FreeHawaii.Info CONCLUDES INDIAN COUNTRY TODAYS' HIGHLIGHT OF THE AKAKA BILL
Akaka Bill revisions draw Hawaiian ire
by Jerry Reynolds / Washington D.C. correspondent / Indian Country Today
Washington - If the headwind from Hawaii mounts, federal recognition of a Native Hawaiian governing entity could lose some of the headway it has made. Hawaii's senior Democratic lawmakers, Akaka and Inouye, can be expected to keep the vessel steady, but political observers in general feel it may be getting late in a war-time, election-year session to get controversial legislation onto the Senate floor for a vote.
Balanced against their doubts is the conviction of others, within both Hawaii and Washington's political culture, that there may never be a better time to pass the Akaka Bill. The latter thinking is based on factors such as the credibility within Republican ranks on Capitol Hill of Hawaii Gov. Linda Lingle, a fellow Republican who has proved a leading advocate for S. 344, and the departure following this year of both Inouye and Campbell from leadership positions with the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. (Campbell is retiring from the Senate and Inouye will remain on the committee, not as
the ranking Democrat but in a position no doubt of less formal leadership by virtue of his stature in Native affairs.)
Many Native Hawaiians consider federal recognition a pressing issue because a series of
court-sanctioned challenges in the state has threatened Native-specific preferences. Federal recognition would moot such challenges by defining Native Hawaiians as a political group,rather than as a racial minority.
But the shades of opinion among Native Hawaiians on a formalized federal relationship are many. One faction, taking its lead from Alaska Natives who have warned against the non-treaty model in U.S.-Native relations, believes the state and its preferences are well out of it because the federal government can then recognize indigenous
Hawaiians as a tribe.
This group opposes S. 344 in part because it confirms the state in its old habits of collecting federal revenue in the name of Native Hawaiians and administrating their affairs, and confers new rights on it as well. Indeed one leading figure for this position - Maui Loa, Hereditary Chief of Hou Lahuiohana (band) of native Hawaiians of the Blood (the latter phrase is also a legal designation) - maintains that passage of S. 344 would be a setback to tribal sovereignty, "as it would confer unprecedented new rights on the states."
Another faction insists on the continuing independent sovereignty of a people that has
never surrendered it; here the opposition to S. 344 focuses on its entrenchment of federal authority.
Stay Tuned Next Week As FreeHawaii.Info Brings You Indian Country Today's Wrap-up Of Akaka Bill Coverage.
