Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 8, Number 4, 1 April 1991 — Con Con: Hawaiians reach "political apex" [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Con Con: Hawaiians reach "political apex"

CON CON

1 he 1978 Constitutional Convention (Con Con) was called to review — and revise, where necessary — the document whieh spells out the functions and responsibilities of Hawaii's state government. One hundred and two delegates convened for 60 days of arduous work in the heat of summer at the 01d Federal Building in downtown Honolulu, directly across King Street from 'Iolani Palaee. Called the "People's Con Con" because 90 of the delegates had never held elected office, the mood was hopeful, optimistic and reform-oriented as the opening ceremonies got under way with a "chicken-skin" chant by Edith Kanaka'ole and a prayer by David Kaupu, ehaplain of Kamehameha Schools, followed by a tribute hula to Queen Lili'uokalani. Despite the Hawaiian flavor, Hawaiian affairs were not at the top of anyone's agenda (except "Auntie" Frenchy's) going into the convention. Alu Like had spent some time and effort getting delegates to the convention, but the big issues were initiative and referendum, judical selection, state spending limits and legislative reform. To put Frenchy DeSoto's one-woman crusade in historic perspective, at the previous Con Con in 1968 delegate James Bacon introduced a proposal that would require the state to "preserve and enhanee Hawaiian conditions." The proposal met with mild amusement and Bacon was forced to defend it, saying it was "not a laughing matter." His proposal was defeated by a 46-26 vote. Ten years later, a lot had changed.

Con Con's first task was setting up leadership. Desoto backed William Paty, manager of the Waialua sugar plantation on Oahu, to be chairman. After Paty was duly elected to the post elected to the post and a young Hawaiian activist/ lawyer named John

Waihee was named majority leader of the convention, Paty assigned DeSoto to be chairman of the newly created Hawaiian Affairs Committee. Suddenly, Frenchy DeSoto had an official soapbox and the opportunity to change forever the way the State of Hawai'i treated its native population. The conception and birth of the idea called the Office of Hawaiian Affairs was played out in the chaotic Hawaiian Affairs Committee staff office among a bunch of young optimists led by "Aunty Frenchy". It was during those long, hot summer days that she earned her title as the "mother " of OHA. Her dedicated "children" included committee staffers Steve Kuna and Martin Wilson, lawyers Sherry Broder and Jon Van Dyke, and a host of slippershod volunteers including Walter Ritte, Randy Kalahiki, Francis Kauhane, Mililani Trask, Kali Watson and the late Georgiana Padeken, who regularly brought stew and poi to the office to make sure the overworked staff had plenty to eat. Organized support for the Hawaiian Affairs Committee and its work eame from Alu Like, whieh funded several of DeSoto's staff positions and provided a priceless community network for getting input and educating Hawaiians about the many issues involved in the committee's work. "Onee a week," DeSoto remembers, "I would sit with different people and tell them what the committee was doing and try to get advice from them. It was real 'ohana system. When my staff and 1 worked late, people would eome over with food and gather to pray, because what we were embarking on had never been done before. And it was what we eall sometimes, kaumaha. They felt it was a burden that one person should not carry. We supported eaeh other." Gradually, a Hawaiian plan or "package"

emerged from some of the earlier proposals outlined in the Puwalu Sessions, proposals that were refined and added to in endless bull sessions and amended with input from community leaders, other delegates, and, of course, lawyers. Looking back at Con Con 13 years later, Martin Wilson, who started out on DeSoto's staff and never stopped working for OHA, makes an important point about the nature of OHA's beginnings compared to the other big issues of the convention. "There were no batallions of brains coming to Frenchy's aide during Con Con," Wilson says. "The State didn't help, the UH Law School didn't help, Bishop Street didn't help. For Frenchy, it was just a handful of people. Georgiana was a social worker. Mrs. Rubin was an educator. "Very few people rushed to the aide of the Hawaiians. Nobody really worked against OHA or the idea of OHA, but they didn't go out of their way to help it, either. This was Hawaiian. The Hawaiians did it."

The final Hawaiian rights package approved by the convention included the following five amendments to the State Constitution: • An amendment authorizing the creation of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs and the election by Hawaiians of its nine-member board of trustees with the power to administer all government lands and funds set aside for the benefit of native Hawaiians and Hawaiians; and setting aside a prorata share of ceded land trust for native Hawaiians. • An amendment protecting traditional native fishing, hunting, gathering and access rights for religious and subsistence purposes, subject to state regulation. • An amendment prohibiting the use of "adverse possession" to acquire land parcels of five acres or more. • An amendment recognizing the importance of the Hawaiian culture and including the Hawaiian language alongside English as one of the state's two official languages.

• An amendment strengthening the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands by allowing more flexibility and legislative funding of the department's administrative costs.

Convention debate on the Hawaiian package was mostly positive with little opposition, a situation that observers credited to the eommittee's hard work and to DeSoto's persuasive, sometimes intimidating oratory, as

well as to the pro-Hawaiian mood in the state generally. As activist and volunteer lobbyist Walter Ritte put it, "This was no time to tell the Hawaiians 'No.' " Delegates with any reservations had only to witness the hundreds of Hawaiians who travelled from all the islands to march from 'lolani Palaee to Kawaiaha'o Church, accompanied by chanting and the pealing of Kawaiahao's bells. The lively demonstrators packed the crucial Committee of the Whole hearing and effectively silenced whatever opposition there might have been with their moral righteousness. Another undeniable political factor noted by observers at the time was the convention leadership's keen desire to keep the Hawaiian and pro-Hawaiian vote in the Democratic eamp for the upcoming re-election campaign of incumbent Governor George Ariyoshi. The only serious argument eame from those who felt it might be unconstitutional to use public funds to benefit one race or exclude other racial groups from the election of trustees for a publically funded agency. (This eoneem resurfaced later in OHA's history). Legal opinion, however, sided with DeSoto's committee, noting that native American people had a history of separate treatment under the law due to their unique constitutionally recognized status. What started as a non-issue in the convention had become the Con Con's most far-reaching achievement: the establishment, subject to voter ratification, of an independent state agency with a mandate to "better the conditions of native Hawaiians and Hawaiians." As one newspaper headline put it, "Hawaiian Renaissance Reaching Political Apex." During the debates, delegate Jim Shon expressed his support for Hawaiian access rights and Hawaiian values more eloquently that most continued page 14

"Hawaiians must haue the freedom to deuelop as Hawaiians — to take their two-thousand-year-old culture and let it heeome all that it ean heeome ouer the next two thousand years.' "A Call for Hawaiian Souereignfy" by Miehael Kioni Dudley and Keoni Kealoha Agard

Waihee

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Con-Con chairman William Paty presides before assembled delegates as delegate John

Waihee (center) stands to speak.

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Ritte

/rom page 13 when he quoted a speech by a 19th-century native American Indian whieh was addressed to nonnatives who wanted to purchase the land he lived on:

"Our lanel is more ualuahle than your money. It will last foreuer. It will not euen perish by the flames of fire. As long as the sun shines and the waters flow, this land will be here to giue life to men and animals. We cannot sell the liues of men and animals; therefore we cannot sell this land. It was put here for use by the Great Spirit and we cannot sell it because it does not belong to us. You ean count your money . . . but on/y the Great Spirit ean count the grains of sand and the blades of grass of these plains. As a present to you, we will giue you anything we haue that you ean take with you, but the land, neuer." Voter ratification of the Hawaiian rights amendments during the Nov. 7, 1978 general eleehon was not an automatic sure thing. In fact, the five Hawaiian amendments just barely squeaked by in the statewide voting with the largest number of "no" votes of any of the 34 ballots amendments, all of whieh were finally approved. For those who had worked so hard, the narrow vote was an unsettling reminder of the reality of being a minority in your own homeland. The Establishment of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs In 1979, the legislature passed House Bill No. 890, House Draft 1, Senate Draft 3, Conference Draft 1, whieh Gov. Ariyoshi signed into law as Act 196, implementing Sections 4, 5 and 6 of Article XII of the State Constitution and subsequently coded as Chapter 10 of the Hawaii Revised Statutes. The legislature also appropriated $125,000 for the establishment of OHA that year. Chapter 10 outlined the general purpose of the Office, whieh included receiving a pro rata portion of the ceded land trust revenues for the betterment of native Hawaiians; bettering the conditions of Hawaiians; serving as the state's principal agency for matters pertaining to Hawaiians, with the exception of those activities within the jurisdiction of the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands; advocating for the benefit of Hawaiians; receiving and disbursing grants for Hawaiians; and , lastly, serving as receiving agent for future reparations. In 1980, the legislature continued to define the new agency when it determined that the actual pro-rata share of ceded land trust revenues would be 20 percent though it still did not clarify whieh ceded land trust revenues would apply. An appropriation of $100,000 was made to actually operate the Office itself. If suddenly the story of OHA seems to have taken a confusing, complicated, bureaucratic turn, that is because it did. As Frenchy DeSoto says in retrospect, "When we decided to leave the implementation of OHA to the legislature, we made a horrendous mistake. Only now, ten years later, are we reaching the self sufficiency and selfgovernance we envisioned back then." Despite the slow, grudging response of the legislature, the Hawaiian people nevertheless had some electing to do. In late 1979, Steve Kuna, Martin Wilson, Winona Rubin and other veterans of Con Con opened an office in the Federal Building called VOHA (Volunteers of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs). Their task was to begin the arduous job of putting together the November 1980 eleehon for OHA trustee. Through Alu Like, VOHA made contact with Senator Dan Inouye who expedited a $50,000 federal grant to publicize the OHA eleehon in the Hawaiian community and beat the bushes for the best possible candidates. VOHA, Alu Like, the Council of Hawaiian Organizations, the civic clubs, eanoe clubs and churches all rallied around what became one of the most successful voter registration drives in Hawaii's history. Martin Wilson estimates over 50,000 Hawaiians registered to vote in the

November 1980 eleehon. It was a momentous occasion: The first time since the eleehon of David Kalakaua in 1874 that the Hawaiian community had had the opportunity to elect its own constitutionally recognized leaders, and it was probably the first mass poliheal action by native Hawaiians since 29,000 Hawaiians signed the 1897 "monster" petition to Congress protesting annexation.

Meanwhile, the search for trustee candidates was on.Moses K. Keale Sr. grew up under the watchful, patemal eyes of the Robinson family on Ni'ihau and at Makaweli on Kaua'i. He spoke Hawaiian with his family; eventually he wrote a

book detailing the history of Ni īhau, the "forbidden island." In 1980, Keale was living with his wife and children on Hawaiian Homestead land at Anahola on Kaua'i. A union man, he worked four jobs: for the state welfare department, as a disc jockey on KUAI radio, part-time at a hotel and he taught Hawaiian to a halau hula. One day, two men drove up to Keale's house asking for directions. He couldn't help them, but they got to talking anyway. The two men were John Agard and Bob Freitas from the Oouneil of Hawaiian Affairs. Their job was to set up meetings on Kaua'i to let people know about the upcoming OHA eleehon and to recruit potential candidates. Keale listened to the men's story, offered to help and before he knewit, he was running for trustee himself. "I knew the Hawaiian renaissance was happening and I had seen the palapalas (documents) about Con Con, so when I looked at this thing they were talking about, I thought, this thing is powerful. For onee they're giving Hawaiians something that is powerful. I couldn't sit on the sidelines." By the time of the election, over 100 candidates had registered to run. A huge pre-election was held at 'Iolani Palaee. Governor Ariyoshi agreed to fly the Hawaiian flag over the palaee for the first time since the overthrow in 1893. "It was a glorious day," Martin Wilson, now OHA administrative services officer, remembers.

"Every candidate got to stand up and say something. I wish I had the tape of everything that was said. There was so mueh excitement and hope in the air." On Nov. 4, 1980, 54,000 Hawaiians went to the polls.

Keale was elected. Frenchy DeSoto was elected. Walter Ritte, who had spent the year after Con Con in the sanctity of Pelekunu Valley with his family, emerged from the isolation of Molokai's north shore to run and win from Molokai. Malama Solomon, a heavily educated 28-year-old professor at UH-Hilo was elected. Thomas Kaulukukui, a retired U.S. Marshall from Honolulu, was elected. Peter Apo a Wai'anae school teacher, was elected. Joseph Kealoha, a real estate developer from Maui, was elected. Roy Benham, a retired government worker from Hawaii Kai was elected. Rodney Burgess, a Honolulu businessman, was elected. The nine men and women were sworn in as the trustees of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs on Nov. 27, 1980. The ceremony was officiated by Chief Justice William Richardson, the same man who, three years earlier, had exhorted a loose-knit band of Hawaiian activists and community leaders to meet the challenges of the modern world and fight to "retain within us the learning and wisdom of our ancestors."

Now, īn the Senate chamber of the State Capitol, standing before the nine trustees-elect, the Chief Justice cried. Walter Ritte, one of the nine about to be sworn in, remembers the moment vividly: "Chief Justice Richardson cried when he made his opening speech. He said OHA ean do anything. He couldn't believe it. There were no limits. He saw the potential. We all saw the potential." /n the next issue OHA confronts the realities ofits difficult mission and begins the long, slow journey toward leadership in the Hawaiian community.

Curt Sanburn is a loeal writer, educated at 'Iolani School and Yale, who writes on Hawai'i affairs.

Keale