WASHINGTON — Congress began deliberations yesterday on the "Akaka bill," which would create a process for Native Hawaiian self-governance, as Hawai'i's congressional delegation sought to confront arguments that the legislation is "race-based."

The bill, written by Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawai'i, would develop a process for reorganizing a Native Hawaiian government. If passed, the legislation could reshape the political landscape in Hawai'i, giving Native Hawaiians virtually the same rights as those established by many of the nation's 562 American Indian tribes and Native Alaskans.

Eventually, it could give Native Hawaiians greater control over their highly valuable ancestral lands.

"The Native Hawaiian people are an indigenous people — this is not race-based legislation," Rep. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawai'i, told the House Natural Resources Committee at a morning hearing yesterday. The panel could have the first vote on the legislation in coming weeks.

Hirono kicked off what looks to be a summer of debate over an issue with potential racial, political and financial overtones.

The hearing came on King Kamehameha Day, the state holiday in Hawai'i in honor of the warrior-king who unified the Hawaiian people.

The Akaka bill's mostly Republican opponents — who have quashed the legislation in the past — face a Democrat-controlled Congress and Hawai'i-born President Obama, who has vowed to sign the bill if it reaches his desk.

Opponents of the 9-year-old legislation that has been revised several times contend that the bill challenges the American principle of equality and opens doors to political volatility among Native Hawaiians.

In 2006, the Justice Department under President George W. Bush argued the Akaka bill would "divide people by their race."

"It is clear that many ethnic Hawaiians will not regard the new government as deriving its powers solely from federal delegation," said Gail Heroit, a Republican appointee on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. "Rather, they will argue that it derives its power from their own inherent sovereignty and is thus not subject to any of the limitations on power found in the U.S. Constitution."

1.8 MILLION ACRES OF LAND

At stake, in addition to the political future of the Native Hawaiian people, is control over some 1.8 million acres of land that many Native Hawaiians believe was taken from them illegally in the United States' annexation of Hawai'i in 1898.

Passage of the Akaka bill would provide for negotiations on the disposition of Native Hawaiian land, natural resources and other assets.

Rep. Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawai'i, drove the financial point of the debate home in yesterday's hearing when he said opponents of the Akaka bill have their eyes fixed more on some of the nation's most prized Pacific real estate than on any legal issues.

"This has nothing to do with the Constitution," said Abercrombie, who is running for governor and who sponsored the Akaka legislation in the House. "It has to do with the land."

It has to do with the Senate as well.

Originally proposed in 2000, the Akaka bill has been passed repeatedly in the House but has hit walls in the Senate, where single lawmakers can hold up bills at will.

The Senate has not yet scheduled a hearing on the legislation.

The Akaka bill's first test in that chamber would be before the Indian Affairs Committee, where Sen. Daniel K. Inouye, D-Hawai'i, is a senior member.

The legislation came closest to passing in 2007 when it cleared the full House, but it was never brought to the Senate floor for a vote.

The delegation reintroduced the 2007 version several weeks ago.

This version contains a provision barring any new Native Hawaiian government from authorizing gambling. The provision was included to ease fears that newly empowered Native Hawaiians would set up gambling operations. But gambling already is illegal in Hawai'i.

2006 RECOMMENDATION

In 2006, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights recommended against passage of comparable legislation. The commission said it opposed any bill that would "discriminate on the basis of race or national origin and further subdivide the American people into discrete subgroups accorded varying degrees of privilege."

But Michael Yaki, a member of that commission, said little work went into the recommendation and that Congress should ignore it.

He said a resolution apologizing for the U.S. government's role in the overthrow of Queen Lili'uokalani in 1893 also were never part of the commission's review. In the end, he said that warnings of race-based government is spread simply to instill unwarranted fear and opposition to the bill.

Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., and the committee's chairman, called the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawai'i in 1893 a dark chapter in U.S. history.

"I can assure you that the committee will continue to press forward with re-establishment of a government-to-government relationship with the Native Hawaiians," he said.