Posted on: Sunday, June 15, 2003

EDITORIAL
Bennett coup doesn't mean recognition near

The Lingle administration is touting a minor victory in its quest to achieve federal recognition for Native Hawaiians. Figuratively speaking, state Attorney General Mark Bennett has used his silver tongue to unclog a federal pipeline pumping some $30 million a year into Native Hawaiian education.

The relieved beneficiaries include Ka'ala Farm's Cultural Learning Center in Wai'anae, the 'Aha Punana Leo Hawaiian language immersion program and the Keiki O Ka Aina Family Learning Center.

As far as we're concerned, the more educational programs there are available in Hawai'i, the better off we'll all be.

As Bennett tells it, he assuaged concerns about the constitutionality of federal grants under the Native Hawaiian Education Act by convincing Justice Department attorneys that Hawaiian-only programs were based on a "special trust relationship established between Native Hawaiians and the U.S."

That's quite a coup. As we've previously reported, the Justice Department has raised concerns over affordable housing grants to Native Hawaiians and asked that Native Hawaiians be removed from a bill benefitting Native American small businesses because it "could be viewed as authorizing the award of government benefits on the basis of racial or ethnic criteria."

Vicky Draeger, early childhood program director for the Keiki O Ka Aina Family Learning Center, attributes the breakthrough to Lingle. "I think that if we didn't have a Republican governor this time, this may not have turned around," she said.

Regardless of which party runs Hawai'i, we doubt the Bush administration is ready to give up its constitutional handwringing over Hawaiians-only programs. Heck, if that were the case, why bother with the Akaka bill?

Bennett might have won this one. But we don't believe for a minute that the Bush administration is going to let Native Hawaiians join the federal recognition club without a lot of political and ideological resistance.