OHA turns to founders for help with legal challenges
By Vicki Viotti
Advertiser Staff Writer
The Office of Hawaiian Affairs yesterday called together a group of community leaders who helped found OHA to defend the beleaguered agency one week before a critical hearing in a federal lawsuit challenging its constitutionality.
Richard Ambo • The Honolulu Advertiser
The defenders all were associated with the 1978 Constitutional Convention that approved the constitutional amendment establishing OHA. Delegates included future Gov. John Waihee; Robinson Estate trustee William Paty, who chaired the convention; and Frenchy DeSoto, who chaired the convention's standing committee on Hawaiian affairs.
Frenchy DeSoto, left, William Paty and John Waihee were delegates to the 1978 Constitutional Convention.
DeSoto said OHA received support from all 102 delegates, including William Burgess, who now is representing the plaintiffs in the Arakaki court challenge, which says OHA and other Hawaiian programs are unconstitutional because they are racially based.
Waihee said the legal analysis in 1978 upheld the constitutionality of OHA. He said the current suits — including a hearing set for Monday before U.S. District Judge Susan Oki Mollway — stem from a shift in national political policy.
Waihee said the White House and especially higher federal courts recently have opposed such programs.
"We need to shift that debate away from the concept of racial discrimination," he said. "What we're talking about is the political status of Hawaiians. ... Our legitimate government was overthrown, and our right to control our destiny was transferred."
Mollway will consider an argument that the case should be dismissed because Congress has given Hawaiians political recognition with the establishment of the Hawaiian Homes Commission, and that this special status defeats the allegation of racial discrimination.
Reach Vicki Viotti at vviotti@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8053.
