The Lingle administration said yesterday that it has been consistent in its position on ceded lands and their relationship to Native Hawaiians, and has not changed course as a result of a legal battle with the Office of Hawaiian Affairs now before the U.S. Supreme Court.

"We have never argued, and do not now argue, that there are not strong moral claims that can be asserted," the governor's office said in a release late yesterday. "But we have argued since the inception of this lawsuit that the only forum that can consider such claims is one that encompasses legislative actions."

In yesterday's Advertiser, OHA and an attorney for four other plaintiffs in the case against the state said the administration and Attorney General Mark Bennett will argue before the U.S. Supreme Court that Native Hawaiians do not have an ownership claim to ceded lands, those lands that belonged to the Hawaiian government before the 1893 overthrow.

The administration's statement did not dispute the strategy, but insisted it has not changed its position on ceded lands in over a decade.

At the center of the dispute is a lawsuit brought in 1994 by four Native Hawaiians seeking to stop the state from selling homes in two housing projects being developed on ceded lands. A Hawai'i Supreme Court ruling in January barred the state from selling or transferring ceded lands until Native Hawaiian claims to the lands are resolved. The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the state's appeal.

Bill Meheula, the attorney for the four original plaintiffs, reiterated his view that a brief filed by Bennett last week introduces a whole new element by bringing up the Newlands Resolution, the 1898 congressional act that led to Hawai'i's annexation, because it gives "absolute and unreviewable title" to the U.S. and extinguishes Native Hawaiian claims to ceded lands.

The state has "never taken this position before that Hawaiians don't have a claim to the ceded land," Meheula said. "They've never said the only claim Hawaiians have is a moral claim."