Posted on: Monday, March 17, 2003

Push for passage of Akaka bill continues

By James Gonser
Advertiser Staff Writer

Gov. Linda Lingle said although she has no plans now to return to the nation's capital to lobby for a bill providing for Federal recognition of Native Hawaiians, other members of her administration will work for its passage.

State Attorney General Mark Bennett will be in Washington D.C. this week and plans to meet with Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., who is opposed to the bill, and with Department of Interior staff and possibly a few others to lobby on behalf of the measure, Lingle said.

"It's a process for us," Lingle said. "It's not just am I going to go there. We have a lot of people who will go to Washington who will continue to go talk on these issues because it's not just to go testify at a committee, it's really to talk on the administration's side and with some senators who have issues."

Known as the Akaka bill, the legislation would set up a process for the United States to recognize a sovereign Native Hawaiian government that could have government-to-government relations with the federal government and the state of Hawai'i.

Lingle went to Washington D.C. last month and testified before the Senate Indian Affairs Committee that Hawaiian recognition is a matter of simple justice.

U.S. Rep. Ed Case says that with an "incredibly partisan" Congress, passage of the Akaka bill depends on the continued efforts by Lingle.

Case, who was in Hawai'i recently for his talk-story meetings across the 2nd Congressional District, said without Hawai'i's Republican administration helping, the bill could be doomed.

"Federal recognition is high on my list, and I think it is achievable," Case said. "But it is almost all achievable on the Republican side at this point, which is why I keep on noting publicly that it is the tremendous responsibility that our Republican governor bears to convert her side."

Case said that there are about 10 key people who remain opposed to the bill, and if they could be swayed it would pass easily.

"There are a few people in the Congress and a few people in the (Bush) administration, if either one can be neutralized or converted, the others will follow," Case said. "From my perspective it will take some repeated trips by (Lingle) personally to Washington. If she does that it is certainly achievable, no question."

Similar bills have failed in the past two sessions of Congress, primarily because of objections by some Republicans that recognition would legitimize race-based preferences.

Department of Hawaiian Home Lands Chairman Micah Kane said the bill is not race based.

"We see it as preserving our host culture and one of justice and recognizing some wrong doings over the course of Hawai'i's history," Kane said. "But we also see it as an opportunity for Hawai'i to exercise its state's right to govern. It is asking Congress and the (Bush) administration to support our right to govern our people as they want."

Kane said passage would also clarify some issues including ceded lands and property rights, which would clear up uncertainty for business investment.

Opponents to the bill say it would force Hawaiians to give up claims to sovereignty.

Staff writer Gordon Pang contributed to this report.