Honolulu Star-Bulletin - January 23, 2010
Although its author expresses optimism that the Akaka Bill will pass this year, the loss of the Democrats' supermajority in the Senate and last-minute changes to the bill that fueled objections in Hawaii may pose significant hurdles during this ninth try.
The measure that would grant native Hawaiians federal recognition like that of American Indian tribes was in some trouble even before Republican Scott Brown's upset victory in Massachusetts ended the Democrats' filibuster-proof majority in the Senate....
...The Obama administration worried that special status bestowed on native Hawaiians may be overturned as illegal racial discrimination, given the 2000 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Rice v. Cayetano. But redefining native Hawaiians under existing federal law governing Indian tribes raised a host of issues barely aired in Hawaii under the bill's many previous incarnations....
...It's hard to imagine that the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act will be a high priority outside the Hawaii delegation in such a topsy-turvy political environment, and the lack of transparency surrounding the late changes in the Senate version may come to haunt its author.
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