Letter worries Hawaiian advocates
By Bruce Dunford
Associated Press
A U.S. Justice Department letter to a Senate committee could signal that the Bush administration will oppose continuing federal programs for Native Hawaiians, Sen. Dan Inouye said.
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The letter says a reference to Native Hawaiians should be deleted from a bill benefitting Native American small businesses because it "could be viewed as authorizing the award of government benefits on the basis or racial or ethnic criteria."
"If that position should prevail in the United States, then all programs we have would be in jeopardy," U.S. Sen. Dan Inouye said.
Gov. Linda Lingle yesterday said she's seen a copy of the letter, but doubts it represents a policy by the administration to shut off Hawaiian programs.
The May 16 letter seems to address a very specific case, she said.
"Some person down in an office who wrote a letter does not represent the policy of the Bush administration," Lingle said.
The letter from Assistant Attorney General William Moschella to Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, chairwoman of the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, said including Native Hawaiians in a bill to assist in small business startups and expansions for Native Americans "raises significant constitutional concerns."
Moschella heads the department's Office of Legislative Affairs, which "articulates the views of the department" on congressional legislation, according to its Web site.
"We'll let the letter speak for itself," Justice Department spokesman Blaine Rethmeier told the Associated Press in a telephone interview from Washington yesterday, when asked if the Bush administration has established a policy regarding Hawaiian programs. He would not elaborate.
"If that position should prevail in the United States, then all programs we have would be in jeopardy," Inouye told West Hawaii Today's Washington bureau. He referred to $45 million in federal money for housing, employment, health and education programs for Native Hawaiians.
The Justice Department letter cites the U.S. Supreme Court's Rice v. Cayetano ruling in 2000 that Hawaiians-only voting for Office of Hawaiian Affairs trustees was unconstitutional racial discrimination.
The Rice ruling is the basis for several legal and administrative challenges to federal and state programs specifically benefiting Hawaiians, such as OHA and the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands.
Where the bill's grants are to members of federally recognized Indian tribes and Alaska Native villages, "courts would likely uphold them as constitutional" Moschella's letter said. But "in the absence of findings demonstrating that the bill's authorization of benefits for Native Hawaiians is narrowly tailored to serve a compelling government interest, we recommend that the term 'Native Hawaiians' be deleted."
Inouye said he has met with White House officials about the Hawaiian recognition bill, but didn't elaborate on those discussions.
Rethmeier said the Justice Department has taken no position on the recognition bill now before the Senate.
