Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 23, Number 2, 1 Pepeluali 2006 — Civil rights panel mulls Akaka Bill [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Civil rights panel mulls Akaka Bill

By Derek Ferrar Public lnformation Specialist On Jan. 20, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights heard a briefing on the proposed Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act, better known as the "Akaka Bill." The commission, whieh has no enforcement powers but ean make recommendations to Congress on civil rights matters, could issue a report on the bill in several months if a majority of the commission's members vote to do so. The commission currently has seven members (with one seat vacant) - four Republicans, two Democrats and an Independent. Half of the commission's members are appointed by the president and

half by Congress, If passed, the Akaka Bill would formally acknowledge Native Hawaiians' status as indigenous people and would extend official U.S. government recognition to a future Native Hawaiian governing body. Supporters of the bill - including all nine of OHA's trustees, say it would be an important move toward reconciliation for past wrongs and would help protect existing Hawaiian programs against an ongoing barrage of legal challenges. Some opponents of the measure, however - including several conservative senators who have so far succeeded in preventing the bill from receiving a hearing by the full Senate - elaim that it discriminates

against non-Hawaiians and would set up an illegally "race-based" government. (Some Hawaiian groups also oppose the bill as a sell-out of more comprehensive Hawaiian sovereignty, but none of their representatives were invited to testify before the commission.) By invitation, arguments in favor of the bill were presented to the commission by Noe Kalipi, a counsel for Sen. Akaka, and H. Christopher Bartolomucci, an attorney with the Hogan & Hartson law frrm in Washington. Arguments against the bill were presented by San Diego University law professor Gail Heriot and H. William Burgess, a Honolulu attorney who has been involved in several lawsuits seeking to have Hawaiian

benefits declared unconstitutional. According to a report on the hearing by The Honolulu Advertiser's Washington correspondent, Kalipi told the commission that Hawaiians are not a racial category but an indigenous people. "It is ... clear that Native Hawaiians are 'native' in the same sense as American Indians — aboriginal," she said. Burgess, however, said that the bill would illegally discriminate against those without native ancestry. "Anyone who had an indigenous status would have a elaim to create a separate government," he said. "Ultimately, that would lead to the breaking up of states." According to the Advertiser report: "Commission Chairman Gerald A. Reynolds, a Republican and attorney for Kansas City Power & Light in Missouri, said after the briefing that he was skeptical about the bill but would not make a final decision until more information was collected. 'My ultimate vote will be based on the entire record, whieh we don't have yet,' he said. "Commissioner Arlan D. Melendez, a Democrat and chairman of the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony in Reno, Nev., said he believed Hawaiians needed federal recognition to help them protect federal programs, ranging from housing to education. '"They're really receiving those things so I think by furthering that.

you will give them some stability in self-determination over those things they already have,' he said. "But commission Vice Chairwoman Abigail Thernstrom, an Independent and a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute in New York, said she was 'very unhappy about what I regard as proposals for race-based governments.' '"This is not the way I want this country to go, and I would like to see some acknowledgement that the story of governance of Indian tribes in this country has not worked out well,' Thernstrom said." Hawai'i's congressional delegation had received a pledge from the Senate leadership that the Akaka Bill would receive a full hearing last session, but that promise was short-circuited when several Republican opponents of the bill filed procedural holds that stopped it from advancing. A vote on a procedural measure that would have forced the bill to the Senate floor was scheduled for early September, but it was put aside due to the Hurricane Katrina emergency and President Bush's Supreme Court nominations. Akaka announced recently that Senate leaders have onee again given him assurances that the bill will be heard before the end of Congress' current session. E3