In Jerry Burris' Jan. 23 column about the state-OHA ceded lands agreement, he wrote: "If approved by the Legislature, the state will have formally acknowledged it owes land and cash exclusively to Hawaiians, and Hawaiians alone, as their due share of the income the lands have generated over all these years. It doesn't matter that the amounts are relatively minor. A precedent would have been struck."

These words make it sound as if this would be the first such acknowledgment in the history of the state of Hawai'i. This is patently untrue, and leaving this impression with readers does a real disservice.

Hawai'i's 1959 Admission Act explicitly acknowledges that ceded lands must be used for a number of purposes, including to benefit "native Hawaiians."

Sections 4, 5, and 6 of Article XII of the State Constitution, added by the 1978 Constitutional Convention, established OHA, in part, to receive, manage, and administer income and proceeds from Hawai'i's ceded lands for Native Hawaiians.

In 1980, the Legislature adopted implementing legislation that provided OHA 20 percent of all funds derived from the ceded lands, although the legislation never specifically defined exactly what was subject to the 20 percent, or how it would be calculated.

Since then, while there have been continuing attempts to resolve issues over exactly how much OHA is entitled to, from the income and proceeds of the ceded lands, there has never been a dispute as to the question of the state's constitutional duty to pay OHA some portion of the income and proceeds from the ceded lands for the benefit of Native Hawaiians. Since 1978, the state's obligation has been acknowledged again and again in legislation, and reiterated by the Hawai'i Supreme Court in several court decisions.

As recently as 2006, in Act 178, the Legislature, in fixing the amount of payments to OHA from ceded lands at $15.1 million per year, stated:

"The Legislature acknowledges that the state's obligation to Native Hawaiians is firmly established in the State Constitution. While many complex issues require the Legislature's further attention and consideration . . . the Legislature finds . . . that immediate action should be taken to clearly designate the pro rata share of revenues derived from the public land trust that the Office of Hawaiian Affairs is to receive annually."

The statement in Burris' column: "(I)f lawmakers approve the Lingle-OHA deal, people will be able to point to 2008 as the moment when government officially recognized (and paid) Hawaiian claims for losses traced to the overthrow of the kingdom," is simply untrue.

The agreement we have reached is a watershed because it fully, fairly and reasonably ends a 30-year-old dispute over the amount due OHA from the state under the provisions of Hawai'i's Constitution added in 1978, and not because it "officially recognized (and paid) Hawaiian claims for losses traced to the overthrow of the kingdom" for the first time.

While the Legislature should, of course, carefully examine the agreement, because that is its duty, it should not do so for the reasons Burris lists in his column, which are simply historically inaccurate and categorically untrue.

Mark Bennett is Hawai'i's attorney general. He wrote this commentary for The Advertiser.