IN OPPOSITION TO BOTH SB32 AND SB52

Both of these poorly written bills contain provisions that were ruled unconstitutional by federal courts two decades ago, and one bill was so hastily copy/pasted from a bill that failed ten years ago that this "new" bill would enact a law explicitly to take effect in year 2014(!!!) Whoever actually authored these two bills should be severely reprimanded by the Senator with the illegible signature who signed them and by the committee chair who placed them on the agenda for hearing. Furthermore, that Senator who signed the bills and the committee chair are presumably old enough and sufficiently aware of the highly publicized controversies surrounding the unconstitutional provisions of these bills that by introducing these bills and placing them on the agenda they may be presumed to have knowingly violated their oath of office to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States." Shame on them!

PROVISIONS IN THESE BILLS THAT WERE RULED UNCONSTITUTIONAL BY FEDERAL COURTS AND DELETED FROM THE HAWAII STATE CONSTITUTION MORE THAN TWO DECADES AGO:

SB32 pdf version page 6 lines 18-20 says that OHA board members shall be "elected by qualified voters who are Hawaiians, as provided by law. The board members shall be Hawaiians."

SB52 pdf version page 1 lines 14-16 says "No person shall be eligible for election or appointment to the board unless the person is Hawaiian ..."

HISTORY OF FEDERAL COURT CIVIL RIGHTS DECISIONS FORBIDDING THOSE PROVISIONS:

Those racist requirements were written into the 1978 amendment to the Hawaii Constitution that created OHA; but because OHA is an agency of the State government, the federal courts ruled them contrary to the U.S. Constitution and stripped them out of the State Constitution. Now I shall educate the introducing Senator, committee chair, and members of the public who read this testimony, regarding the court decisions.

The racial restriction regarding who can vote for candidates for the OHA board was ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court by vote of 7-2. The racial restriction regarding candidacy for the OHA board was ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. District Court in Honolulu and by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Of course this committee could rescue those provisions by redefining the word �Hawaiian� to mean �citizen of Hawaii� rather than the racially exclusionary meaning requiring at least one drop of Hawaiian native blood. I would welcome such a redefinition. Please do it! But of course you won�t; so here�s the story.

In year 2000 the U.S. Supreme Court by vote of 7-2 ruled in Rice v. Cayetano that there can be no racial restriction on who can vote in the election for OHA trustees.

Later in year 2000 the U.S. District Court in Honolulu, Judge Helen Gillmor presiding, ruled that there can be no racial restriction on who can run as a candidate for OHA trustee. The case was CV 00-00514 HG-BMK Arakaki et. al. vs. State of Hawaii et. al, and OHA as intervenor. I was honored to be among the multiracial group of 13 plaintiffs including 3 Native Hawaiians. We won.

Judge Gillmor�s civil rights racial desegregation decision was appealed to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, and was upheld by the three-judge panel, with the final judgment filed on July 1, 2003 by Honolulu clerk Walter Chinn.

The judgment concludes: �... The State is ordered to permit otherwise qualified non-Hawaiians to run for office and to serve, if elected, as trustees of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. Section 5 of Article XII of the State Constitution and HRS § 13D-2 violate the Fifteenth Amendment and the Voting Rights Act, to the extent that they require persons running for OHA trustee positions and serving, if elected, to be Hawaiian.�

EMBARRASSING ATTEMPT TO NOW LEGISLATE WHAT MUST HAPPEN 9 YEARS AGO

SB52 pdf version page 3 lines 1-4: "Beginning January l, 2014, members of the board of trustees shall be nominated at a primary election and elected at the general election in every even�numbered year."

CONCERN ABOUT THE LIKELY VIOLATION OF THE "ONE PERSON = 1 VOTE" CONCEPT IF THESE BILLS ARE ENACTED

Although these bills are poorly written and with convoluted concepts and language, it appears to me that the main purpose behind both bills is to put a stop to the 45-year-old system of allowing all voters throughout the State to vote in every one of the 9 contests for OHA board members, even though 5 of the board members are required to be actual residents of the designated county or island whose seat they are seeking. For whatever reason, the holder of the "Molokai seat" is required to be a resident of Moloka'i, even though all the voters in Hawaii can vote in the contest for that seat; likewise for the O'ahu, Kaua'i (including Ni'ihau), Hawai'i Island, and Maui (including Lana'i and Kaho'olawe) seats. The comparable electoral situation for O'ahu County Council would be to allow every resident of O'ahu to vote for the District 3 representative, while requiring that representative to actually live in District 3. The existing O'ahu system says only the residents of a district can run for that district's representative. What makes it possible for for the existing O'ahu system to comply with federally-mandated "one person = one vote" rule is that all the districts on O'ahu have their boundaries redrawn after each decennial census to ensure that there are approximately the same number of residents in every district. But the 5 OHA seats currently set aside for residents of specific counties could not possibly comply with one person = one vote unless heavily populated portions of O'ahu were somehow grouped with each of the neighbor counties. The districting concept in these bills is simply illegal and could only be made permissible if there were a wild and crazy hodgepodge of canoe districts. Of course you might get away with an illegal system for 20 years, as happened with the racial segregation of voters and candidates in OHA elections from 1980 to 2000; but in the end there will hopefully be civil rights activists who will come forward and put a stop to it as happened with Rice v. Cayetano and the lawsuit Arakaki v. State where I was honored to be a plaintiff.

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SB278 RELATING TO PRINCE JONAH KUHIO KALANIANAOLE.
Requires certain public buildings near mass transit projects and on Hawaiian home lands to display portraits of Prince Jonah Kuhio Kalanianaole.

TESTIMONY IN OPPOSITION

This bill REQUIRES certain DHHL buildings to display portraits of Kuhio. That implies that DHHL leadership and the managers of those buildings have not already placed such portraits on those buildings. This same bill had a hearing two years ago as SB978 and failed. So in these last two years, DHHL personnel still have not seen fit to put up those portraits. One must wonder why they have not done so. What do they have against Kuhio, so that the legislature feels compelled to FORCE them to do it? Or perhaps the buildings have not yet been built, and the legislature is acting now to force DHHL personnel to erect such portraits when the walls are built, for fear they would not otherwise do so. Or maybe the reason why the legislature wants to command DHHL personnel to do this is for the purpose of ensuring that additional taxpayer money will be sent to DHHL. But in 2022 the legislature appropriated $600 Million dollars extra to go to DHHL. Isn't that enough money for them to get the job done?

Jonah Kuhio Kalaniana'ole is widely regarded as a cultural and political hero among today's ethnic Hawaiians. But there are some important reasons why even Hawaiian sovereignty activists would want to re- evaluate their opinion of him, if they were aware of these facts about his life. Below are details about two of those reasons: (1) He abandoned Hawaii at the time when its independence was being lost to annexation, in order to go to South Africa on an adventure as a soldier fighting for Britain in the Boer War; and (2) he waged a personal attack against ex-queen Lili'uokalani during the last years of her life, trying to have her declared mentally incompetent so he could become conservator of her estate and grab her Waikiki properties for himself.

Before providing some details about those character flaws, let's think about the idea of putting up pictures glorifying Kuhio in public buildings on DHHL lands, even if his character had been beyond reproach.

In dictatorships around the world there are photos of the dictator looming large over public squares and inside government buildings. It's ugly. After a while those pictures arouse resentment and feelings of oppression more than they inspire love or respect. Haven't we all seen news reports from China showing the huge photo of long-dead Chairman Mao looming over Tiananmen Square in Beijing? In the old Soviet Union there was a big photo of Joseph Stalin in every classroom in every school, every office in every government building, and every grocery store. Big brother is watching you!

Some ethnic Hawaiians revere Kuhio as a prince for the same reasons the peasantry in any monarchial nation reveres its royalty -- majesty, mystery, pride in the nobility of a great leader, and hope for handouts to help the poor and downtrodden. Wealthy racial separatist Hawaiian government institutions honor Kuhio as their founding father, the man who bowed low enough to the colonizers to bring home the bacon from their far-away seat of power.

But was Kuhio's personal behavior princely? At least two major events in Kuhio's life after the revolution of 1893 should cause Hawaiian sovereignty activists to question his worthiness as their torch-bearer. On these two occasions Kuhio was grossly unpatriotic to his Hawaiian "nation." The first occasion was when he abandoned his nation at its time of greatest peril in order to pursue personal pleasure and foreign adventure. The second occasion was two decades later when he abused his power and prestige to launch a personal attack against Queen Liliuokalani in order to steal her land, for his personal enrichment, from the children she intended to help. Kuhio's behavior on both occasions should be seen as not merely selfish, but treasonous from the viewpoint of today's sovereignty activists.

In January 1895, at age 23, Kuhio participated in the attempted counterrevolution against the Republic of Hawaii led by Robert Wilcox. He was sentenced to a year in prison, where his fiancee visited him regularly. After his release they got married and went to Europe. It's understandable that the heir to the throne would feel unhappy about imprisonment and about the loss of his future crown. Certainly nobody would begrudge him the right to get married, and perhaps to travel for a while.

But Kuhio's extended absence is inexcusable in view of the major political events taking place in Hawaii. He played no part in fighting against annexation, even while his fellow "patriots" were making speeches, writing articles in the newspapers, and gathering 21,000 signatures on a petition in 1897 opposing annexation. Today's sovereignty activists excuse his non-participation by claiming he was "in exile." But nobody forced him to leave. Others who had been imprisoned with him stayed in Hawaii after their release.

Kuhio extended his European adventure by going to Africa where he spent three years fighting on the side of England in the second Boer War.

Let's put that in different terms so that today's sovereignty activists will get the point. Kuhio, designated heir to the throne, abandoned his native land during a time of great political upheaval and went to war halfway around the world, fighting on the side of one white colonial power against another white colonial power in a war to see which one would win control over the land of a poor, downtrodden dark-skinned native population.

Kuhio returned to Hawaii in time to join the Republican Party and defeat the incumbent Robert Wilcox in the 1902 election for Territorial Delegate to Congress, whereupon he took the oath of office swearing to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic (Traitor to the Hawaiian nation!). He introduced the first bill in Congress for statehood for Hawaii (Traitor to the Hawaiian nation!). He finally "brought home the bacon" after 19 years in Congress with passage of his Hawaiian Homes Commission Act (Sellout!).

The case of Kuhio vs. Liliuokalani in 1915-1916 is perhaps even more troubling. The "prince," now Hawaii's Territorial Delegate to Congress for 13 years, abused his power and prestige to launch a personal attack against Queen Liliuokalani in order to steal her Waikiki land from the children she intended to help. Kuhio publicly accused her of mental incompetence in order to nullify her creation of the Queen Liliuokalani Childrens' Trust, and to establish himself as conservator of her estate, so that after her death her Waikiki properties would go to him instead of to the benefit of the Hawaiian children. Luckily for the children, his lawsuit failed. Full text of the Hawaii Supreme Court decision, including details about what Kuhio was trying to do, is on a webpage: JONAH KUHIO KALANIANAOLE v. LILIUOKALANI, Supreme Court of Hawaii, 23 Haw. 457; 1916. Syllabus and full text of the Court's decision:
http://tinyurl.com/ce7avc

Evelyn Cook's book "100 years of Healing" includes extensive description of the lawsuit, and especially the role of attorney W.O. Smith in defending Liliuokalani. Knowledgeable readers might be surprised, because W.O. Smith was one of the leaders of the revolution of 1893 that overthrew Liliuokalani. But as time went by the ex-queen realized that Smith was completely trustworthy whereas Kuhio was arrogant, selfish, greedy, and profoundly disrespectful to the woman most ethnic Hawaiians still regarded as their Queen. Instead of native Hawaiian "Prince" Kuhio, Lili'uokalani appointed white man W.O. Smith as trustee of her Queen Lili'uokalani Childrens Trust.

Kuhio was also a womanizer, both in Hawaii and in Washington D.C., -- in today's parlance we might call his scandalous behavior Trumpian. He earned the nickname "Prince Cupid" (Google it if you want some titillation).

Kuhio does not deserve to be ensconced as head of a cult of personality. You should defer this resolution to avoid the embarrassment of voting against it or the even larger embarrassment of voting for it.

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There were many holidays in the Kingdom of Hawaii which have never been proposed to become officially acknowledged by the State of Hawaii. For example, Kauikeaouli Kamehameha III, whose glorious statue now graces Thomas Square, did not know the date of his birth and was unable to reconstruct it on the Western calendar based on stories or other events that happened on that same day; so, like royals in other nations sometimes do (even when the do know their actual birthdate), he proclaimed for himself an "official birthdate" of March 17 to enable his subjects to celebrate. Today we call that St. Patrick's Day, and that's no blarney. But perhaps the Hawaiian sovereigntists will present the legislature with another bill like this one, to rename that date Kauikeaouli Day. Might as well!

First of all: The academic language police will not like the name "La Kuokoa." They would insist on spelling it with correct diacritical marks as "Lā Kū'oko'a".

Second: This bill is mistaken in saying that "Lā Ku'oko'a" (however spelled) means "Hawaiian Independence Day" -- the word "Hawaiian" or even "Ko Hawai'i Pae 'Āina" is not included in the historical name of this former holiday, which could yield the word "Hawaiian." So if the term to be used is "Lā Kū'oko'a" then the word "Hawaiian" should be removed from the English part of the designation. Note also that today's race-activists strongly insist that the word "Hawaiian" refers exclusively to people who have a drop of the magic blood [Associated Press stylebook endorses this usage], whereas the Kingdom of Hawaii was multiracial with full equality for many hundreds of Asians and Euro-American immigrants who took the loyalty oath to become naturalized subjects of the Kingdom, some of whom were elected or appointed to the legislature or served in the cabinet or as department heads. The historic rationale described in the text of this bill asserts that the holiday was observed "throughout the Provisional Government of Hawaii, the Republic of Hawaii, and the initial years of the Territory of Hawaii. La Kuokoa was included in the codified list of national holidays enacted by the Republic of Hawaii in 1896." During those periods ethnic Hawaiians were a shrinking minority of Hawaii's population primarily because of the many tens of thousands of Japanese, Chinese, and Filipinos (after 1906) who were recruited to work on the sugar plantations by King Kalakaua and later Hawaii heads of government. Hawaii was thoroughly multiracial. Calling it "HAWAIIAN Independence Day" thus falsely implies that what is to be recognized is a racial group, not a multiracial nation/territory and certainly not what the sovereigntists call the "Fake" State of Hawaii.

For those reasons, and to avoid any confusion that this ever was or now should be a race-based holiday, the word "Hawaiian" should be removed from the English version off the holiday's name. The English name should also display upfront that this is an acknowledgment of a historic holiday which does not in any way imply that Hawaii is now or ever should be an independent nation. Therefore the title of this bill and the name of this revived holiday should be as follows:
SB 731 RELATING TO THE HISTORIC HAWAII NATIONAL INDEPENDENCE DAY.
Designates November 28 of each year as Lā Kū'oko'a, the "historic Hawaii national independence day", to celebrate the 1843 recognition of the independence of the Kingdom of Hawaii by Britain and France on November 28, 1843.

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SB732 RELATING TO STATE HOLIDAYS.
Designates the second Monday in October of each year as Indigenous Peoples' Day. Establishes Indigenous Peoples' Day as a state holiday

TESTIMONY IN OPPOSITION First we had Columbus Day. Then that was changed to "Discoverer's Day" to avoid singling out Columbus for honor because he was criticized for bringing death and colonial oppression to the Americas, and explicitly (in the bill's text) to add the Polynesian explorers to the pantheon of honorees. Now this bill proposes to get rid of all the explorers (presumably including especially Columbus, Captain Cook, Marco Polo, Magellan, and other haoles) and honor only the "indigenous people" -- especially ethnic Hawaiians -- whose ancestors arrived throughout the world before the White guys got there. But as my dear friend Professor emeritus Rubellite Kawena Kinney Johnson famously said: "We are all indigenous people of this Earth." So let's leave "Discoverer's Day" the way it is, and honor all of ourselves and our brave ancestors (even the haoles). The virulent hatred toward USA, the missionaries, Captain Cook et. al. in the first couple of paragraphs is outrageous. We also should leave this day on the calendar as a day of observance not as another official state holiday where government workers get the day off with pay.

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TESTIMONY IN OPPOSITION

HB1313 is a race-nationalist Hawaiian sovereignty bill masquerading as an effort to protect environmental, cultural, and historical treasures in Ha'iku Valley. The valley in its entirety would be transferred in fee simple to the joint ownership of two groups: (1) the racial separatist Office of Hawaiian Affairs, which has tried for decades to create a "Native Hawaiian" tribe and get federal recognition for it, and (2) a newly invented "Haiku valley cultural preserve commission" where a 7- member board of directors would have 5 members who are guaranteed to be "Native Hawaiian" and the other 2 members could (and probably would) also be "Native Hawaiian."

The 5 members of the "Haiku valley cultural preserve commission" guaranteed to be Native Hawaiian are: "A representative of the office of Hawaiian affairs; One member of the Ko�olau Foundation, to be appointed by the governor from a list provided by the Ko�olau Foundation; One member of the Ko�olaupoko Hawaiian Civic Club, to be appointed by the governor from a list provided by the Ko�olaupoko Hawaiian Civic Club; and Two members who shall be Native Hawaiian cultural practitioners, to be appointed by the governor from a list of Native Hawaiian cultural practitioners provided by Native Hawaiian organizations." The founder and continuing member of the Ko'olau Foundation is a woman who has also headed the Ko�olaupoko Hawaiian Civic Club for many years, as well as leadership in the larger association of Hawaiian Civic Clubs. The other two seats on the Commission's board are "A representative of the department of land and natural resources" [who would probably also be Native Hawaiian]; and "A representative of the Honolulu board of water supply" (currently in a huge struggle against the Navy regarding the Red Hill pollution disaster, where Hawaiian sovereignty activists have taken the leading publicity roles in harassing the Navy as vengeance for what they say the Navy did in 1843: invaded the Hawaiian Kingdom and overthrew the monarchy).

The bill loudly screams "Hawaiian sovereignty" when its section entitled "Transfer" requires "the office shall transfer management and control of the Haiku valley cultural preserve to the sovereign Native Hawaiian entity upon its recognition by the United States and the State" and language in the bill defines ""Office" means the office of Hawaiian affairs."

One major treasure in the valley that has attracted thousands of non- ethnic-Hawaiian local residents and tourists for several decades is in the beginning stages of being dismantled: the Haiku Stairs, also popularly known as the stairway to heaven. In 2022 the Honolulu City Council member for District 3, which includes Ha'iku Valley, was Ikaika Anderson, now head of DHHL He resigned about 2 weeks before the end of his term, encouraging Esther Kia'aina to take up residence in the district so she could run for Anderson's seat. Kia'aina had worked for decades on the staffs of Senators Inouye and Akaka, and Rep. Case, where she was a major author of the apology resolution and the Akaka bill; and then she worked as Assistant Secretary of Interior during President Obama's second term where she spearheaded the writing and promulgation of administrative regulation 43CFR50 which provides a pathway for administrative recognition of a "Native Hawaiian" tribe without any involvement by Congress. Now on the Honolulu City Council, where ethnic Hawaiians hold a majority of the seats, Kia'aina pushed through the bill calling for the dismantling of the Ha'iku Stairs, which will thereby purify the valley of the one "non-Hawaiian" element currently desecrating its "sacredness."

Other bills have popped up from time to time in the legislature for a couple of decades whose concepts and even much of their language closely resemble this one. For example the House Committee on Water, Land, and Hawaiian Affairs held a heading on February 8, 2019 on HB 1068 "RELATING TO HEEIA STATE PARK". As you know, He'eia State Park (Ka Lae o Ke Alohi) is on the ocean in the same ahupa'a as Ha'iku Valley, served by the same stream flowing from the mountains to the ocean. The same individuals and groups were pushing that bill, including the Ko'olaupoko Hawaiian Civic Club and the Ko'olau Foundation. A bill regarding Haiku Valley, HB2704, was actually passed by the 2008 legislature but vetoed by Governor Lingle. The Senate voted to override the veto, but the House failed to override it. The text of the bill can be seen at
http://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/session2008/Bills/HB2704_.htm

HB2704 (2008) specified that the Ha'iku Valley Cultural Preserve Commission would have seven members, including one member of the Ko'olau Foundation, two members of the Ko'olaupoko Hawaiian Civic Club, one appointee from OHA, and one appointed by the governor from a list provided by native Hawaiian organizations. Notice also that the bill requires that "the office shall transfer management and control of the valley cultural preserve to the sovereign native Hawaiian entity upon its recognition by the United States and the State." Essentially the same bill was attempted in 2012, but failed. See webpage about this one particular 2012 bill: "Putting Haiku Valley, Kaneohe, Under Racial Control"
https://www.angelfire.com/big09/HaikuValley2012HB2246.html

Similar legislation was also attempted regarding Makua Valley and Kahana Valley, and probably other places where I was not paying attention. Those bills also included guaranteed ethnic Hawaiian racial majorities on the board of directors, and the same provision for transfer of the ahupua'a to a future Hawaiian tribe.

The current bill for this hearing, HB1313, leaves blanks to be filled in later for how many dollars would be appropriated for the Ha'iku Valley Cultural Preserve Commission to develop a plan and build an education center. But if this bill eventually goes to a House/Senate conference committee where they will fill in the money blanks in a secret meeting, we can get some idea of how much they would appropriate by looking at the 2019 bill for He'eia State Park. That bill would appropriate $800,000.00 at the rate of $400,000.00 for each of the two fiscal years 2019-2020 and 2020-2021. In addition, for each of the two fiscal years $250,000.00 would be given to establish a "Heeia state park community-based long-range plan", and for each of the two fiscal years $150,000.00 would be given to establish an education center there. Those dollar amounts were set 4-5 years ago, long before the recent years of massive inflation. The cost now would be far higher.

This bill should be rejected because it provides zero information about the administrative structure, board of directors, or bylaws of the (startup?) organization(s) who would be given nearly a million dollars during a two year period; and there is also no requirement for a publicly available audit or at least a report on how the money gets spent. Dear legislators, it is your responsibility to the taxpayers to reject legislation which conceals such information. We demand transparency and accountability. Suspicion is warranted about the political intentions and fiscal accountability of the (currently hidden) people behind this bill, because of two decades of race-based political activism focused directly at the land and water resources at He'eia State Park, He'eia fishpond, and the associated upstream areas of Ha'iku Valley and 'Ioleka'a Valley. The groups behind those two decades of political activism included the Ko'olaupoko Hawaiian Civic Club, Kako'o 'Oiwi, Paepae o He'eia, the Ko'olau Foundation, and an apparently dormant or defunct group known as the Ahupua'a Restoration Council of He'eia which had some of the same members.

The Ahupua'a Restoration Council of He'eia (ARCH) started out looking like a grass-roots community effort to restore the environment in keeping with Hawaiian cultural values, but gradually revealed itself to be a Hawaiian sovereignty front organization. I, Ken Conklin, live in Kane'ohe and attended nearly all the meetings of this group from 1999 through 2002, which were held inside a large meeting hall at He'eia State park and later held in a small museum attached to it. As time went by the group leaders, including several activists who lived far outside the area, steered the meetings toward formalizing an organization which ended up as a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt with written bylaws provided suddenly by an outside agitator. The bylaws explicitly established racial control by ethnic Hawaiians; at which point Ken Conklin ruined the unanimous "decision-making by consensus" [i.e., group pressure] by resigning and never returning. The complete story, including verbatim portions of the bylaws, is on a webpage "The Use of Cultural and Environmental Restoration as a Political Front for Hawaiian Sovereignty -- The Ahupua'a Restoration Council of He'eia" at
https://www.angelfire.com/hi2/hawaiiansovereignty/fraudahupuaa.html

Those groups -- Ko'olaupoko Hawaiian Civic Club, Kako'o 'Oiwi, Paepae o He'eia, the Ko'olau Foundation, and ARCH -- have consistently maintained ethnic Hawaiian dominance in any community groups seeking to exercise control over environmental restoration or historical interpretation. Their own organizations usually have written bylaws or informal but well-enforced rules that allow membership to community residents of all races who are welcome to provide financial support and volunteer labor, but voting rights and leadership roles are restricted to "Native Hawaiians." For example, the group "Kako'o 'Oiwi" has a lease on the He'eia wetlands where they grow taro; their name "Kako'o 'Oiwi" literally means "support Native Hawaiians". It is certainly immoral, and probably illegal, for the State government to provide monetary grants to organizations that allow first-class membership exclusively to a favored race but restrict all other races to second- class membership that does not allow voting rights or leadership positions.

As a veteran of the ARCH fiasco, and with years of experience testifying against proposals for a Haiku Valley Cultural Preserve Commission, this current bill feels exactly the same. I believe it's a boondoggle to send perhaps two million dollars to a shadowy group of Hawaiian sovereignty activists who have tried repeatedly for two decades to set up racial-supremacist organizations to control land under an umbrella of approval by the state legislature.

Suspicion is warranted about the political intentions and fiscal accountability of the (currently hidden) people behind this bill, because of two decades of race-based political activism focused directly at the land and water resources at He'eia State Park, He'eia fishpond, and the associated upstream areas of Ha'iku Valley and 'Ioleka'a Valley. When testimony on this bill becomes visible to the public it will probably be easy to see the roles of leaders and members of the Ko'olaupoko Hawaiian Civic Club, Kako'o 'Oiwi, Paepae o He'eia, the Ko'olau Foundation, and the apparently dormant or defunct group known as the Ahupua'a Restoration Council of He'eia, in which I was an active participant for more than two years.

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TESTIMONY IN OPPOSITION

Hawaii has "cultural centers" focusing on displays and activities of particular ethnic groups: In Honolulu the Japanese Cultural Center and Filipino Cultural Center, for example. Their buildings were paid for primarily by fundraisers and community groups working together, and their ongoing operating expenses are covered in the same way. From time to time they get grants from the legislature, but those are small portions of their budgets. This bill proposes to establish "Hawaiian" cultural centers, referring to the ethnic group "Native Hawaiian". OHA is mandated to manage conceptualization, construction, and operation of these "Hawaiian Cultural Centers" using government money they have already been given; and now this bill proposes that the legislature must "Appropriate moneys for the planning and design of the first Hawaiian cultural center" and then presumably all the other ones to follow on every island, as will undoubtedly be called for in future legislation. That's grossly unfair to Hawaii's people. According to OHA's financial statement for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2022, OHA had $823 Million in assets. In 2022 the legislature appropriated tens of millions more "in arrears" and also raised OHA's annual payment of ceded land revenues by tens of millions per year in the future. What does OHA plan to do with all that money? Make OHA pay for these new "cultural centers." Do NOT appropriate extra money for them. Too much already!

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TESTIMONY IN OPPOSITION

Three points will be discussed in this testimony:

1. The most important point is that prior legislation and existing statute law make it clear that Kaho'olawe is not to be regarded as the permanent property of the State of Hawaii, and that its transfer to a different government is expected to happen within the next few years. Therefore the legislature must either stop wasting State government money on Kaho'olawe; or else pass legislation rescinding the automatic transfer of the island to a different government, so that money spent to rehabilitate that island actually is for the long-term benefit of the State.

2. All expenses for rehabilitating and maintaining Kaho'olawe should be paid by the Office of Hawaiian Affairs from its share of ceded land revenues, not from the State's general fund.

3. It seems there are no statements of long-term or even short-term goals and objectives regarding the intended uses of Kaho'olawe. For example, we might like to create a sustainable water supply so that vegetation can grow without constant human intervention, but why should we do that? Do we want significant numbers of people to have that island as their primary place of residence where they can grow their own food? We should not merely appropriate money and then wait for people to figure out how to use it -- we should have a statement of purposes first, and then figure out how much money is needed to achieve those purposes and how to hold the recipients accountable for achieving those purposes. Don't spend money without saying why; and don't hire bureaucrats with no way to measure whether they achieve goals which nobody has stated.

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1. Kaho'olawe is not to be regarded as the permanent property of the State of Hawaii; its transfer to a different government is expected to happen within the next few years.

HB455 of year 2019 made clear that Kaho'olawe is not to be regarded as the permanent property of the State of Hawaii, and that its transfer to a different government is expected to happen within the next few years. According to that bill: "Pursuant to section 6K-9, Hawaii Revised Statutes, the management and control of the Kahoolawe island reserve will be transferred to a sovereign native Hawaiian entity upon its recognition by the State and the federal government. This event is anticipated to occur within the timeframe of the 2026 strategic plan."

It's unclear whether the expected "Native Hawaiian entity" will be a sovereign independent nation recognized internationally, or whether it will be similar to an Indian tribe as envisioned by the numerous versions of the "Akaka bill" in Congress from 2000 to 2012. Either way, Kaho'olawe WILL be transferred out of the State of Hawaii and into the Hawaiian nation -- a transfer expected within the next four years. How serious is the threat that a federally recognized Hawaiian tribe will soon be created? Although the Akaka bill has not been re-introduced in Congress since the end of 2012, Senator Brian Schatz zealously devoted his entire maiden speech to pushing in favor of it on June 11, 2013, even though no such bill had been introduced at that time 6 months into the new Congress and even though it has never been introduced from then until now. Full text of his speech, and analysis of it, is at
https://www.angelfire.com/big09/AkakaSchatzMaiden061113.html

Senator Schatz has served on the Senate Indian Affairs Committee continuously for more than 11 years, and as its Chairman during from 2021 to now. He is also Chairman of an appropriations subcommittee, the same position from which Senator Inouye repeatedly attached the Akaka bill by reference (merely naming its bill number and declaring it to be "hereby enacted") deep inside must-pass military or national debt appropriations bills.

Near the start of the 117th Congress, on January 21, 2021 KITV News reported "The new administration is opening the door for federal recognition for Native Hawaiians, allowing greater self-determination and control similar to other Native American tribes. ... "We have a historic opportunity to be able to walk through that portal," Esther Kia'aina said. Before winning a seat on the Honolulu City Council, Esther Kia'aina worked in D.C. for decades. She says the tide turned after the U.S. government issued a formal apology for the 1893 overthrow of the Hawaiian kingdom. President Biden recently appointed Deb Haaland as the first Native American Interior Secretary, if Native Hawaiians want recognition, Kia'aina says no[w] is the time to stand up. ... As the debate continued in 2021-22 there was also a new Native Hawaiian voice at the Capitol who is listening. "I do feel that it's important to hear from our Native Hawaiian community so they can have input on whatever future that holds as far as governance but as a Native Hawaiian and one who represents Hawaii in Congress I look forward to bringing that Native Hawaiian perspective," Hawaii U.S. Congressman Kai Kahele said.

The President could issue an executive order to recognize a Hawaiian tribe, but such an order would be fragile since it could be reversed by any future President. Congressional action through something like the Akaka bill would be permanent and remains a strong possibility. But there is another way to create a Hawaiian tribe and get federal recognition for it. A regulation unilaterally proclaimed by the U.S. Department of Interior at the end of the Obama administration remains in place and could be activated at any time, like a sleeper agent in a spy movie.

43 CFR 50 "Procedures for Reestablishing a Formal Government-to-Government Relationship With the Native Hawaiian Community" was published by the Department of Interior in the Federal Register on October 14, 2016, pp. 71278-71323, thereby making it law. This rule became effective November 14, 2016, 30 days after publication in the Federal Register. In a format that is easy to read, 43 CFR 50 is at
http://tinyurl.com/jyvdbwg

To see the rule as it was actually formatted in the Federal Register, go to
http://tinyurl.com/znjgwkr

How serious is the threat that an internationally recognized sovereign independent Nation of Hawaii will be created? [which would automatically receive a transfer of Kaho'olawe according to HRS 6K-9] One lecturer in Hawaiian Studies at a community college has been, for more than two decades, filing federal lawsuits and corresponding with foreign government consulates in the U.S. demanding that the U.S. disgorge and withdraw is belligerent military occupation of Hawaii. Another activist who styles himself as Foreign Minister of the still-living Kingdom of Hawaii has for many years been making at least one trip annually to both the United Nations in New York and the United Nations in Geneva Switzerland to lobby diplomats of foreign governments, some of which are enemies of the U.S., to invoke old treaties between their nations and the Hawaiian kingdom, and to introduce legislation in the General Assembly to reinstate Hawaii on the U.N. list of non-self-governing territories in need of decolonization. Consider also the ongoing effort to remove the name and statue of President McKinley from the high school, on grounds that McKinley performed a despicable act in persuading Congress to agree to the "illegal" Treaty of Annexation in 1898 -- the primary purpose of that effort is to show the world [falsely but convincingly] that Hawaii rejects being part of America and wants help to escape. In 2021 and again in 2022 a committee of this legislature held a hearing on a resolution demanding that the Board of Education remove McKinley's name and statue, and the committee seemed shocked by the strong resistance to that proposal.

One piece of evidence showing the seriousness of intent to create a sovereign Hawaiian nation is the fact that in 2015 the State of Hawaii Office of Hawaiian Affairs engaged in a well-funded process to create a Constitution for that nation. That effort proceeded in tandem with the Department of Interior multi-year series of hearings and preliminary drafts of 43 CFR 50. All versions of that emerging regulation called for ethnic Hawaiians to hold an election to select delegates to a Constitutional Convention, who would then write a Constitution, get it ratified by a vote of ethnic Hawaiians, and submit it to the Secretary of Interior for approval. OHA spent millions of dollars to update its list of ethnic Hawaiians, and subcontracted to a specially created "private" but wholly owned subsidiary "Na'i Aupuni" to hold an election of delegates. However, a lawsuit by Judicial Watch and Grassroot Institute of Hawaii succeeded in getting the U.S. Supreme Court to issue an injunction by 5-4 vote blocking the election results from being used, on account of the Rice v. Cayetano Supreme Court decision of year 2000 which ruled that a state government agency [OHA's subsidiary Na'i Aupuni] cannot hold a racially exclusionary election. Because of the Supreme Court injunction a decision was made to seat at the constitutional convention all 151 people who were still interested in participating (out of the 209 who had originally filed papers to run as candidates), but to cut the length of the convention from 8 weeks to 4 weeks in order to get the work done within the original budget. The Na'i Aupuni convention met throughout the entire month of February and voted to approve its Constitution on February 26, 2016. The Constitution was published on the Na'i Aupuni website; but of course Na'i Aupuni no longer exists and neither does its website. However, the Constitution remains available here:
http://big09.angelfire.com/NatHwnConstitAdopt022616.pdf

The Native Hawaiian Nation is racially exclusionary, restricted to people who have at least one drop of Hawaiian native blood. All lands and waters of the archipelago of the Hawaiian Islands shall belong to the Native Hawaiian Nation. In other words: This nation is of, by, and for the race exclusively; and the race owns all the lands and waters of Hawaii. The constitution reasserts the concept from the ancient Hawaiian religion, that ethnic Hawaiians have a genealogical relationship with the gods and the land, which is the basis of their race-based rights to control the government and how the lands are used. Here's the relevant exact language from the constitution as approved by the Na'i Aupuni convention on February 26, 2016:

Right up front in your face, the preamble says "we join together to affirm a government of, by, and for Native Hawaiian people" [i.e., of the race, by the race, and for the race], and "affirm our ancestral [i.e., race-based] rights and Kuleana to all lands, waters, and resources of our islands and surrounding seas." [i.e., we're gonna take over the whole place, just like Kamehameha did, who was known as "Ka Na'i Aupuni" -- the conqueror.] "We reaffirm the National Sovereignty of the Nation. We reserve all rights to Sovereignty and Self-determination, including the pursuit of independence. Our highest aspirations are set upon the promise of our unity and this Constitution." By the way, "Na'i Aupuni" means "Conquest" and was one nickname for Kamehameha Ka Na'i Aupuni "The Conqueror." In case there's any doubt about racial exclusivity, Article 2 -- Citizenship -- says "A citizen of the Native Hawaiian Nation is any descendant of the aboriginal and indigenous people who, prior to 1778, occupied and exercised sovereignty in the Hawaiian Islands and is enrolled in the nation." Article 7, Section 4 reaffirms the religious belief that ethnic Hawaiians have a genealogical relationship with the islands, saying "The Nation has a right, duty, and kuleana, both individually and collectively, to sustain the 'Aina (land, kai, wai, air) as an ancestor, source of mana, and source of life and well-being for present and future generations. And Article 8 says "The Government shall not ... Make any law with intent to suppress traditional Native Hawaiian religion or beliefs." Notice also that although the Constitution seems designed to pursue federal recognition as an Indian tribe, it also says "We reserve all rights to Sovereignty and Self-determination, including the pursuit of independence."

This bill now in the Hawaii legislature is a simple bill appropriating money to establish a bureaucracy for restoring Kaho'olawe Island. In this section of my testimony I am saying you should not do that because under HRS 6K-9 it is envisioned that Kaho'olawe will no longer belong to the State of Hawaii, and there is a strategic plan, referred to in HB455 of year 2019, which anticipated that the transfer will happen by 2026. If the ethnic Hawaiian power-elite in Hawaii decides to move forward to implement the federal regulation 43 CFR 50, and to put forward the Na'i Aupuni racist Constitution which allows for independent nationhood, there is absolutely no way you in the legislature can stop it. But you do have it in your power to stop throwing money down the rathole of a soon-to-be outside-of-Hawaii Kaho'olawe. You legislators can overcome this objection merely by getting rid of the automatic transfer of Kaho'olawe to the anticipated Hawaiian nation. PLEASE RESCIND HRS 6K-9. You have it in your power to do that.

2. All expenses for rehabilitating and maintaining Kaho'olawe should be paid by the Office of Hawaiian Affairs from its share of ceded land revenues, not from the State's general fund.

The text of this bill specifically identifies ethnic Hawaiians as the primary beneficiaries. The first sentence makes that clear when it says "Through Act 340, Session Laws of Hawaii 1993, the legislature found that the island of Kaho�olawe was of significant cultural and historic importance to the native people of Hawaii." and the second sentence refers to "the existence of archaeological and other cultural and historic sites, and the presence of native and endangered flora and fauna ..." "The State" and "the people of Hawaii" are briefly mentioned, but only in a condescending way implying they are are of lesser status. Accordingly, all expenses for rehabilitating and maintaining Kaho'olawe should be paid by the Office of Hawaiian Affairs from its share of ceded land revenues, not from the State's general fund.

According to OHA's latest annual report, on June 30, 2022 OHA had assets of $823 Million. Another bill already approved by a committee last year called for $638 Million in arrears plus $79 Million per year in future for OHA from ceded land revenues, exclusively for "betterment of Native Hawaiians" who comprise 20% of Hawaii's people; with no set-aside of 4 times those amounts exclusively for the other 80% of Hawaii's people who lack a drop of Hawaiian blood.

What the heck do you folks think OHA should be doing with all that money? This bill says "There is appropriated out of the general revenues of the State of Hawaii the sum of [$400,000 before bill gets amended] or so much thereof as may be necessary for fiscal year 2024-2025 for the Kaho�olawe island reserve commission." And in addition "There is appropriated out of the general revenues of the State of Hawaii the sum of [$72,500] or so much thereof as may be necessary for fiscal year 2024-2025 to fund ..." three full-time equivalent (3.00 FTE) permanent positions.

That's a mere $400,500 which is a tiny drop in the bucket for OHA. But it would establish a good precedent: OHA should be responsible for projects and costs that are primarily for the benefit of ethnic Hawaiians. That's why Section 5(f) of the Statehood Act of 1959 identifies "the betterment of native Hawaiians" as one of the 5 purposes for which revenues from the ceded lands can be used. Of course we know that $400,500 is merely seed money -- something to get the ball rolling -- the beginning of expenditures that will mushroom to hundreds of millions of dollars in a few years. Make OHA pay!

3. What are the long-term or even short-term goals and objectives regarding the intended uses of Kaho'olawe? We should not merely appropriate money and then wait for people to figure out how to use it -- we should have a statement of purposes first, and then figure out how much money is needed to achieve those purposes and how to hold the recipients accountable for achieving those purposes. Don't spend money without saying why; and don't hire bureaucrats with no way to measure whether they achieve goals which nobody has stated.

In 1992 I first came to live permanently in Kane'ohe, and for several years (1992 to 1995) I was enrolled in courses in Hawaiian language, history, and culture. That was the same time period when the bombing of the "target island" was stopped, ownership of the island was transferred to Hawaii, and Congress appropriated $400 Million for cleanup of unexploded ordnance. I attended community meetings celebrating these events. Both in my classes and in community meetings I was invited several times to go along on a one-day visit to Kaho'olawe. I politely declined. But it was clear from those community events, from televised news reports, and from the invitations to tag along, that there was no clear plan or purpose for how to use the island. Indeed, some might consider it sacrilegious, or at least disrespectful, to talk about "using" Kaho'olawe. An 'olelo no'eau says: "He ali'i ka 'aina; he kauwa ke kanaka." Land is a chief, people are its humble servants. Our job is not to use the land but to serve it.

But in practice casually visiting Kaho'olawe was seen partly as a sort of tourist daytrip for fun and adventure. A bit daring because of all the unexploded bombs and need to stay on a narrowly defined path. It was also regarded by some activists as a pilgrimage to a sacred place, born from the womb of a god and giving birth to other creatures -- Ke kohe [lawe] malamalama o Kanaloa was its legendary name, identifying it as the shining [portable] vagina of the sea god Kanaloa. So the activists performed protocol: chants, prayers, setting up a lele for offerings of fish or vegetables. Very nice, and very impressive to daytrippers.

Is that it? Is that the reason why the State of Hawaii should spend lots of money to rehabilitate Kaho'olawe? Simply to admire it and perhaps to worship it? Is the ancient religion of the native Hawaiians now adopted as the official religion of the State of Hawaii? Or maybe it will become the island where the capitol of the Hawaiian nation will be erected. Or maybe we can turn it into a vegetable garden and send the produce by barge a short distance to Maui. Or maybe it would be a great place for OHA to build a casino! Figure out what you want to do with it before you spend tax dollars on it.

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SB57 RELATING TO THE JUDICIARY'S �OLELO HAWAI�I INITIATIVES.
Appropriates funds for staff positions and various services to support the Olelo Hawaii Initiatives.

TESTIMONY IN OPPOSITION

List of 3 main points

1. $300,000 proposed in this bill this year is merely seed money for a project that will mushroom to hundreds of millions in future, as shown by demands made in previous legislation and in Chief Justice Recktenwald's own 50-page report.

2. Practical need for using a language vs. ethnic pride or vanity in seeing a language displayed -- who should pay?

3. The case of Samuel Kaleikoa Kaeo.

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This bill proposes to appropriate $300,000 seed money to establish the beginnings of a new bureaucracy inside the Judiciary for the purpose of fostering and normalizing Hawaiian language, by translating various legal documents into Hawaiian. First comes $100,000 for salary for a chief bureaucrat (who might already have been chosen behind the scenes); and then an additional $200,000 "for implementation, including translation services, website upgrades, preparation of materials, and educational efforts." Of course that's only the beginning.

A hidden purpose of this bill is to set up a bureaucracy that will expand by leaps and bounds to provide paid employment for the growing number of people who become fluent in Hawaiian language but cannot find jobs as teachers of it. Let's remember how the labor unions lobbied aggressively for the Honolulu rail project because they wanted jobs; but now the people of Hawaii are stuck paying more than $10 Billion for an ugly makework project that most people don't want and will never use (like translating the Hawaii Revised Statutes into Hawaiian).

As this bill points out, "[I]n 2015, the legislature adopted a concurrent resolution, H.C.R. No. 217, Session Laws of Hawaii 2015, that requested the judiciary to convene a task force to examine and report on establishing �Ōlelo Hawai�i resources for the judiciary... made several recommendations and identified projects that can serve as a guide to the judiciary."

In the regular session of 2016 this legislature entertained companion bills SB2162 and HB2180 whose purpose was to appropriate $500,000.00 in seed money for the judiciary to begin a program to train people to become expert in both Hawaiian language and the specialized concepts of the legal profession to the point where they can translate the Hawaii Revised Statutes into Hawaiian, along with case law that might be cited to support or oppose legal briefs or memos in current courtroom proceedings. And that was only seed money!

Bill SB560 in the legislature of 2017 provides evidence of the costs for translation services. For translating just one document from English to Hawaiian -- the state Constitution -- SB560 proposed an appropriation of $25,000.00 for year 2017 and an additional $25,000.00 for year 2018, to be given to the University of Hawaii.

The $300,000 proposed in this year's bill is merely an acorn poised to grow into a mighty oak tree. Why is the Judiciary proposing a make-work boutique project when it presumably has plenty of work to cope with the practical realities of a huge backlog of cases [especially jury trials] resulting from the COVID pandemic?

I have read the 50-page report by Chief Justice Mark Recktenwald to the House Judiciary Committee dated December 16, 2015: "Report of the Hawaiian Language Web Feasibility Task Force" appointed pursuant to House Concurrent Resolution No. 217, House Draft 1, Senate Draft 1 adopted by the Legislature in 2015. IT PROPOSES A PAY RATE OF $500 PER HOUR FOR THE EXPERT TRANSLATORS proposed in SB2162 regular session of 2016. How many hundreds of millions of dollars would be needed to translate the Hawaii Revised Statutes into Hawaiian, along with case law that might be cited to support or oppose legal briefs or memos in current courtroom proceedings? Mr. Recktenwald did NOT hire anyone to translate his own report into Hawaiian language. Why not? He should be willing to take a pay cut to get the job done! His document was 50 pages long. If each page required one hour to translate, the cost for just that one document alone, at his proposed pay rate of $500.00 per hour, would be $25,000.00.

2. Practical need for using a language vs. ethnic pride or vanity in seeing a language displayed -- who should pay?

There is no practical NEED for anyone to speak Hawaiian in court, nor to have state laws or legal pleadings or documents available in Hawaiian, because everyone who can speak Hawaiian is more fluent in English. By contrast, there is great NEED for translations of documents into and from Asian and European languages, and NEED for courtroom interpreters for those languages. Let's spend taxpayer dollars for what is NEEDED; not for using Hawaiian language as a vanity display of ethnic heritage and pride.

According to OHA's latest annual report, on June 30, 2021 OHA had assets of $822,738,000.00. And according to bills which were winning unanimous approval in "Hawaiian Affairs" legislative committees in 2022, OHA demanded $638 Million in arrears plus $79 Million per year in future from ceded land revenues. Let OHA pay for using Hawaiian language as a vanity display of ethnic heritage and pride. The $300,000 called for in this bill, and all the money needed to fund the future dreams of Mark Recktenwald and the Hawaiian language empire, is a smaller portion of OHA's wealth than a single puakenikeni blossom on a Kamehameha Day float.

Princess Ruth Ke'elikolani (hoo dat?) insisted on speaking Hawaiian when giving speeches, interviews, or testimony, even though she was perfectly capable of understanding and speaking English fluently. She was famous for humiliating haole diplomats and news reporters this way, forcing them to hire translators. She felt she was having a political and "moral" victory by forcing them to use Hawaiian. Hawaiian sovereignty activists and language zealots follow her lead and do this same stunt nowadays -- see discussion about the case of Samuel Kaleikoa Kaeo who did precisely this stunt in court recently, humiliating the individual judge by forcing him to knuckle under to the demand for a court interpreter and humiliating the entire Judiciary by eliciting a policy to unnecessarily provide interpreters for Hawaiian language in the same manner as they provide necessary interpreters for speakers of other languages who lack understanding of English.

Nobody NEEDS to speak or hear Hawaiian to express himself or to understand what someone is saying -- the activists demand it to score a political point; and sometimes to simply "gum up the works" when there is testimony on an environmental impact statement regarding telescopes on Mauna Kea or construction on a military base. Please see a large and detailed webpage "Hawaiian Language as a Political Weapon" at
https://www.angelfire.com/big09/HawLangPolitWeapon.html

There are numerous Hawaiian sovereignty activists and Hawaiian language zealots who certainly would make demands for thousands of documents -- not because there is any real need to have those documents in Hawaiian language, but merely for the pleasure and ethnic pride of seeing them and with the conscious intention of providing employment for their friends.

3. The case of Samuel Kaleikoa Kaeo.

Samuel Kaleikoa Kaeo is a community college instructor who speaks English fluently. In fact he teaches classes using English as the language of instruction, makes fiery political speeches in English, and has also learned to speak Hawaiian fluently. He demanded to give court testimony in Hawaiian, not because he is unable to speak English, but merely as a stunt -- a form of Hawaiian sovereignty street theatre or political activism.

Hawaii is filled with the Aloha Spirit. Our people are kind and generous, and show our good will to people who cannot speak English by allowing them to give testimony in their own language and by providing them at our own taxpayer expense with interpreters who have been certified by the court to be fluent in both their own language and English. But Kaeo's political stunt was neither kind nor generous. It did not display good will, let alone the Aloha Spirit. He could easily have spoken English, but he chose to speak Hawaiian as a way to FORCE everyone else to either learn Hawaiian or to spend taxpayer dollars to hire speakers of Hawaiian. That's what today's bill in our legislature is all about -- a political stunt that would inconvenience everyone and, over time, would cost a lot of money merely for the sake of cultural/ linguistic chauvinism.

Honolulu Star-Advertiser of January 25, 2018 reported: "A Maui District Court judge on Wednesday issued a bench warrant for the arrest of a University of Hawaii-Maui College assistant professor of Hawaiian studies after he refused in court to acknowledge himself in the English language. Kaleikoa Kaeo, who was scheduled to start a trial for his August 2017 arrest for trying to block a shipment of parts to the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope under construction atop Haleakala, spoke only in the Hawaiian language when Judge Blaine J. Kobayashi asked him repeatedly if he was present for the trial. While an interpreter was provided for Kaeo during his initial court appearance, Kobayashi in December approved a motion by the Maui Prosecutor's Office requiring that the trial be conducted in English. There is no legal requirement to have Hawaiian language interpreters for those who speak English but prefer to speak Hawaiian in court, according to the state Judiciary. Nevertheless, Wednesday's events prompted outrage within the Hawaiian community. Office of Hawaiian Affairs Chief Executive Officer Kamana'opono Crabbe issued a statement saying the agency is "deeply disturbed and offended" that Kaeo was prohibited from defending himself in the Hawaiian language and that a bench warrant was issued for his arrest. Office of Hawaiian Affairs Chief Executive Officer Kamana'opono Crabbe issued a statement saying the agency is "deeply disturbed and offended" that Kaeo was prohibited from defending himself in the Hawaiian language and that a bench warrant was issued for his arrest. "Punishing Native Hawaiians for speaking our native language (evokes) a disturbing era in Hawaii's history when olelo Hawaii (Hawaiian language) was prohibited in schools, a form of cultural suppression that substantially contributed to the near extinction of the Hawaiian language," the statement said. "It is disappointing that the state government continues to place barriers on olelo Hawaii, 40 years after Hawaii's Constitution was amended to recognize the Hawaiian language as an official language of the state. We demand that the state Judiciary find an immediate solution to this issue.""

Honolulu Star-Advertiser, January 26, 2018 reported: "An interpreter was not available when Kaeo showed up for a Nov. 22 hearing at which the prosecutor told Kobayashi she wanted to conduct the trial in English. In its written request the prosecutor says requiring a Hawaiian-language interpreter will cause needless delay and unnecessary expense because Kaeo is fluent in English. The prosecutor also said a federal judge had ruled in a civil case that the right to assert a federally protected language does not extend to judicial proceedings. Kaeo did not submit a written response. ... The Hawaii Judiciary says Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 requires it to provide language interpreters when a party or a witness in a case has limited English proficiency or is unable to hear, understand, speak or use English sufficiently to effectively participate in court proceedings. Hawaiian cultural practitioner Daniel Anthony says he has intentionally gotten traffic tickets so he can go to court and assert his right to participate in the proceeding in Hawaiian. "I've been detained a couple of times," he said, but no longer than six hours. When the judge ordered him back into court in the afternoon to conduct the hearing, the prosecutor would ask to have the case continued every time he refused to speak in English. Anthony said the cases were dismissed, and the court eventually provided him a Hawaiian- language interpreter."

Chelsea Davis, Hawaii News Now, January 26, 2018, 3:45 PM reported: "The state Judiciary says it will provide interpreters to those seeking to speaking Hawaiian in court "to the extent reasonably possible." ... In a statement, the Judiciary said it will start implementing the new policy immediately. It also asked those interested to serve as Hawaiian interpreters to contact the Office of Equality and Access to the Courts at 539-4860. The policy stands in contrast to the Judiciary's previous statements on using Hawaiian in court. Earlier this week, the Judiciary said: "There is no legal requirement to provide Hawaiian language interpreters to court participants who speak English but prefer to speak in Hawaiian. In those cases, judges have the discretion to grant, or deny, a request for an interpreter."... Kaeo said. "This is not just about language. This is a larger questions in which Hawaiians have been struggling to become visible within Hawaii and the world." ... The Hawaii State Judiciary issued a statement to Hawaii News Now on Wednesday stating, "there is no legal requirement to provide Hawaiian language interpreters to court participants who speak English but prefer to speak in Hawaiian. In those cases, judges have the discretion to grant, or deny, a request for an interpreter."

Honolulu Star-Advertiser, January 26, 2018, Breaking news at 4:28 PM reported: "The Hawaii State Judiciary will allow the use of Hawaiian language interpreters in courtrooms when participants in legal proceedings "choose to express themselves through the Hawaiian language." The new policy was announced today, following a widely reported incident ... In announcing the new policy yesterday, the Judiciary said it would develop implementation procedures and solicited public input. Comments may be sent to pao@courts.hawaii.gov."

On January 27, 2018 I, Kenneth Conklin, sent an email to the Judiciary's public affairs office at the email address in the news report, which included the following points:

The Hawaiian language is a great treasure for Hawaii's people of all races, and indeed for all the world. Most people of good will are pleased to assist in preserving the language, reviving it and helping it to thrive in everyday use. I myself have spent considerable time and effort over a period of many years learning Hawaiian language to a level of moderate fluency; and I'm proud to use it for reading, writing, and occasionally in public speaking.

However, the primary purpose of our courts is to adjudicate cases in controversy in accord with the Constitution and statutes; it is not to engage in well-meaning adventures in cultural expression or "social justice." Indeed, there are good reasons why judges are given considerable protection against political pressure, including the campaign we have seen in recent days in the criminal trial of Samuel Kaleikoa Kaeo (Maui) and the civil case regarding possession and occupancy of the Coco Palms resort (Kaua'i). Let me remind you that judges and lawyers take an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States and of the State of Hawaii -- not an oath of allegiance to the Kingdom of Hawaii nor to an effort to restore Hawaii as an independent nation nor to help create a Hawaiian tribe.

Perhaps you intend to persist in a newly adopted policy of allowing testimony in Hawaiian language by people who are equally fluent in English, and perhaps also allowing written documents in Hawaiian language to be introduced as testimony or evidence or exhibits, and perhaps also providing Hawaiian language interpreters at taxpayer expense.

If you do these things for ethnic Hawaiians, and/or for speakers of Hawaiian language, then you MUST also do these things for people of all ethnicities and all languages. The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution includes the Equal Protection clause which requires all people to be treated equally under the law and has been interpreted to require equal treatment regardless of race, religion, or national origin. Hawaii has thousands of people who are first or second generation from Philippines, Japan, China, Korea, etc. who are fluent in English but who might prefer to use their native language in court. You must now allow them to do so. Indeed, their right to use their native language is superior to the right of an ethnic Hawaiian to use Hawaiian, because virtually 100% of the people who speak Hawaiian are native speakers of English (i.e., they grew up speaking English) even though they are genetically natives of Hawaii.

Let me remind you that Article XV Section 4 of the Hawaii Constitution includes a disclaimer or restriction, which I have emphasized in this quotation of it: "English and Hawaiian shall be the official languages of Hawaii, EXCEPT THAT HAWAIIAN SHALL BE REQUIRED FOR PUBLIC ACTS AND TRANSACTIONS ONLY AS PROVIDED BY LAW."

I have researched the legislative history of Article XV Section 4 from the transcripts of the Constitutional Convention of 1978, and have found no evidence that there was any legislative intent to place Hawaiian on an equal footing with English in legal proceedings. Indeed, the author of Article XV Section 4, Adelaide (Frenchy) De Soto, explicitly said that her reason for introducing it was her unhappiness that Hawaiian was grouped with foreign languages in college catalogues. Please see my webpage on this topic at
https://tinyurl.com/ybn4l6pd

One more point needs to be raised here even though it is "politically incorrect" and perhaps painful to do so.

Probably everyone who chooses to use Hawaiian language in court proceedings will do so for political reasons as an act of resistance, defiance and hostility toward the United States and its "puppet regime" the State of Hawaii.

The Hawaiian-speakers in your courtrooms are engaged in street-theatre. They are literally in contempt of court, because they claim your court has no jurisdiction over them due to the "illegal military invasion and occupation" of Hawaii as admitted in the U.S. "confession" of 1993 (i.e., the apology resolution). So even after you are so kind to let them testify in Hawaiian, and you are so generous to pay for their interpreters, they will then refuse to obey your decision or court order. These Hawaiian sovereignty protesters are intentionally using Hawaiian language as a political weapon to delay and disrupt court proceedings, and to assert the continuing existence of a Hawaiian nation. By allowing Hawaiian language testimony you are allowing your courtroom to be used as the stage for a political rally by people who refuse to recognize your jurisdiction or legitimacy. Whether you realize it or not, you are an enabler and accessory to racial divisiveness, anti-Americanism, anarchy and revolution. Please see my large, detailed webpage "Hawaiian Language as a Political Weapon" at
http://tinyurl.com/668vqyz

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HB133 RELATING TO THE BUDGET OF THE OFFICE OF HAWAIIAN AFFAIRS.
Appropriates moneys to fund the operating expenses of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs for the fiscal biennium beginning on 7/1/2023, and ending on 6/30/2025.

TESTIMONY IN OPPOSITION

Please delete from this bill any appropriation of money from general funds.

According to OHA's most recent annual report: As of June 30, 2022, OHA's assets were 823 Million dollars. And OHA receives more than a million dollars per week additional, taken from new revenues received by the State of Hawaii. That's a huge cash stash, growing by leaps and bounds every year, set aside exclusively for members of one racial group, diverted from other purposes which would serve all Hawaii's people (including ethnic Hawaiians) regardless of race.

Furthermore, OHA asserts that it should be treated as an autonomous entity. If OHA wants to manage its own affairs separately, then OHA should pay autonomously and separately for what it does -- especially regarding "advocacy" i.e., political propaganda for the purpose of influencing public opinion and lawmakers on issues such as increasing she amount of ceded land revenues to be given to OHA, and enriching itself by changing the height limit on buildings in OHA's newly- named "Hakuone" lands.

OHA is by far the wealthiest agency in the state government, since other agencies are not allowed to carry forward a huge cash stash year after year after year. Make OHA pay its own way.

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TESTIMONY IN OPPOSITION

Wouldn't it be a wonderful idea to exempt all housing development from general excise tax? That would provide a real incentive to help solve the housing shortage blamed for homelessness and high prices. But this bill singles out one racial group to enjoy such an exemption, while everyone else must pay the tax. That is an example of what is known as "systemic racism" -- setting up an entire system in a way that benefits or harms people because of their race. Whatever happened to diversity, equity, and inclusiveness?

What about exempting DHHL development from school impact fees? Do ethnic Hawaiians not make babies and have children? If DHHL builds its own schools to educate children who live in their own ghettos, then of course they should not have to pay school impact fees to the general public schools that serve non-ethnic-Hawaiians. Read my book "Hawaiian Apartheid: Racial Separatism and Ethnic Nationalism in the Aloha State."
http://tinyurl.com/2a9fqa

The attitude projected in this sort of legislation exemplifies what I wrote about.

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SB874 RELATING TO SCHOOL IMPACT FEES.
Exempts certain housing developments from assessments of school impact fees

TESTIMONY OPPOSING CERTAIN PROVISIONS OF THIS BILL

Some provisions in this bill seem reasonable, because they exempt assessments of school impact fees for housing developments where there will be no school-age children living there, such as (1) Any form of housing permanently excluding school-aged children, with the necessary covenants or declarations of restrictions recorded on the property.

Some provisions of this bill seem reasonable, because they exempt assessments of school impact fees for housing developments where the developers actually build schools on their own land with sufficient capacity to handle the children who will be living there, such as (4) Any development with an executed education contribution agreement or other like document with the authority or the department for the contribution of school sites or payment of fees for school land or school construction.

However, some provisions of this bill explicitly provide exemptions based solely on race and are therefore unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment Equal Protection Clause, such as (5) Any form of housing developed by the department of Hawaiian home lands for use by beneficiaries of the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act, 1920, as amended

And additional provisions of this bill would likely result in race-based exemptions on DHHL lands even in the absence of #5, such as
(8) Any development or project that is exempt from general excise taxes pursuant to section 201H-36; and
(9) Any development receiving federal, state, or county funds such as from the rental housing revolving fund or low-income housing tax credits

But this bill singles out one racial group to enjoy such an exemption, while everyone else must pay the tax. That is an example of what is known as "systemic racism" -- setting up an entire system in a way that benefits or harms people because of their race. Whatever happened to diversity, equity, and inclusiveness?

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TESTIMONY IN OPPOSITION

The attitude projected in this sort of legislation exemplifies what I wrote about.

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TESTIMONY IN OPPOSITION

What the heck do you folks think OHA should be doing with all that money? Throughout the year OHA blows its conch shell and waves its kahilis to draw attention to its occasional announcements when they give a grant of a few million dollars to help one or another non-profit group that has "experience and expertise in supporting and advancing Native Hawaiian communities." But the total amount OHA spends to give grants to any groups, including the Hawaiian-focus charter schools and immersion schools, is a pitifully small portion of the tens of millions of dollars OHA collects each year from ceded land revenues and legislative appropriations. That's how OHA has acculated its enormous and ever-increasing cash stash.

Gimme, gimme, gimme! Let OHA, not the taxpayers, "provide grants to tax-exempt nonprofit organizations that have experience and expertise in supporting and advancing Native Hawaiian communities."

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COMMENTS ONLY

Amend.

This is a great idea. But creating an interactive digital database software program is something DHHL should have done long ago, and is a specialized project which they should now do without additional money. You already gave them $600 Million last year, and they are having trouble figuring out how to spend it. Pass this bill to give them a shove in the right direction, but remove the part pertaining to "Appropriates moneys."

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TESTIMONY IN SUPPORT

This is a good way to shorten the waiting list by removing anyone who chooses not to make use of a gift they have already received and apparently do not need.

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COMMENTS ONLY

Amend to delete "funds owed to independent legal counsel shall be paid by the State." Yes DHHL as a government agency should be allowed to use the services of the Attorney General. However, the reason for them wanting to hire independent counsel is if they are suing the state, which is what would cause a conflict of interest. In that case, let them pay their own way -- this would incentivize them to resolve their dispute through either mediation or arbitration.

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TESTIMONY IN OPPOSITION

This testimony has three main points.
1. Playing the race card authorized in this bill would be immoral, divisive, and inflammatory.
2. Federal law overrides state law, and nullifies it when tested in court. Thus the U.S. Constitution 14th Amendment Equal Protection Clause overrides the racially exclusive interpretation of Article 12 Section 7 of the Hawaii Constitution.
3. Article 12 Section 7 of the Hawaii Constitution should not be interpreted as racially exclusionary. If it is interpreted properly there will be no need to have a race card or to play it.

1. Playing the race card authorized in this bill would be immoral, divisive, and inflammatory.

Do we want our state government to issue a race card which can be carried in a wallet so that someone can play this race card to stop an enforcement officer from arresting a person who is violating a regulation? Sort of like a racial variant of someone having a card identifying them as a member of the police benevolent society and showing the card when pulled over for speeding?

The basic issue in this bill is whether it would be wise for the legislature to authorize creation of a "race card" that would give immediate immunity from arrest or citation to anyone of the favored race who shows the card to an enforcement officer, at the same time the officer is arresting someone else standing in the same place who is engaged in the same activity (perhaps fishing) which violates a law or regulation. Allowing government to issue such a race card would be a clear case of government-sponsored "systemic racism." Establishing such a system would be both immoral and illegal. This bill explicitly says its purpose is to help a person of the favored race to avoid the inconvenience of being detained and the need to later provide evidence of favored status during a trial or administrative hearing. To facilitate this bill's purpose of eliminating inconvenience, perhaps this bill could be amended to authorize a possessor of the card to leave it at home after having the letter "K" tattooed on their forehead.

This bill would establish a highly visible racial division between first-class citizens who can do activities right in front of second-class citizens who are forbidden to do those activities -- as visible as having side-by-side drinking fountains labeled "White" and "Negro" -- as visible as Rosa Parks being ordered to leave her seat in the front of the bus and go sit in back to make way for a White who comes onto the bus and is entitled by law to sit in the front. Such racial divisiveness is potentially incendiary; its high visibility in this situation may elicit anger and could incite violence.

2. Federal law overrides state law, and nullifies it when tested in court.

Article VI, Paragraph 2 of the U.S. Constitution establishes that the federal Constitution, and federal law generally, take precedence over state laws, and even state constitutions. Therefore the U.S. 14th Amendment "Equal Protection" clause -- "No State shall ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." -- overrides and nullifies Article 12, Section 7 of the Hawaii Constitution which purports to give special rights to "ahupua'a tenants who are descendants of native Hawaiians who inhabited the Hawaiian Islands prior to 1778."

As a deterrent to passing the present bill, let's recall a civil rights lawsuit illustrating how Hawaii has previously suffered the embarrassment and expense caused by racial segregation in our voting laws. In year 2000 the Supreme Court's decision in Rice v. Cayetano used the U.S. Constitution's 15th Amendment to nullify the portion of Hawaii's Constitution that imposed a racial restriction on who can vote in elections for the board of directors of a state government agency (OHA).

3. Article 12 Section 7 of the Hawaii Constitution should not be interpreted as racially exclusionary. If it is interpreted properly there will be no need to have a race card or to play it.

Article 12 Section 7 of the Hawaii Constitution is cited in this bill as the alleged justification empowering the race card. But the correct way to interpret it is that all Hawaii's people, regardless of race, are entitled to the same rights customarily and traditionally exercised by native Hawaiians who inhabited the Hawaiian Islands prior to 1778. Such an interpretation would guarantee that people of the favored race -- the descendants of those native Hawaiians -- would have those rights; and that interpretation would also avoid the illegality and immorality of racial exclusivity. And of course Article 12 Section 7 concludes by saying that the exercise of those rights is "subject to the right of the State to regulate such rights." That last part clearly says that whatever special rights some ethnic Hawaiian activists think their racial group alone possesses could lawfully be nullified because they are "subject to the right of the State to regulate such rights."

To see why Article 12 Section 7 (and also the PASH decision) pertains to all Hawaii's people and is not racially exclusive, we must look back to the Mahele laws beginning in 1848 culminating in the Kuleana Act of 1850.

A single phrase, and especially an individual word in that phrase, has been subjected to deliberate distortion over time because of what the word meant in Hawaiian when proclaimed into law eighteen decades ago and what it has come to mean in English since then. The phrase is: "koe nae ke kuleana o na kanaka." Word for word, here's exactly what it says: "reserving however the rights of the people."

The meaning of that phrase has been twisted by today's Hawaiian sovereignty activists to mean that there are special land and ocean rights exclusively for ethnic Hawaiians that are not available to anyone lacking a drop of the magic blood. But in fact the rights referred to in that phrase (including gathering, beach access, and fishing) are rights belonging to all Hawaii's people regardless of race. Here's the explanation of why that phrase was included in the property deeds granted under the Mahele, and how the meaning of the word "kanaka" has morphed into today's racial meaning which was not intended in the 1840s.

When private land ownership was created by granting royal patent deeds during the unfolding stages of the Mahele, chiefs were given huge swaths of land, while peasants living on and farming individual parcels were given the right to have fee-simple ownership of their parcels. The problem was that the chief's land completely surrounded the peasant's small parcel, thus making it necessary for a peasant to trespass through the chief's land in order to gather materials necessary for daily life, or to go to the ocean for fishing. So in the interest of what we today might call "social justice", the chief's royal patent deed gave him ownership "reserving however the rights of the people" [for gathering or shoreline access]. That Hawaiian phrase �koe nae ke kuleana o na kanaka� today is always translated to mean "reserving the rights of the native tenants." However, there was nothing racial about the word "kanaka" back in 1850, although today it has come to refer to so-called "Native Hawaiians." The word "kanaka" simply meant person, or human being, with an implication that it might be referring to a servant or peasant. [Someone who has no servant might be called by the name "kanaka'ole"] If you look up "kanaka" in the big Pukui/ Elbert dictionary you will find no racial terms. Furthermore, the word "kanaka" does not mean "tenant" -- that word is "hoa'aina." Although non-natives made up only a small percentage of Hawaii's population in 1850, the rights reserved to the "kanaka" in the Kuleana Act were reserved for ALL the "people" regardless of race and regardless whether they were tenants (ordinary people living there or perhaps tenant farmers) under a particular chief.

The Hawaii Constitution Article 12 Section 7, and also the PASH decision by the Hawaii Supreme Court, include racial restrictions which are modern distortions and simply do not grow out of the Mahele or the Kuleana Act. "The State reaffirms and shall protect all rights, customarily and traditionally exercised for subsistence, cultural and religious purposes and possessed by ahupua�a tenants who are descendants of native Hawaiians who inhabited the Hawaiian Islands prior to 1778, subject to the right of the State to regulate such rights." The traditional and customary rights of native Hawaiians from before 1778, and still possessed under the Kuleana Act of 1850 and still to this day -- those terms describe what rights are being referred to, but those terms should NOT be construed as limiting those rights to members of any particular racial or ethnic group. By interpreting those rights to be possessed by ALL Hawaii's people, we would ensure equality under the law for everyone including ethnic Hawaiians. Indeed, at the time of the Mahele and Kuleana Act, those rights WERE INDEED possessed by all Hawaii's people regardless of race -- a fact which did not in any way diminish the pride or success of the native Hawaiians.

The fact that the racially inclusive interpretation of "koe nae ke kuleana o na kanaka" is not the usual interpretation should serve as an important illustration of the fact that the only people who have sufficient fluency in Hawaiian language have been trained by teachers and institutions which are politically active; and the students mastering the language under their tutelage have been indoctrinated with their political views and will interpret the meaning of laws in a manner that facilitates their political agenda.

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Ken Conklin's TESTIMONY IN OPPOSITION

In homage to Archie Bunker, this bill should be given the name "All In The Family." Its obvious purpose is to allow a family to keep a DHHL lease in the family even after the original lessee has died, and the spouse and children have died, etc. -- so long as the successor leaseholder has at least 1/32 Hawaiian native blood and is related to the original lessee from decades ago. The only way to pry the lease away from the family is if the lease expires after the statutory period of 100 years. Indeed, we have passed the 100th anniversary of enactment of the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act, so in the next few years we will see leases in Papakolea (the first homestead) beginning to expire. Therefore we will probably soon see legislation automatically extending leases for an additional century, to keep them "all in the family." Note that the number of waitlisters continues to grow each year, contradicting the dire assertion that the existing blood quantum requirement is somehow producing an inevitable genocide through dilution of quantum due to intermarriage.

According to one of the whereas clauses in this resolution there are now 28,700 racially certified native Hawaiians now on the waitlist, most of whom have been waiting for decades. Let's give them a lease instead of guaranteeing the inheritance of a lease by grandchildren, great-grandchildren, cousins, etc. whose connection with Hawaiian culture and with the 'aina may be greatly attenuated or virtually imperceptible.

The most obvious result of enacting this bill would be to permanently establish a hereditary elite caste among native Hawaiians and Native Hawaiians -- families who got a lease early in the history of DHHL would remain forever an elite group of ali'i while those who placed their names on the waiting list in later years remain consigned to the lower caste maka'ainana with no hope of moving up. People with as little as 1/32 Hawaiian native ancestry but who are blood relatives of existing lessees would have an insurmountable preference over the native Hawaiians of greater than 50% native ancestry who were the intended beneficiaries of the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act but now find they have no hope of getting a lease because they belong to a family from the "wrong side of the tracts."

Many Hawaiians believe that the 50% blood quantum requirement in the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act is terribly divisive, pitting high- blood natives against low-blood Natives. It's often said that Prince Jonah Kuhio Kalaniana'ole, Territorial Representative of Hawaii who sponsored the HHCA, wanted the blood requirement to be set at 1/32, which in 1920 would have allowed virtually every ethnic Hawaiian to qualify (although I have not seen actual written evidence to support the legend that he proposed 1/32). Now that four more generations have occurred, Kuhio's rationale would need to be updated to say the quantum should be 1/512, to ensure that everyone with a drop of the magic blood is eligible.

But here's my view. I believe that 1/2 is too high, 1/32 is too high, 1/512 is too high, and even one drop is too high. The native blood requirement for a homestead lease on public lands should be zero. During the Republic and early Territorial periods Hawaii had a homesteading law that allowed any citizen of Hawaii, regardless of race, to select a vacant piece of public land, live on that land for a period of years while putting it to good use, and thereby acquire ownership of the land in fee simple. That perfectly fine race-neutral homesteading law fell by the wayside when the well-intentioned but hopelessly racist HHCA was enacted. So now we have a huge bureaucracy costing megabucks to administer in order to ensure that only people of the favored race can establish a homestead on public land; and that they can only lease the land but are denied the most secure way for a family to build wealth -- fee-simple ownership of land. What a shame!

This resolution proposes to establish 1/32 as the blood quantum needed to inherit a homestead lease. Did you know that Michelle Obama is 1/32 Caucasian, and would therefore be eligible to inherit a lease on a Caucasian homestead? Isn't that amazing! See "How the Obama Family Will Benefit from the Caucasian Government Reorganization Act of 2040"
https://www.angelfire.com/big09a/CaucasianGovReorgAct.html

Below you will find a copy of a letter to editor published in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser of December 22, 2016, from a Hawaiian with 3/8 native blood.

"Keep Hawaiian blood quantum rule

"I am not in favor of reducing the Hawaiian blood quantum requirement to 1/32 Hawaiian for the transfer of leases to relatives. I am in favor of the current requirement of 25 percent Hawaiian. "To qualify for Hawaiian Homes land, a person needs to be at least 50 percent Hawaiian. There are 27,000 qualified applicants on the wait list. These people have waited many years to obtain a lease and may not get a lease during their lifetime because Native Hawaiians on the wait list have died while waiting.

"They deserve priority before land is transferred to someone who is only 1/32 Hawaiian.

"Those who are objecting to the current 25 percent transfer requirement should be extremely grateful for all the years they lived on Hawaiian Homes property.

"I am three-eighths Hawaiian. My late mother, Hannah Bailey Pang, was three-fourths Hawaiian. My grandmother Hannah Kaholowaa Kamahele Bailey was pure Hawaiian.

"I do not qualify for Hawaiian Homes property, but I am very concerned about those who qualify, are not given a fair chance to obtain such property, and are on the wait list of 27,000.

"Bertha Pang Drayson Wailuku, Maui"

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GM502 Submitting for consideration and confirmation as the Attorney JDC General, Department of the Attorney General, Gubernatorial Nominee, ANNE LOPEZ, for a term to expire at noon on 12-07-2026.

Ken Conklin's TESTIMONY IN OPPOSITION

Nominee Anne Lopez has exhibited gross negligence when submitting testimony on pending legislation this year, in the role of Attorney General. Her negligence disqualifies her from this office.

Ms. Lopez' testimony totally ignored explicit language in at least two bills, SB32 and SB52, that would enact new laws violating a highly publicized decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, and another decision by the U.S. District Court in Honolulu which was upheld by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. By discussing other Constitutional issues while ignoring these two Constitutional decisions pertaining to the 15th Amendment, her testimony implicitly endorses proposed new laws about voting which are blatantly and notoriously unconstitutional according to federal court rulings.

SB32 pdf version page 6 lines 18-20 says that OHA board members shall be "elected by qualified voters who are Hawaiians, as provided by law. The board members shall be Hawaiians."

SB52 pdf version page 1 lines 14-16 says "No person shall be eligible for election or appointment to the board unless the person is Hawaiian ..."

The racial restriction regarding who can vote for candidates for the OHA board was ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in Rice v. Cayetano, 528 U.S. 495 (2000), by vote of 7-2.

Governor Cayetano ousted all nine OHA trustees on grounds they had been illegally elected. In the election of November 2000 I ran as a candidate for OHA trustee, along with 95 other candidates for the 9 seats. There were at least a dozen so-called �non-Hawaiians" [Hawaii citizens with no native blood] among the 96 candidates; and one of them, Charles Ota, won the Maui seat. Judge Gillmor�s civil rights racial desegregation decision was appealed to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, and was upheld by the three-judge panel, with the final judgment filed on July 1, 2003 by Honolulu clerk Walter Chinn. The judgment concludes: �... The State is ordered to permit otherwise qualified non-Hawaiians to run for office and to serve, if elected, as trustees of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. Section 5 of Article XII of the State Constitution and HRS § 13D-2 violate the Fifteenth Amendment and the Voting Rights Act, to the extent that they require persons running for OHA trustee positions and serving, if elected, to be Hawaiian.�

Ms. Lopez' testimony on SB32 and SB52 discussed difficulties regarding the 14th Amendment requirement often referred to as "one person one vote", but so far as I am aware she has never testified on the clear violation of another aspect of the 14th Amendment often referred to as the "equal protection clause" -- despite the large number of bills appropriating huge sums of money, or providing special benefits, for one favored racial group to the exclusion of all other racial groups.

I believe Ms. Lopez is disqualified from being confirmed as Attorney General because of her egregious negligence in failing to object to the unconstitutional racial restrictions on voting and candidacy in SB32 and SB52, even while her testimony discussed other constitutional issues.

But if this committee chooses to vote in favor of confirming her nomination, I believe such approval should be given only after she does two things: (1) apologize for her negligence in failing to object to the proposed racial restrictions on voting and candidacy in SB32 and SB52; and (2) promise to warn against violations of the 14th Amendment equal protection clause on all bills in 2024 which provide money or benefits that are exclusively for one racial group.

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HAWAIIAN SOVEREIGNTY BILLS AND RESOLUTIONS IN THE STATE LEGISLATURE IN PREVIOUS YEARS -- TESTIMONY BY KEN CONKLIN AND SOME MEMBERS OF THE ALOHA FOR ALL AND GRASSROOT INSTITUTE GROUPS.

Personal note by Ken Conklin: I came permanently to live in Hawaii in 1992. From then until 1998 I spent full time doing independent study about Hawaiian language, history, and culture. I felt a strong spiritual relationship with the land and people, which I sensed on three summer vacations beginning 1982 and was one of my main motives for coming to live here permanently. Because of the beautiful spirituality in Hawaiian music, hula, and legends, I was inclined to go along with the historical victimhood narrative pushed by Hawaiian sovereignty activists on such topics as the overthrow of the monarchy (1893), annexation (1898), and statehood (1959). I attended a large number of Hawaiian sovereignty rallies, panel discussions at University of Hawaii, and conversations in public places or in private homes; and read many books. But having a Ph.D. in philosophy I am accustomed to studying issues that are both complex and controversial, asking lots of questions, and doing research. And my masters in Mathematics made me feel a need to be logical and keep my beliefs clear and consistent. The more questions I asked, the more my erstwhile "friends" began questioning my "loyalty" to them and to their movement. In many cases they did not know the facts; and in some cases they did know the facts but persisted in telling me half-truths or outright lies. It took many months of soul-searching, gut-wrenching introspection to figure things out; and then everything fit together within a few days and I saw the whole gestalt picture -- the face of evil in the Hawaiian sovereignty movement. Since then I gradually began stepping out of private life, writing letters to editor, creating this website, running as a candidate for OHA trustee in 2000, writing my book, etc. I began writing testimony on bills in Congress and in the state legislature around year 1999. For the past decade the internet has made it increasingly easy to keep up to date about bills in the legislature and to submit testimony by email or through the legislature's website.

Below are some webpages providing testimony to the Hawaii legislature over the years, mostly by myself but also some by friends who were members of the Aloha For All and Grassroot Institute of Hawaii groups. This is an incomplete list, but it shows the kind of issues arising in the legislature over time and how civil rights activists are fighting back in an effort to protect unity, equality, and aloha for all. There's a gathering storm in Hawaii as racial supremacists demand either creation of a racial separatist tribe recognized by the state and federal governments, or else restoration of Hawaii's status as an independent nation with racial supremacy for ethnic Hawaiians under the modern theory of "indigenous rights." See my book "Hawaiian Apartheid: Racial Separatism and Ethnic Nationalism in the Aloha State"
http://tinyurl.com/2a9fqa

I hope that Hawaii citizens who read the bills and testimony in this year's legislature, and in the legislatures since 2002, will see the dangers, rise to the occasion, and hold their state Senators and Representatives accountable.

Here are webpages covering State of Hawaii legislation related to Hawaiian sovereignty in previous years, listed in reverse chronological order (most recent listed first).

Hawaii Legislature 2021 -- Bills and Resolutions Related to Hawaiian Sovereignty. Text, testimony, and outcome.

Hawaii Legislature 2020 -- Bills and Resolutions Related to Hawaiian Sovereignty. Text, testimony, and outcome.

Hawaii Legislature 2019 -- Bills and Resolutions Related to Hawaiian Sovereignty. Text, testimony, and outcome.

Hawaii Legislature 2018 -- Bills and Resolutions Related to Hawaiian Sovereignty. Text, testimony, and outcome.

Hawaii Legislature 2017 -- Bills and Resolutions Related to Hawaiian Sovereignty. Text, testimony, and outcome.

Hawaii Legislature 2016 -- Bills and Resolutions Related to Hawaiian Sovereignty. Text, testimony, and outcome.

Hawaii Legislature 2015 -- Bills and Resolutions Related to Hawaiian Sovereignty. Text, testimony, and outcome.

In 2014 no compilation was kept of racist bills in the Hawaii state legislature. However, special attention was given to very dangerous legislation creating and expanding a racial registry for building a Hawaiian tribe. See webpage

"Building a Hawaiian tribe through actions of the state legislature: May 2014 progress report (Roll Commission failure to follow the requirements of enabling legislation Act 195; identity theft of 87,000 names from earlier racial registries; enrollment of minor children; legislative hearing as cheerleader rather than oversight enforcer; and more issues)" at
https://www.angelfire.com/big09/KanaiolowaluMay2014ProgRpt.html

March 11, 2013: Racial entitlement bills in the 2013 Hawaii legislature (and how all the Republicans except Senator Slom and Representative McDermott are voting in lockstep with the Democrats)

February 10, 2013: U.S. apology resolution 20th anniversary -- A resolution was introduced in the Hawaii legislature to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the U.S. apology resolution; and testimony was offered to the Hawaii legislature in the form of a substitute resolution explaining that the apology resolution is filled with falsehoods, has produced bad consequences, and should be repealed.

July 24, 2011: Racial set-asides of land, money, and political power -- how Act 195 will move Hawaii toward New Zealand and Fiji

July 12, 2011: Gearing up for the divorce -- Klub Kanaka greedily looks ahead to property division and alimony from the State of Hawaii (Hawaii House Committee on Hawaiian Affairs holds informational briefing for government departments to tell how they can help implement Act 195 creating a state-recognized tribe)

May 4, 2011: Hawaii begins to create a state-recognized tribe. SB1520 passed the legislature on May 3, 2011. Why did they do it? What happens now?

April 1, 2011: HR258 and HCR293 in the Hawaii legislature of 2011 -- A resolution to rip the Treaty of Annexation out of the hand of President McKinley in his statue in front of McKinley High School

March 22, 2011: HCR107 in the Hawaii legislature of 2011 -- A resolution establishing a joint legislative investigating committee to investigate the status of two alleged executive agreements entered into in 1893 between United States President Grover Cleveland and Queen Liliuokalani of the Hawaiian Kingdom, called the Liliuokalani assignment and the agreement of restoration.

February 3, 2009: Ceded lands issues in the Hawaii Legislature, 2009

February 3, 2009: Legislation in Hawaii in 2009 to declare ethnic Hawaiians as an indigenous people

January 17, 2009: Office of Hawaiian Affairs -- Watching the Moves It Makes in 2009 to Expand the Evil Empire. Subpages include protest of Supreme Court ceded lands case; OHA demand for legislative moratorium on ceded land sales; OHA demand for "back rent" settlement; Akaka bill; other issues as they arise in 2009 including Waimea Valley, Waokele o Puna, etc. Links to coverage of evil Empire expansion in previous years.

January 14, 2009: Some important issues for the Hawaii Legislature in 2009. Stop the giveaway. Just say no.

October 12, 2008: Iolani Palace and the Golden Jubilee of Hawaii Statehood. The Palace was the Capitol of the Republic of Hawaii (1894-1898), Territory of Hawaii (1898-1959), and State of Hawaii (1959-1968), where the transition to Statehood took place in 1959. But the state government is now prohibiting use of the Palace for jubilee celebration due to threats from secessionists and concerns for political correctness.