WASHINGTON — Experts on both sides of the controversy over the federal recognition of Hawaiians laid out their cases yesterday before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, whose members also held varying opinions about the idea.

The debate centers on Senate legislation, sponsored by Sen. Daniel K. Akaka, D-Hawai'i, that would set up a process for the federal government to grant formal recognition to Hawaiians. Some conservative Senate Republicans have blocked the bill, saying it would create a race-based government.

The commission, made up of four Republicans, two Democrats and an independent, could make a recommendation to Congress in several months about the legislation but it would take a majority vote, its chairman said. The commission has no enforcement power.

Commission Chairman Gerald A. Reynolds, a Republican and attorney for Kansas City Power & Light in Missouri, said after the briefing that he was skeptical about the bill but would not make a final decision until more information was collected.

"My ultimate vote will be based on the entire record, which we don't have yet," he said.

Commissioner Arlan D. Melendez, a Democrat and chairman of the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony in Reno, Nev., said he believed Hawaiians needed federal recognition to help them protect federal programs, ranging from housing to education.

"They're really receiving those things so I think by furthering that, you will give them some stability in self-determination over those things they already have," he said.

But commission Vice Chairwoman Abigail Thernstrom, an Independent and a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute in New York, said she was "very unhappy about what I regard as proposals for race-based governments."

"This is not the way I want this country to go, and I would like to see some acknowledgement that the story of governance of Indian tribes in this country has not worked out well," Thernstrom said.

Noe Kalipi, counsel for Akaka, and H. Christopher Bartolomucci, an attorney with the Hogan & Hartson law firm in Washington, laid out the case for federal recognition.

Kalipi said Hawaiians are an indigenous people like American Indians and Alaskan Natives and not a racial class. She said the U.S. Supreme Court has acknowledged that the federal government's dealings with Indian tribes are not based on race but on political status.

"It is also clear that Native Hawaiians are 'native' in the same sense as American Indians — aboriginal," she said. "When Congress deals with Native Hawaiians as an aboriginal people, it legislates on the basis as it does with American Indians."

But H. William Burgess, a Ho-nolulu attorney and opponent of the bill, said the bill would unconstitutionally recognize a new privileged class consisting of anyone with an indigenous ancestor.

"Anyone who had an indigenous status would have a claim to create a separate government," he said. "Ultimately, that would lead to the breaking up of states."

Gail Heriot, a professor at the University of San Diego School of Law, said transforming Hawaii-ans into a tribe "is an act performed on a racial group, not a tribal group." She added, "It is an act of race discrimination subject to strict scrutiny — scrutiny that it likely cannot survive."

Reach Dennis Camire at dcamire@gns.gannett.com.