FREEDOM WINS AGAIN!
FEDERAL RECOGNITION FOR HAWAIIANS FAILS ONCE MORE!
Here's An Excerpt From The Honolulu Advertiser Story
Tuesday, October 12, 2004
By Frank Oliveri and Vicki Viotti
Advertiser Staff Writers
WASHINGTON - A measure to allow federal recognition of Native Hawaiians is dead for this year, but Hawai'i's senators yesterday secured a promise from Republican leaders to let the so-called Akaka bill come to the Senate floor for a vote next year...
The action is being received here with guarded optimism - both from supporters who say the bill will be in a better position to pass next year, and from opponents who hope they have bought a little more time to lobby against it...
Under Senate rules, the Akaka bill would need to be introduced again at the start of the new Congress that convenes in January and considered again by the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. The House also would have to approve the measure...
Opponents of the bill said the Senate action will allow them to regroup.
"The good thing for us is we have a little time to have an impact on what the new proposed federal recognition bill will look like," said Kai'opua Fyfe, a board member of Koani Foundation, a Kaua'i-based Native Hawaiian unity organization. Fyfe's group prefers an approach to independence that does not position Hawaiians as "wards" of the U.S. Department of Interior.
"The whole federal recognition process is sick. It's not an area we want to come into," he said. "It's something that's beyond repair..."
