(c) Copyright 2014
Kenneth R. Conklin, Ph.D.
All rights reserved
INDEX OF NEWS REPORTS AND COMMENTARIES FROM MAY 1 to 31, 2014
May 1, 2014: OHA monthly newspaper describes community meetings regarding the racial registry and nation-building process: (1) OHA convenes fourth summit on rebuilding a Hawaiian nation; (2) On Moloka'i, Nation-building discussion centers on next steps
May 3: Honolulu Star-Advertiser reports that the extended registration period for the racial registry finally ended on May 1. A total of 125,631 names have been listed (with a few thousand more awaiting processing), including about 10,000 who registered during the six week extended period after March 17. "According to the 2010 census, more than 527,000 people in the United States reported Native Hawaiian ancestry, including 290,000 living in Hawaii."
** Note from Ken Conklin: According to OHA's monthly newspaper for December 2013, 87,000 of those registrants never directly signed up for Kana'iolowalu and were simply transferred from earlier racial registries without being asked for their permission. Thus only about 38,000 have directly signed up for the new registry which includes several affirmations never requested in earlier registries, including "I affirm the unrelinquished sovereignty of the Native Hawaiian people" and also "I have a significant social, cultural, or civic connection to the Native Hawaiian community." Thus the 87,000 names added without permission of those individuals are now made to look like they subscribed to those two new affirmations when in fact they did not. The signature form does not require notarizing; and the racial requirement is the only element that requires documented proof (but not the alleged connection to the Native Hawaiian community). Thus it is clear that race is the only requirement which OHA takes seriously enough to require verification, and not the so-called political elements which characterize the genuine Indian tribes. The 125,631 names listed as of May 2 includes all names collected in the Kau Inoa racial registry that began on January 17, 2004 -- a period of more than 10 years including massive advertising in newspapers and on TV and in community events both in Hawaii and on the mainland, including a free T-shirt for each registrant, with expenditure of many but undisclosed millions of dollars.
May 6: 3 articles in Hawaii newspapers celebrate the wrap-up of the extended registration period for the Native Hawaiian Roll, and report on the May 5 informational briefing by the Roll Commission at the state Senate Committee on Hawaiian Affairs.
May 9: (1) Ken Conklin article and related webpage "Building a Hawaiian tribe in the Legislature:
Kana'iolowalu status report May 2014; (2) TV news report "Agency seeks clarity on Hawaiian Kingdom status -- Office of Hawaiian Affairs CEO Kamanaopono Crabbe says he will seek approval from the agency's trustees to refrain from pursuing a Native Hawaiian governing entity."
May 10: (1) Honolulu Star-Advertiser reports that OHA CEO Kamana'opono Crabbe wrote a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry requesting an official statement confirming or denying whether the Kingdom of Hawaii still exists as an independent sovereign nation, because if it does then Crabbe, OHA, and the Roll Commission could be prosecuted for war crimes and should stop the Kana'iolowalu process; but then OHA sent a letter to Kerry rescinding Crabbe's letter. Both letters, on official stationery, are exhibited in the online version of the news report and on this webpage; (2) Dr. Keli'i Akina, President of the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii, issues a press release: "The trustees of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs have embarrassed the State of Hawaii and must be held accountable for recent statements in a letter by its CEO to the U.S. Department of State questioning the legitimacy of American and Hawaii State sovereignty in the Hawaiian islands."
May 11: Vicki Viotti, editorial writer for Honolulu Star-Advertiser, has a lengthy essay supporting OHA's nation-building efforts but taking note of some objections to it.
May 12: Honolulu Civil Beat reporter Chad Blair summarized events in the conflict between OHA trustee chair Machado and OHA CEO Crabbe. It seems Crabbe was lying when he said he had met with Machado before making his letter public and she had given her blessing to it.
May 13: (1) Honolulu Star-Advertiser report summarized events in the conflict between OHA trustee chair Machado and OHA CEO Crabbe. It seems Crabbe was lying when he said he had met with Machado before making his letter public and she had given her blessing to it. Machado asked Crabbe to cancel a news conference but Crabbe held it anyway, with maybe 100 supporters including heavy-hitters. An online petition with more than 1100 signatures supports Crabbe.;
(2) Kaua'i newspaper reports about the controversy, and adds that OHA Kaua'i trustee Ahuna changed his mind and removed his name from the previously unanimous trustee letter rescinding Crabbe's letter to Kerry. The Kaua'i branch of a sovereignty group supports Crabbe.;
(3) Hawaii Free Press publishes "OHA Chaos: Machado, Crabbe Dueling Statements (full text)" [* note from Ken Conklin: These two important statements are well worth reading];
(4) Hilo newspaper letter from Kamana Beamer, who created an online petition which has gotten more than 2,000 signatures supporting Crabbe.;
(5) Hawaii News Now reports additional quotes from Crabbe and Machado showing the deep division between them.
May 14: (1) Jay Fidell, Think Tech Hawaii, 52 minute video of interview of Keli'i Akina, President of Grassroot Institute of Hawaii, about his candidacy for OHA trustee. Akina emphasizes he is "Proud to be American and Hawaiian" and he criticizes OHA trustees for pandering to a secessionist belief which encourages the concept that Hawaii remains an independent nation not part of the U.S., shown in CEO Crabbe's letter to Secretary of State Kerry. See the video at
http://tinyurl.com/mdc5nnw
;
(2) OHA apparently violated state Sunshine Law with secret meeting(s) in Washington, DC, when they decided to rescind CEO Crabbe's letter to Kerry;
(3) Trisha Kehaulani Watson article in Huffington post outlines the sequence of events leading up to OHA CEO letter to Secretary of State Kerry. "Some believe the Trustees may attempt to remove Crabbe from his position for sending the letter, but for the last few years, Crabbe has used his hiring authority within the Office to strategically hire friends and allies. Trustees must consider whether or not they would face a crippling exodus by Crabbe's staff if they make any further moves to censure or remove him."
May 15: President of a secessionist Hawaiian Civic Club calls upon all OHA trustees to support CEO Crabbe's letter to Kerry, because Crabbe's questions deserve to be answered.
May 16: (1) Editorial says OHA as facilitator of nation-building must speak with unified voice, and CEO Crabbe was out-of line and disruptive; (2) Letter to editor praises Crabbe for courage in trying to set straight the historical record.; (3) Grassroot Institute President says the OHA scandal is the inevitable result of their rhetoric.
May 17: OHA trustee Peter Apo published a message on his personal blog saying he now opposes OHA's nationbuilding effort because it is divisive and interferes with the ability of grassroot ethnic Hawaiians to be heard, and has cost multimillions of dollars that could be put to better use.
[* Ken Conklin's note: three out of nine OHA trustees have now publicly said they want to stop the nationbuilding project at least temporarily: Ahuna, Apo, Carmen Lindsey; and Stender also said so in a YouTube interview a few weeks ago. The so-called "ho'oponopono" (reconciliation) trustee meeting with CEO Crabbe on Monday should produce a lot of upheaval, at least in private]
Sunday May 18: (1) Honolulu Star-Advertiser reports "The dustup between Office of Hawaiian Affairs CEO Kamana'opono Crabbe and his bosses, the OHA board of trustees, has caused a mighty ruckus in the Hawaiian community since May 9. But it's still unclear what impact Crabbe's "unauthorized" letter to Secretary of State John Kerry seeking an opinion on the legal status of the Hawaiian Kingdom will have on OHA's support for a campaign that aims to conduct formal nation-building through the Native Hawaiian Roll Commission."
(2) Star-dvertiser columnist David Shapiro says "The chaos created in the Office of Hawaiian Affairs by CEO Kamana'opono Crabbe has squashed what little credibility existed for the Native Hawaiian Roll, Kana'iolowalu. It's time to halt this failed project before we dump potentially hundreds of millions in public resources into a settlement with Hawaiians that settles nothing.
(3) Letter to editor by former OHA trustee says "I commend Kamana'opono Crabbe for doing his fiduciary duty and due diligence in the questions raised to Secretary of State John Kerry -- questions about the legal status of our kanakamaoli under international law that should have been raised long ago by Office of Hawaiian Affairs trustees."
May 19: (1) Grassroot institute press release applauds the calls by some OHA trustees to halt nationbuilding; (2) and (3) Honolulu Star-Advertiser breaking news at 3:08 PM and at 6:48 PM provide details about how ethnic Hawaiians present at OHA headquarters conducted themselves during the board meeting; (4) Hawaii News Now (3 TV stations) reports statements to the media after the board meeting, by OHA CEO Crabbe and by the OHA board, and complaints filed with the state Office of Information Practices regarding violations of the open-meeting law last week in Washington. OHA will hold a public meeting on May 29 for community feedback on how to move forward with nation-building.
May 20: (1) Honolulu Star-Advertiser says Talks bring OHA back onto '1 path'. Crabbe keeps his job, and OHA moves forward with nationbuilding although perhaps on a slower schedule to allow more input.; (2) Honolulu Civil Beat similar story with additional details: OHA legal counsel Robert Klein (former Supreme Court Justice) dismissed worries about the sunshine law, although one trustee said he's still scared about it.
May 23: (1) "Jim Crow Prowls Paradise" article in PJ Media compares racially exclusionary voter registries in Hawaii, Guam, and CNMI (Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands) that will be used for government-sponsored elections, and federal court decision regarding CNMI.; (2) Press release by Grassroot Institute describes federal court decision voiding the CNMI racially exclusionary voter registry.
May 24: (1) Hawaii Free Press reports U.S. Department of the Interior begins preliminary rule-making to create a Hawaiian tribe by administrative action. Link is provided to view the proposal on official government webpage;
(2) Michael Barone, columnist in The Washington Examiner, says "Obama Interior Department reviving a truly bad policy Congress has rejected"
May 25: Honolulu Star-Advertiser news report about the U.S. Department of Interior beginning a process to use its rule-making power to recognize ethnic Hawaiians as indigenous as a way to protect racial entitlement programs. Article includes comments by OHA trustee Oswald Stender praising the process and Grassroot Institute President Keli'i Akina opposing it.
May 26: (1) Honolulu Star-Advertiser reports OHA will hold a special meeting on May 29 to gather public comment on OHA's nation-building efforts; (2) Attorner Paul Mirengoff, in a think tank called "Power Line", posts a blog entry criticizing Obama effort to create Hawaiian tribe through administrative action.
May 27: (1) Ken Conklin short essay "Stop Appeasing Hawaii's Racial Separatists";
(2) Roger Clegg, Center for Equal Opportunity, in National Review Online: "the administration is attempting an end-run of Congress here, which has repeatedly refused to go down the road of making Native Hawaiians into some sort of Indian tribe -- and rightly so.";
(3) Ilya Shapiro, CATO Institute: "Obama Administration Abuses Executive Power to Pursue Race-Based Government";
(4) Fox News: "President Barack Obama's administration has quietly suggested it is willing to create a two-tier race-based legal system in Hawaii, where one set of taxes, spending and law enforcement will govern one race, and the second set of laws will govern every other race. ... If you can do that with groups that are already part of the mainstream, you can balkanize the country, said Heriot, who is a law professor at the University of San Diego.";
(5) Grassroot Institute of Hawaii: "Further investigation of the Department of the Interior's plan to recognize a Native Hawaiian governing entity via administrative rule has revealed that the agency has been secretly working toward such an action since at least 2012. ... The mad rush to create a Native Hawaiian government over the concerns and objections of legal scholars, the public, and the Native Hawaiian community itself makes one question OHA's motivations. The Constitution is not on their side, whether they pursue a race-based election or attempt an end-run around Congress by trying to create a race-based nation via executive action. It is unlikely that either will withstand a legal challenge."
May 28: (1) Washington Times: "Native Hawaiians would be 'Indians' under Obama plan" Article includes statements by Gail Heriot and U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Keli'i Akina (Grassroot Institute of Hawaii), Senator Brian Schatz, and others.
(2) Frontpage Magazine columnist Daniel Greenfield article "Divide and Conquer: Obama Inc. Wants Tribal Status for Hawaiians" says "There's no end to the malicious acts of political vandalism coming out of Washington D.C. lately. This latest one would use indigenous legislation to revert Hawaiians from Americans to tribal members."
(3) "Breaking News" from Honolulu Star-Advertiser (not published in the physical newspaper even the following day!) "The federal government is considering re-establishing a government-to-government relationship with Native Hawaiians, just weeks after the head of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs sought clarity on whether the Hawaiian Kingdom still exists in the eyes of the United States."
May 29: (1) OHA meeting to air Native Hawaiian disagreements. The meeting also comes on the heels of a May 20 notice from the U.S. Department of Interior signaling it's considering whether the federal government should develop a formal, administrative process to re-establish a government-to-government relationship with a future Native Hawaiian governing entity;
(2) OHA month;y newspaper for June, made available on OHA website today, uses a dialog format to describe the reconciliation meeting between OHA CEO Crabbe and board chair Machado
May 30: (1) Honolulu Star-Advertiser reports OHA CEO Crabbe says the push for sovereignty should be delayed to allow ethnic Hawaiians more time to get educated; comments from some constituents who attended the May 29 meeting at OHA headquarters;
(2) Hilo and Kona newspapers provide more in-depth details about OHA's May 29 meeting, including constituents urging OHA to step aside and allow Hawaiians to press for total independence;
(3) Honolulu Civil Beat online newspaper reports more details about OHA's May 29 meeting. "A popular refrain during public testimony Thursday morning was that Hawaiian sovereignty endures and that federal recognition similar to that of many Native American tribes wouldn't be adequate. ... Crabbe told reporters after the hearing that OHA may not be the best agency to facilitate the nation-building process, which he described as a work in progress."
May 31, 2014: Attorney James Ching gives a comprehensive review of the history of U.S.-Hawaii relations to analyze the Department of Interior advance notice of proposed rule-making, and concludes it is not a serious proposal.
END OF INDEX OF NEWS REPORTS AND COMMENTARIES FROM MAY 1, 2014 AND CONTINUING.
===============
FULL TEXT OF ALL ITEMS INDEXED ABOVE, IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER
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http://www.oha.org/sites/files/KWO514_EDIT_WEB.pdf
OHA monthly newspaper for May, 2014, pp. 10 & 14
Oha convenes fourth summit on rebuilding a hawaiian nation
By Harold Nedd
The Office of Hawaiian Affairs gathered Native Hawaiian leaders again in April for a summit on O'ahu to discuss constructive, collective paths to re- establishing a Hawaiian nation.
A goal of the summit was to nurture greater solidarity among various leaders in the community. For the Summit, OHA specifically reached out to many voices that have not typically engaged in matters related to OHA.
"Assembling this wide array of participants was in itself historic," said Kamana'opono Crabbe, OHA's Ka Pouhana and CEO.
In straight-talking discussions, the 100-plus participants at the Kamau a Ea Summit spent two days in passionate conversations.
Two major topics rose to the forefront: calls to amend the proposed OHA-facilitated nation-rebuilding process and calls for unity among those holding diverse perspectives.
Those addressing concerns about the proposed OHA-facilitated Nation-rebuilding process urged the agency to provide more time in the process and to open up a second way for Native Hawaiians to register to vote in the process.
Some stressed that the origin of the existing Kana'iolowalu Official Roll is too narrowly associated with a process intended to achieve state recognition of the Hawaiian Nation -- an outcome that some did not desire.
Andre Perez, who was among 30 participants at the summit to formally express concerns about the process to the OHA Board of Trustees, felt that "if OHA listens to the recommendations of the people, we have a good chance of moving forward."
At the same time, Michelle Ka'uhane, president of the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement, echoed her Kamau a Ea comments in a formal statement to the OHA Board of Trustees, emphasizing CNHA's continued "support for moving forward with the process (OHA) described."
In a conversation during the Kamau a Ea summit, Dexter Kaiama, a Native Hawaiian rights lawyer, said: "I think it's good to bring our people together to talk about these issues. We need to con- tinue to engage and have critical discussions without state or OHA interference."
Kamana'opono Crabbe, OHA's Ka Pouhana and CEO, summed up his feelings about the summit this way: "Allowing our people to have a free voice to share their views was a crucial goal of the Kamau a Ea summits. Without this open dialogue, OHA cannot be responsive to the needs and will of our people."
Both requests for more time to engage in the Nation-rebuilding process and for a second way to register to participate in the process are being considered by OHA's leadership.
Summit participants also urged that more education be provided to the Hawaiian community. "We agree that what we've begun is far from all that's needed," Crabbe said. "Additional educational efforts have always been part of our plan, and our community will see this in the months to come."
Live-streaming presentations of the various leaders at the Kamau a Ea Summit is one way that OHA is offering all interested more insight about various approaches to re-establishing a Hawaiian Nation. (See those presentations and more at oha.org/nationbuilding).
Amid intense conversations about the Nation-rebuilding process, leaders from all parts of the Hawaiian community called for unity.
Evidence of that unity emerged both in the general calls for changes to the proposed Nation-rebuilding process and in agreements about what will and will not be sought along the various paths to re-establishing a Hawaiian Nation.
Those supporting state and federal recognition of a Hawaiian Nation and those supporting restoring an internationally recognized Hawaiian Nation agreed that state or federal recognition should not prohibit further efforts to seek international recognition.
"We declare our support for all paths that lead to state, federal and international recognition of Lahui 'Öiwi and repudiate and disavow the interpretation that federal and state recognition precludes our right and claim to independence," Davianna McGregor, Melody MacKenzie and Derek Kauanoe said in a five-page declaration they jointly shared at the summit.
Michelle Ka'uhane stressed that her nonprofit organization's position for the past 13 years has been about self-governance.
"We don't believe any one position, any one group or any one person should impede on the opinion of another," Ka'uhane said. "We don't believe state or federal recognition has to stand in the way of what others are trying to achieve."
Kamau a Ea was the fourth summit in a series that began in November 2012, when OHA started bringing together leading thinkers on Hawaiian sovereignty. The summits have taken on new meaning since OHA announced in March its decision to facilitate a process that empowers its beneficiaries to participate in building a governing entity.
In her remarks to open the April 11 Kamau a Ea Summit, OHA Chairperson Colette Machado praised participants for their dedication to the goal of Nation building.
"I am also grateful to all of you for your willingness to get involved and help drive a process to form a Native Hawaiian governing entity," Machado said. "Let's demonstrate a commitment that would send a stronger, clearer and better message about how our community is uniting to move forward and engage in a process to build a Nation that would benefit future generations of Hawaiians."
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http://www.oha.org/sites/files/KWO514_EDIT_WEB.pdf
OHA monthly newspaper for May, 2014, pp. 10 & 14
On Moloka'i, Nation-building discussion centers on next steps
By Cheryl Corbiell
On April 18, Kumu Iolani Kuoha's Hawaiian immersion class from Moloka'i Middle School chanted a
welcome to an eclectic group of panelists who were on Moloka'i to share their divergent views about Hawaiian Nation building with 200 participants.
The meeting was one of 19 town hall meetings held by the Office of Hawaiian Affairs statewide.
On May 1, the Official Roll for Native Hawaiians will close with more than 121,000 names of which 5,000 are on Moloka'i. Although most panelists stressed that the audience make a decision about signing up, the main discussion focused on the next steps.
The panelists were: Kawika Riley, chief advocate at OHA; Dennis (Bumpy) Kanahele, leader for the Nation of Hawai'i; Walter Ritte, Moloka'i homesteader and Hawaiian rights advocate; and Mahealani Wendt, Native Hawaiian Roll commissioner and former executive director of the Native Hawaiian Legal Corp.
Riley described OHA's role as a neutral facilitator, saying Native Hawaiians will determine the pro- cess to build a governing entity. "OHA has always seen itself as a transitional governing body to ulti- mately transfer assets responsibly to the Nation," he said.
Kanahele spoke about the early years of Hawaiian Nation activism that began in earnest 30 years ago. Referring to the Apology Bill signed by then-President Bill Clinton, Kanahele said: "In 1993 the United States apologized to the Hawaiian people. The overthrow of Hawai'i became illegal; therefore, Hawaiians can declare themselves independent. The political, economic, social and cultural landscape is changing, so I am supportive of the Hawaiian Roll and OHA. The simple way to look at Nation building is the state government told us to go get a roll. We are doing that, and it is a good time to get on with our future."
Like Kanehele, Ritte has been an active participant in the nation-building process, attending OHA's press conference and summits on the issue. "When I saw the OHA commercials about unity, I jumped on a plane to find out what was happening," Ritte said. "Nation building is a complicated process. I'm still learning. It is important to come together before voting on the process, and I am just asking to slow down the process."
As for Wendt, she reflected on how a Hawaiian government once stood strong 121 years ago. "This is an opportunity to participate and take steps to realize the dream to be independent again," she said. "The question is do we take the steps now or later. It is really hard for 500,000 Hawaiians to rise up with one voice and agree. Let's deal with the reality and seize the moment."
Other speakers at the meeting included Kauluna'e Hamakua, a business owner, who said: "I signed up and wasn't fully knowledgeable at the time. Now I'm learning more and want more information."
In a presentation on Nation building, Mehana Hind, OHA's Knowledge Based Strategies Specialist, said the time is right for self-determination. She referenced Tahiti, which is pursuing independence from France.
Speaking of Hawai'i, she said: "We don't know what the Nation will look like, but we can discuss the values and how to create the document that will guide us. We are like a canoe club or civic club. Sometimes they agree and disagree about specifics, but the clubs are bound together by a common purpose just like the Hawaiian people have a common purpose, so get involved."
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http://www.staradvertiser.com/newspremium/20140503__hawaiian_roll_Extended_registration_gets_10000_signups_.html?id=257784081
Honolulu Star-Advertiser, May 3, 2014
Extended registration gets 10,000 sign-ups
Thousands more could be added to the list to start building a Hawaiian nation
By Susan Essoyan
Roughly 10,000 more people have stepped forward to sign the Native Hawaiian Roll since March 17, when registration was reopened so more Hawaiians could take part in building their nation.
A total of 125,631 Native Hawaiians were on the Kana'iolowalu roll as of Friday, the day after registration closed. Thousands more applications are yet to be processed, so the number will keep growing as ancestry is verified.
"There are probably another 5,000 more that are in the hopper right now," said Clyde Namuo, executive director of the Native Hawaiian Roll Commission. "We can end up with a count of roughly 130,000."
The commission expects to certify the list by the end of June, he said. The names will form the base for election of delegates to a Governance 'Aha, or constitutional convention, where Hawaiians will consider different options for self-determination, including state, federal and international recognition as a nation.
Among those signing up on the last day was Leona M. Kalima, who had mixed feelings because the list incorporated tens of thousands of names from previous native registries.
"I'm signing up for the roll, but I object to the process," the Waimanalo resident told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. "It wasn't an open and fair process when they transferred those lists."
But she decided to take part in the latest effort by Hawaiians to determine their destiny and address the overthrow of the Hawaiian kingdom in 1893.
"I want to be included in the nation-building," said Kalima, who appended a notarized statement to her application outlining her objections. "We do want to put in place the chance for independence."
The Office of Hawaiian Affairs has pledged to act as a neutral convener of the aha, and held town hall meetings across the islands in the last few weeks to solicit input and encourage registration.
The reception varied, but there was a lot of pushback from outspoken participants who said they didn't trust the agency. Some feared it wouldn't give all nationhood options a fair shake. Some said the time frame was too short, with the convention tentatively set for September and a referendum by the end of the year. Some questioned how money had been spent.
Kamanao'opono Crabbe, OHA's CEO, said those responses will be taken into consideration by trustees.
"I know many are skeptical of what we're doing," he wrote in a letter to beneficiaries published in the May issue of Ka Wai Ola. "Many of you have told us we need to give the process more time; that it feels rushed. Many told us there needs to be more education so people can make the best decisions. … We are taking your feedback seriously."
In the same issue, OHA trustee Peter Apo sketched out what might lie ahead, envisioning the agency essentially putting itself out of business and handing off its assets to the new governing entity, once it is established.
"Over $550 million in trust assets, now managed by OHA, will be transferred to this new governing entity, which will succeed OHA as an independent body politic separate from state government," Apo wrote. "The 'aha and its mission is to be shaped by a democratic process so that the outcome truly reflects the will of the people."
The Kana'iolowalu Registry initiative was launched July 20, 2012, after passage of a state law recognizing Native Hawaiians as the only indigenous people of the islands and creating the commission to identify them. It has signed up about 40,000 new registrants, including those still awaiting processing, Namuo said. The other names on the list came from previous registries such as Kau Inoa, Operation Ohana and the Hawaiian Registry.
Fewer than 500 people contacted the commission to have their names removed from Kana'iolowalu, Namuo said.
Mililani Trask, a pioneer in the sovereignty movement, chose not to take part in Kana'iolowalu.
"I support the right of our people to self-determination, and my efforts in my life have been to work with our people for nationhood," Trask said. "But this process and the way that it's being imposed is not something that I can support."
She added, "I think it's a good goal, but we know the effort has to come from the Native Hawaiian community and people and not a political effort created by the state or federal government, which is really what we have here."
According to the 2010 census, more than 527,000 people in the United States reported Native Hawaiian ancestry, including 290,000 living in Hawaii.
In an effort to showcase diverse viewpoints, OHA has held a series of Hawaiian governance summits, known as Kamau a Ea. A session last month included presentations from Hawaiian leaders including Henry Noa, Poka Laenui, Jon Osorio, Walter Ritte, Davianna McGregor and Dennis "Bumpy" Kanahele.
Ritte demanded that the timetable be extended, perhaps as long as three years. But Kanahele, a Hawaiian nationalist whose group has had a land base for more than two decades in Waimanalo, believes now is the time for action. He is standing alongside OHA in its efforts to build Hawaiian unity.
"The thing is, everybody that I know that's asking for more time, they don't realize that our people no more the luxury of time," he said.
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http://www.staradvertiser.com/newspremium/20140506_Senators_cheer_native_voter_list.html?id=258081941
Honolulu Star-Advertiser, May 6, 2014
Senators cheer native voter list
by Sarah Zoellick
State senators expressed excitement Monday for the future of Native Hawaiian nation-building now that a commission has compiled a list of potentially eligible voters.
"This is exciting," Sen. Clayton Hee, a member of the Senate Hawaiian Affairs Committee, said during an informational briefing at the state Capitol. "It's terrific."
The Native Hawaiian Roll Commission recently announced that 125,631 Native Hawaiians are on the Kana'iolowalu Registry, with an additional 4,500 or so names still needing to be entered.
"This is about nation-building; it's not about list promulgation," Norma Wong, a consultant who has been working with the commission, told legislators.
The committee called the informational briefing to get an update on the commission's status after its work closed on Thursday. The meeting lasted about 90 minutes, and legislators walked away expressing eagerness to see how Native Hawaiians establish an independent, self-governing entity.
"I think it gave a lot of clarity to us in terms of what it is that … the Hawaiian Roll Commission is trying to do, trying to establish, and so I think it was very exciting," Sen. Maile Shimabukuro (D, Kalaeloa-Waianae-Makaha), chairwoman of the Hawaiian Affairs Committee, said after the briefing. "It was exciting because it helped to show me that in the end, you know, it really can be a win-win."
In order for that win-win to happen, however, Native Hawaiians need to be successful in their appeals for recognition to the federal government. Shimabukuro said she worries that the current initiative could be subject to lawsuits -- as an earlier one was in the 1990s -- if the federal government doesn't act soon.
"What kind of (became) clear in my mind is that we do need a two-part process," she said. "Part one is that we need the federal government to just recognize Hawaiians and to say that yes, you know, there was an illegal overthrow similar to the Alaskans and the Native Americans. … Then that'll allow (Native Hawaiians) to go forward because right now they are vulnerable, because someone who wasn't allowed to sign the roll could say, 'Hey, that's discrimination.'"
During the briefing, Shimabukuro asked the commission what it hopes to gain through self-governance.
Former Gov. John Waihee, chairman and commissioner at large of the Kana'iolowalu Commission, said the many positive outcomes for Native Hawaiians include preserving land and water use rights.
But the ability of Native Hawaiians to negotiate with the federal government could also benefit the state in many ways, he said.
"One of the things that could happen immediately would be with the return of federal lands that instead of going out for public bid could be returned back to Native Hawaiians, where it should go anyway," he said. "Like Ford Island, for example."
Shimabukuro said after the meeting she also sees cultural benefits to allowing Native Hawaiians to be exempt from state and federal laws.
"I'd love to see that … especially for the cultural areas, fishponds and things like that," she said. "Right now they're really stymied by the state and federal laws, you know, to do their cultural practices."
She added, "To see how this all unfolds will be very interesting."
Some critics say it's unfolding too fast, with a constitutional convention proposed for later this year, but Hawaiian Affairs Committee member Sen. Brickwood Galuteria (D, Kakaako-McCully-Waikiki) disagreed.
"The process needs to continue as ambitiously as stated," he said during the briefing.
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http://thegardenisland.com/news/state-and-regional/native-hawaiian-roll-first-step-in-charting-future/article_c99131ad-d465-514c-b536-f5680a5a1efc.html
The Garden Island [Kaua'i], May 6, 2014
Native Hawaiian Roll first step in charting future
Cathy Bussewitz, Associated Press
HONOLULU (AP) -- The Native Hawaiian Roll Commission certified more than 125,000 people on its official register, completing a major first step for Native Hawaiians to form their own independent government that could seek federal recognition and the return of land to the Hawaiian people.
When all of the applications are finalized, organizers expect a total of 130,000 people to be certified, they told state senators on the Hawaiian Affairs Committee on Monday.
Hawaiians who signed up will have a hand in shaping the new government and will vote to elect delegates in September.
By establishing their own government, Hawaiians could seek to negotiate with the federal government to return military lands to Native Hawaiians, said former Gov. John Waihee, chairman of the commission.
"One of the things that could happen immediately would be the return of federal lands," Waihee said. "Instead of going out for public bid, it could be returned back to Native Hawaiians, where it should go anyway."
For example, if Ford Island was returned, that could provide housing for about 2,000 Hawaiians, Waihee said. Ford Island, situated in Pearl Harbor, is currently used by the U.S. Navy for military operations, training and housing, said Bill Doughty, deputy director of public affairs for Navy Region Hawaii. It also is home to a new National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration facility.
"Ford Island is an active military installation and an integral part of Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam," Doughty said.
The new government also could protect Native Hawaiians' rights to water, land access and education, said Norma Wong, a consultant to the Hawaiian Roll Commission.
"Without the exercise of political action as a self-governing entity ... we stand essentially to lose everything that we now believe we already have," Wong said.
While organizers of the Hawaiian Roll Commission stated some potential goals, the future direction of the group will be determined through the course of elections and a convention.
The group also could make a fresh attempt to secure federal recognition for Hawaiians, Waihee said.
To register for the roll, Hawaiians have to show Native Hawaiian ancestry, generally in the form of a birth certificate, said Naalehu Anthony, the commission's vice chairman. There's no minimum percentage of ancestry that's considered acceptable, Anthony said.
Registrations came from all 50 states and outside the U.S., but 82 percent of the enrollees were located in Hawaii, Wong said. Many of those who signed up were 50 to 65 years old.
The election will be facilitated by the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, and voting will be conducted online and through ballots that are mailed around the world.
After the election, the delegates will meet between October and November to draft a governing document, according to the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. Then those on the roll will vote to approve the document in January. The roll previously closed in January after the anniversary of the 1893 U.S. overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii.
Hawaiians had presented the Kue Petition, stating their opposition to annexation, in 1897.
"Those of us in the room here who are Native Hawaiian are essentially the survivors of the people who took up the cause in 1897," Wong said. "It is not only important for us to say that we survived, but that our history will be a better one in the future than it was in the past."
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http://www.civilbeat.com/articles/2014/05/05/22008-more-than-130000-native-hawaiians-sign-up-for-nation-building/
Honolulu Civil Beat, May 6, 2014 (updated at 5:05 p.m, presumably to add hot-links behind some of the words)
More Than 130,000 Native Hawaiians Sign Up for Nation Building
By Anita Hofschneider
Members of the Native Hawaiian community are on track to establish a constitution for an independent Hawaiian nation as soon as next January.
Representatives from the Native Hawaiian Roll Commission, a group charged with enrolling Native Hawaiians in a nation-building effort, told state lawmakers Monday that more than 130,000 people have signed up. For the past month, the Office of Hawaiian Affairs has conducted an aggressive public relations campaign that included newspaper advertisements, public hearings and social media outreach.
The commission, which was established by the Legislature with Act 182 in 2011, finished its second round of registration May 1. The Senate Hawaiian Affairs Committee held an informational briefing Monday at the state Capitol to take stock of the group's progress.
Norma Wong, a consultant for the commission who handled Hawaiian issues under former Gov. John Waihee, said the group plans to finish certifying its list by the end of June. That would pave the way for the group to elect delegates in September, hold a constitutional convention in October or November, and send the governing document back for approval by January.
After the list is certified, the commission will disband and the Office of Hawaiian Affairs will take over the effort to organize the elections and convention. Board members have the power to slow down the process if they choose, but Garret Kamemoto, spokesman for OHA, said there are currently no proposals on OHA's agenda to change the schedule.
Drawing Comparisons to Akaka Bill
Ultimately, the goal is to create a nation with its own laws separate from the United States that would be recognized by the federal government.
Former U.S. Sen. Daniel Akaka tried for more than a decade to achieve federal recognition for Hawaiians in Congress that would give the native community a status similar to Native American tribes. His proposal, known as the Akaka Bill, is not likely to pass anytime soon, given opposition from Senate Republicans and Akaka's retirement.
Another option for federal recognition is through the Department of the Interior, which could confer tribal status with an executive order from President Barack Obama. Interior Secretary Sally Jewel said at a conference in Hawaii last fall that the Obama administration was "looking at different options to move on a path forward."
With the Akaka Bill stymied in Congress, Hawaii lawmakers established the Native Hawaiian Roll Commission in 2011 in an effort to help develop an indigenous governing entity and support federal recognition of Native Hawaiians.
Wong said more than 80 percent of the 130,000 people who signed up for the roll live in Hawaii, including more than half of Hawaii's Native Hawaiian adult population. But Native Hawaiians residing on the mainland are still underrepresented.
According to the 2010 U.S. Census, there are about 518,000 Hawaiians nationwide, including about 290,000 Hawaiians living in Hawaii.
Even though registration is over, Wong emphasized that the roll may open again to include more people, and it doesn't preclude others from participating in the nation in the future.
Hawaiian Affairs Committee Chairwoman Maile Shimabukuro said that she was surprised and pleased with the number of people who signed up, given all the criticism of the process that she has heard from constituents in her district. Many people doubt whether a nation-building process orchestrated by the state could truly result in an independent Hawaiian nation.
Kealii Makekau, a Native Hawaiian resident of Honolulu who is running for the Office of Hawaiian Affairs Board of Trustees, attended Monday's briefing and said afterward that he thinks state lawmakers are giving the indigenous community false hope.
"This is a continuation of the Akaka Bill," he said. Many Native Hawaiians disapprove of that route because they want more independence from the federal government.
But members of the Native Hawaiian Roll Commission emphasized that this process is quite different than the Akaka Bill.
Commission Chairman Waihee said the Hawaii Legislature took an unusual step in passing Act 195, which acknowledged Hawaiians' right to nationhood and anticipated the creation of an independent government by establishing the roll commission.
"Most of the time there is a governing entity first and then the conference of recognition," Waihee said. "In this case really the Legislature set up an entirely new model."
He said the process is more similar to the formation of a labor union rather than the recognition of Native American tribes.
"Act 195 was really a stroke of genius," he said. "The valiant effort of Sen. Akaka was really kind of yesterday's news."
'Non-Hawaiians Would Have the Opportunity to Become Citizens'
Still, he and other commissioners and lawmakers acknowledged the organization may be vulnerable to legal challenges. The commission has been criticized as embodying racial discrimination by requiring each member of the roll to have Native Hawaiian ancestry.
The Supreme Court ruled in Cayetano v. Rice that the state couldn't limit elections for the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, a state entity, to only people of Native Hawaiian descent. Commissioners are hoping that because Act 182 says Native Hawaiians may independently organize a convention, it won't be subject to the same limitation.
Sen. Clayton Hee also said that limiting membership in the roll to Native Hawaiians doesn't preclude citizenship in the new nation.
"It was always the intent that non-Hawaiians would have the opportunity to become citizens," Hee said.
Despite the risk of lawsuits and other hiccups, Waihee said he's optimistic about the success of this attempt and that it's long overdue.
"It's the largest case of Native Hawaiians that have ever gotten together on self-government," he said, recalling a voting referendum in 1996. "What we're doing now is in a real sense picking up where we left off."
State senators echoed Waihee's optimism.
"The process needs to continue as ambitiously as stated," said Sen. Brickwood Galuteria. He likened signing up for the roll to jumping on a bus. "The bus is moving. For everybody on the bus, good. The bus is going to stop again to let people on the bus."
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http://www.hawaiipoliticalinfo.org/node/7455
Hawaii Political Info, May 9, 2014
Building a Hawaiian tribe in the Legislature
Kana'iolowalu status report May 2014
by Ken Conklin
This essay is about what the legislature of the State of Hawaii has been doing during recent years to create a state-recognized tribe out of thin air for ethnic Hawaiians, and where that process stands in May 2014.
Important issues are raised:
Has the Roll Commission for the Kana'iolowalu racial registry followed the requirements in its enabling legislation from 2011?
Was it morally or legally acceptable for the Roll Commission to massively augment its miserable performance by grabbing 87,000 names from previous registries without the permission of those people, creating the impression that they have signed on to two major affirmations not present in the previous rosters for which they actually did register?
Did the Roll Commission take seriously its obligation to verify the political affiliation requirement in the 2011 law, or did it take seriously only the requirement to verify racial ancestry, thereby making the roll nothing more than a list of people with at least one drop of Hawaiian native blood?
Why has the Roll Commission been enrolling children aged 17, 16, or even younger, many of whom were enrolled by a parent or grandparent, even though Act 195 requires minimum age 18?
Will the Hawaiian tribe now being created truly be an autonomous political entity outside the state, as is now being asserted, and therefore not subject to state law regarding open meetings and disclosure of income and expenditures; or will it actually be nothing more than a state government agency?
News reports about a May 5 2014 legislative hearing failed to describe these issues, which are discussed in detail below.
This essay is NOT about the failed Akaka bill in Congress from 2000 through 2012, whereby ethnic Hawaiians would get federal recognition as an Indian tribe; and it is NOT about ongoing discussions inside the Obama administration whereby an ethnic Hawaiian tribe would be federally recognized through bureaucratic procedures or an Executive Order.
Here is a list of the sections in a detailed webpage which analyzes these issues at
http://tinyurl.com/l26kh8o
(A) The enabling legislation for the Kana'iolowalu process and the Roll Commission
(B) Requirements imposed by Act 195 (2011) on the enrollment process, and how the actual application for registration used by the Roll Commission failed to comply
(C) May 5, 2014 State of Hawaii Senate Committee on Hawaiian Affairs hearing about the progress of the Roll Commission
(D) Will the Hawaiian tribe really be an autonomous government outside the State of Hawaii, as former Governor and Roll Commission Chairman John Waihe'e insists?
(E) Will the delegates who write a governing document, or the members of the eventual Hawaiian tribe, allow people with no Hawaiian native blood to become members, and if so, with what rights?
(F) Additional information, including three published articles about the May 5 legislative hearing on the Roll Commission
---------------------
http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/25480044/agency-seeks-clarity-on-hawaiian-kingdom-status
Hawaii News Now (3 TV stations), May 9, 2014
Agency seeks clarity on Hawaiian Kingdom status
HONOLULU (AP) - Office of Hawaiian Affairs CEO Kamanaopono Crabbe says he will seek approval from the agency's trustees to refrain from pursuing a Native Hawaiian governing entity.
Crabbe says the agency would put nation building efforts on hold until officials are able to confirm the Hawaiian Kingdom doesn't continue to exist under international law.
Crabbe outlined his proposal in a May 5 letter to Secretary of State John Kerry. The agency released a copy of the letter Friday.
The letter says an analysis from scholars alleging federal and state governments are illegal regimes has raised concerns. The analysis says OHA trustees and Native Hawaiian Roll Commission members may be criminally liable under international law.
Crabbe is asking the State Department to request an opinion from the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel.
------------------
http://www.staradvertiser.com/newspremium/20140510_OHA_pulls_letter_on_status_of_kingdom.html?id=258739231
Honolulu Star-Advertiser, May 10, 2014
OHA pulls letter on status of kingdom
The letter written by the agency's CEO does not reflect trustees' views, they say
By Timothy Hurley
In a surprising and somewhat awkward turn of events, the Office of Hawaiian Affairs Board of Trustees on Friday rescinded a letter written by OHA Chief Executive Officer Kamana'opono Crabbe and sent to Secretary of State John Kerry requesting an opinion on whether the Hawaiian kingdom still exists as an independent sovereign state under international law.
Trustee Chairwoman Colette Machado said trustees were caught off guard and "offended" when they read the letter Friday morning while attending a meeting of U.S. indigenous peoples at the State Department in Washington.
Machado said Crabbe exceeded his authority as chief executive officer and wrote a letter that does not reflect the position of OHA or the trustees. He also violated board policy that requires him to consult the board on such matters.
The nine trustees immediately voted unanimously to send a follow-up letter asking the State Department to rescind the letter.
In his letter dated Monday, Crabbe said he was requesting a formal legal opinion on the matter because recent legal and diplomatic proceedings suggested OHA and its trustees may be open to criminal liability in the pursuit of a Native Hawaiian governing entity. He said he would request approval from the trustees that they refrain from such activity until a legal opinion is issued.
OHA is financially supporting the independent Native Hawaiian Roll Commission, which is preparing and maintaining a roll of qualified Native Hawaiians to work toward the reorganization of a native government.
Two months ago OHA trustees joined some of their critics at a news conference to announce they would help facilitate and fund steps to "build a Hawaiian nation" once the Native Hawaiian Roll is complete but stay neutral in the effort.
Crabbe could not be reached for comment.
In his letter, Crabbe said he attended an April 17 panel discussion in which University of Hawaii law professor Williamson Chang and political scientist Keanu Sai made presentations asserting that both the federal and state governments are illegal regimes in Hawaii. He also enclosed various articles, law briefs, complaints and other documents suggesting the same, with at least one calling for an investigation of "war crimes" and suggesting criminal liability.
"These matters have raised grave concerns with regard to not only the Native Hawaiian community … but also to the vicarious liability of myself, staff and trustees of the Hawaiian Affairs and the Native Hawaiian Roll Commission," he wrote.
Machado said the trustees intend to meet with Crabbe behind closed doors in executive session to discuss his role as chief executive officer.
"He has to understand he has nine bosses," she said. "We don't want to micromanage him, but this time he went way beyond the reach of his authority. He can't do whatever he chooses to do, especially when it's something as political as this.
"This is a good lesson for all of us," Machado said.
Former Gov. John Waihee, chairman of the Native Hawaiian Roll Commission, said he too was surprised by Crabbe's letter.
"My first thought was, 'What were you thinking?'" he said.
Waihee said Crabbe was wasting his time asking a question to federal lawyers who are paid to maintain the status quo.
Clyde Namuo, executive director of the Native Hawaiian Roll Commission, said 130,000 Native Hawaiians have signed up for the roll and have demonstrated their eagerness to move forward.
"We don't believe (there should be any delays). Otherwise, we wouldn't be doing what we're doing," Namuo said.
Robin Danner, president of the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement, called Crabbe's letter outrageous and irresponsible. She applauded the trustees for acting swiftly.
"I'm embarrassed," she said. "It's just irresponsible for him to unilaterally delay the momentum and the promise of OHA to see through Act 195 (the legislation that created the Native Hawaiian Roll Commission)."
But Chang, the law professor quoted by Crabbe, described the letter as "a profound and important moment in history."
"He has raised an issue that has not been approached before. It's remarkable that a state agency is asking these questions," he said.
Chang, a Native Hawaiian, said his own historical research has revealed that the United States doesn't have any jurisdiction over Hawaii despite laws held up as proof saying otherwise. He said he's writing a book on the subject.
Letter to Secretary of State John Kerry
http://www.scribd.com/doc/223205645/Letter-to-Secretary-of-State-John-Kerry
Rescind letter to Secretary of State John Kerry
http://www.scribd.com/doc/223206157/Rescind-letter-to-Secretary-of-State-John-Kerry
** Note from Ken Conklin: Some people cannot see the two letters because they do not subscribe to the newspaper; also, the 4-page letter from Mr. Crabbe is a formatted pdf file whose size makes it unwise to post on this website. Therefore I have copied below a simple-text version of Mr. Crabbe's 4-page letter, without the formatting; and a photo of the one-page OHA trustee letter showing the official letterhead and signatures.
** This is a simple-text copy from a pdf file of a letter issued on official stationery which included the seal of the State of Hawaii, and fancy formatting. The pdf file can be viewed at
http://www.scribd.com/doc/223205645/Letter-to-Secretary-of-State-John-Kerry
PHONE (808) 594-1888
FAX (808) 594-1865
STATE OF HAWAI'I
OFFICE OF HAWAIIAN AFFAIRS
560 N. NIMITZ HWY., SUITE 200
HONOLULU, HAWAI'I 96817
May 5, 2014
Secretary of State John F. Kerry
U.S. Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520
Re: Inquiry into the Legal Status of the Hawaiian Kingdom as an Independent Sovereign State
Dear Secretary Kerry,
As the Chief Executive Officer for the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, being a governmental agency of the State of Hawai'i, the law places on me, as a fiduciary, strict standards of diligence, responsibility and honesty. My executive staff, as public officials, carry out the policies and directives of the Trustees of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs in the service of the Native Hawaiian community. We are responsible to take care, through all lawful means, that we apply the best skills and diligence in the servicing of this community. It is in this capacity and in the interest of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs I am submitting this communication and formal request.
The Office of Hawaiian Affairs was established by a Constitutional Convention held in Hawai'i in 1978. Under Article XII of the Constitution of the State of Hawai'i, the "Office of Hawaiian Affairs shall exercise power as provided by law: to manage and administer the proceeds from the sale or other disposition of the lands, natural resources, minerals and income derived from whatever sources for native Hawaiians and Hawaiians, including all income and proceeds from that pro rata portion of the trust referred to in section 4 of this article for native Hawaiians; to formulate policy relating to affairs of native Hawaiians and Hawaiians; and to exercise control over real and personal property set aside by state, federal or private sources and transferred to the board for native Hawaiians and Hawaiians. The board shall have the power to exercise control over the Office of Hawaiian Affairs through its executive officer, the administrator of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, who shall be appointed by the board."
In 2011, Governor Abercrombie signed into law Act 195 that formally recognized "Native Hawaiians as the only indigenous, aboriginal, maoli population of Hawai'i." Act 195
Secretary of State John F. Kerry
May 5, 2014
Page 2
also committed the State of Hawai'i "to support the continuing development of a reorganized Native Hawaiian governing entity and, ultimately, the federal recognition of Native Hawaiians." To accomplish this effort Act 195 established a Native Hawaiian Roll Commission who is responsible for "preparing and maintaining a roll of qualified Native Hawaiians" in order "to facilitate the process under which qualified Native Hawaiians may independently commence the organization of a convention of qualified Native Hawaiians, established for the purpose of organizing themselves." According to Act 195, the Roll Commission has been housed within the Office of Hawaiian Affairs for administrative purposes and we are responsible for funding the Roll Commission. An extended deadline for registering Native Hawaiians on the Roll was May 1, 2014.
On April 17, 2014, one of my executive managers attended a presentation and panel discussion at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa William S. Richardson School of Law that featured former Hawai'i governor John Waihe'e, ill, chairman of the Roll Commission, senior Law Professor Williamson Chang, and Dr. Keanu Sai, a political scientist. The presentations of Professor Chang and Dr. Sai provided a legal analysis of the current status of Hawai'i that appeared to undermine the legal basis of the Roll Commission, and, as alleged in the panel discussions, the possibility of criminal liability under international law. Both Professor Chang and Dr. Sai specifically stated that the Federal and State of Hawai'i governments are illegal regimes that stem from an illegal and prolonged occupation by the United States as a result of the illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom government. As a government agency of the State of Hawai'i this would include the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, and by enactment of the State of Hawai'i Legislature, it would also include the Roll Commission. Both Act 195 and U.S. Public Law 103-150, acknowledge the illegality of the overthrow.
Dr. Sai made specific reference to two sole-executive agreements entered into through executive mediation between President Grover Cleveland and Queen Lili'uokalani in 1893 that obligated the United States to administer Hawaiian law and to restore the government of the Hawaiian Kingdom. He argues that although the executive agreements were not carried out, they remain in .force and bind successor Presidents for their faithful execution, and that both federal law and international law recognizes sole-executive agreements as treaties. If this were true, it would also preclude the Office of Hawaiian Affairs current plan, through Act 195, of establishing a Native Hawaiian governing entity that will seek federal recognition.
For your consideration, I have enclosed Dr. Sai's law journal article published in the Journal of Law and Social Challenges that compares federal recognition under the Akaka bill and the international laws of occupation. Act 195 is the State of Hawai'i's version of the Akaka bill. Dr. Sai argues that Native Hawaiians are not indigenous people of the United States, but rather nationals of an occupied State. In addition, I'm am also enclosing a brief authored by Dr. Sai and Professor Matthew Craven from the University of London, SOAS, Law School, titled "The Continuity of the Hawaiian State and the Legitimacy of the acting Government of the Hawaiian Kingdom;" a DVD packet with booklet of the Larsen v. Hawaiian Kingdom, Permanent Court of Arbitration, The Hague, Netherlands (1999-2001); a Complaint filed with the President of the United Nations Security Council in 2001 (without exhibits); a Protest and Demand filed with the President of the United Nations General Assembly in 2012 (without exhibits); a Referral submitted with the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court at the Hague, Netherlands, in
Secretary of State John F. Kerry
May 5, 2014
Page 3
2013, calling upon the Prosecutor for the investigation of war crimes alleged to have been committed in Hawai'i (without exhibits); and a complaint for war crimes filed with the Philippine government under its universal jurisdiction alleging that one of our Trustees of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Ms. S. Haunani Apoliona, committed a war crime in her private capacity as a member of the Board of Directors for the Bank of Hawai'i (without exhibits).
These matters have raised grave concerns with regard to not only the Native Hawaiian community we serve, but also to the vicarious liability of myself, staff and Trustees of the Hawaiian Affairs, and members of the Native Hawaiian Roll Commission. The community we serve, the Trustees, and many of my staff members, to include myself, and the members of the Roll Commission are Native Hawaiians, who are direct descendants of Hawaiian subjects of the Hawaiian Kingdom. And as a State of Hawai'i governmental agency, it would also appear that I am precluded from seeking any opinion on the veracity of these allegations from our in house counsel or from the State of Hawai'i Attorney General, because there would appear to exist a conflict of interest if these allegations are true.
In light of the aforementioned, and because the Department of State is the United States' executive department responsible for international relations and who also housed diplomatic papers and agreements with the Hawaiian Kingdom, I am respectfully submitting a formal request to have the Department of State request an opinion from the Office of Legal Counsel, Department of Justice, addressing the following questions:
* First, does the Hawaiian Kingdom, as a sovereign independent State, continue to exist as a subject of international law?
* Second, if the Hawaiian Kingdom continues to exist, do the sole-executive agreements bind the United States today?
* Third, if the Hawaiian Kingdom continues to exist and the sole-executive agreements are binding on the United States, what effect would such a conclusion have on United States domestic legislation, such as the Hawai'i Statehood Act, 73 Stat. 4, and Act 195?
* Fourth, if the Hawaiian Kingdom continues to exist and the sole-executive agreements are binding on the United States, have the members of the Native Hawaiian Roll Commission, Trustees and staff of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs incurred criminal liability under international law?
Secretary of State John F. Kerry
May 5, 2014
Page4
While I await the opinion from the Office of Legal Counsel, I will be requesting approval from the Trustees of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs that we refrain from pursuing a Native Hawaiian governing entity until we can confirm that the Hawaiian Kingdom, as an independent sovereign State, does not continue to exist under international law and that we, as individuals, have not incurred any criminal liability in this pursuit.
Sincerely,
[Signed]
Kamana'opono M. Crabbe, Ph.D.
Ka Pouhana, Chief Executive Officer
:KC
Enclosures
cc: Chairperson Colette Y. Machado, Trustee of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs
Peter Apo, Trustee of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs
Carmen Hulu Lindsey, Trustee of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs
Dan Ahuna, Trustee of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs
John D. Waihe'e, IV, Trustee of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs
Oswald K. Stendor, Trustee of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs
Robert K. Lindsey, Jr., Trustee of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs
Rowena N. Akana, Trustee of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs
S. Haunani Apoliona, MSW, Trustee of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs
John Waihe'e, III, Chair of the Native Hawaiian Roll Commission
Neil Abercrombie, Governor of the State of Hawai 'i
Admiral Samuel J. Locklear III, USN, Commander U.S. Pacific Command
** Here is a photo of the one-page letter from the OHA board:
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http://us3.campaign-archive1.com/?u=f9a371d0547f107d938233d66&id=e2fab23e09
Grassroot Institute of Hawaii, news release
DATELINE: May 10, 2014, Honolulu, Hawaii
CONTACT: Keli'i Akina, (808) 591-9193 akina@grassrootinstitute.org
Grassroot Institute Calls on OHA Trustees to Own Up for CEO Comments
HONOLULU, Hawaii -- May 10, 2014 -- The trustees of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs have embarrassed the State of Hawaii and must be held accountable for recent statements in a letter by its CEO to the U.S. Department of State questioning the legitimacy of American and Hawaii State sovereignty in the Hawaiian islands. The letter was ostensibly motivated by legal questions "..that stem from an illegal and prolonged occupation by the United States as a result of the illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom government." Although the trustees have rescinded the May 5th letter from OHA CEO Kamanao Crabbe to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, the board's policy of pursuing the establishment of a sovereign government of Native Hawaiians may be consistent with the questioning of American and Hawaii State sovereignty. The Office of Hawaiian Affairs and the Native Hawaiian Roll Commission are on record for requiring applicants for the Native Hawaiian Roll to "...affirm the unrelinquished sovereignty of the Hawaiian people." OHA's own promotion of "Nation-building" efforts is premised upon the same historical arguments of Keanu Sai presented by Crabbe in the letter as grounds for questioning the legitimacy of the Hawaii State Government. Thus, while distancing themselves from the letter of its CEO, the trustees of the office of Hawaiian affairs have propagated policies that would naturally give rise to such a letter.
Keli'i Akina, Ph.D., president of the Grassroot Institute says: "How embarrassing and offensive that sitting government officials on the board of OHA should allow for the questioning of US and Hawaii state sovereignty in the Hawaiian Islands. We call upon the trustees of OHA to take responsibility themselves for giving rise to the confusion evident among the staff of OHA and throughout the community. We also call upon all voters in the State of Hawaii to exercise their right and duty to hold government agencies such as the Office of Hawaiian Affairs accountable as we go to the polls in 2014."
The ultimate responsibility of OHA's trustees for the views expressed in CEO Crabbe's letter is evident upon close reading. Apparently, Crabbe does not consider his views to be personal but representative of the leaders of OHA and the leadership of the Native Hawaiian Roll Commission. He writes, "My executive staff, as public officials, carry out the policies and directives of the Trustees of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs." He also cites a panel discussion and presentation at the University of Hawaii Richardson School of Law, involving John Waihee III, Chairman of the Roll Commission, as authoritative for the claims in his letter.
The letter from OHA CEO Kamanao Crabbe to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry can be read in its entirety here.
http://new.grassrootinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Crabbe-050514_KP_Letter_to_US_State_Dept.pdf
###
For more information or for press inquiries contact Grassroot President Keli'i Akina at (808) 591.9193 or email akina@grassrootinstitute.org.
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http://www.staradvertiser.com/editorialspremium/20140511_A_Hawaiian_nation.html?id=258752451
Honolulu Star-Advertiser, May 11, 2014, "Insight" [commentary]
A Hawaiian nation?
Efforts to establish sovereignty enter its next phase, but some leaders fear Native Hawaiians will give up too much
By Vicki Viotti [** Note by Ken Conklin: Vicki Viotti is on the newspaper's editorial staff, and probably writes most of the unsigned editorials. She and the newspaper have been pushing for the Akaka bill and racially exclusionary programs for about 15 years]
The Native Hawaiian Roll Commission translates Kana'iolowalu, the name of its enrollment project, as a poetic allusion to the act of striving ("na'i"), and to the din of many voices.
The commission has all but completed its work, and some of that din is already being heard. The Office of Hawaiian Affairs, immersed in its Native Hawaiian nation-building efforts, erupted late last week in a dramatic conflagration. That's not unusual in the decades-old Hawaiian sovereignty movement, but this time, drama flared in Washington, D.C.
That's where several OHA trustees, as well as Chief Executive Officer Kamana'o Crabbe, were meeting federal officials to discuss recent developments. On Friday, OHA released on its website a letter, dated May 5, that Crabbe sent to Secretary of State John Kerry, seeking a legal opinion on the status of Hawaii under international law.
Citing recent presentations by pro-independence advocates that characterized federal and Hawaii state governments as "illegal regimes," Crabbe wrote that he would ask the trustees to delay further nationhood projects until OHA gets a reading from the U.S. State Department on the legal status.
It's anything but clear that he will get a delay: There was vigorous pushback from angry trustees, who quickly moved to rescind the letter.
The flash point broke the lull in activity following the May 1 completion of the Kana'iolowalu enrollment. Roughly 125,000 names are being certified as Native Hawaiians who will be able to help in forming a native government.
"We expect it to be closer to 130,000," said Clyde Namu'o, the commission's executive director. For example, he said, some who signed up may have turned 18, the required minimum age, by the date of certification at the end of June, and be added to the list.
The issue of Hawaiian nationhood -- whether through federal recognition of a native government as former U.S. Sen. Daniel Akaka had proposed in many sessions of Congress, or through appeals to international courts, as some have pursued -- has always been contentious.
Post-roll, the action timetable is indefinite (see story on Page E4), but the plan is to convene what's being called an 'aha, or assembly, to discuss ways to organize a Native Hawaiian government.
Whomever is chosen as the delegates (and that selection process is unclear, too), one of many voices in the ongoing conversation over the years belongs to Davianna McGregor, a UH ethnic studies professor and longtime Hawaiian activist.
McGregor has advocated for self-governance by Native Hawaiians and has seen federal recognition of Native Hawaiians, long proposed through the "Akaka Bill," as a workable route to safeguard native rights from legal challenges. She added that she sees this as a separate issue from whether Hawaii itself, with its multiethnic population, could become independent.
She said she knows that puts her at odds with critics who say forming a "nation within a nation" as other indigenous Americans have done would close off other claims to redress the initial wrong: the overthrow of the Hawaiian kingdom in 1893.
Setting that argument aside for now, she took the opportunity to remark on the achievement of the enrollment itself, and the excitement over the next steps.
"This is the first time since Kamehameha III that we have so many Hawaiians registered to participate in the government of Hawaiian people," she said. "It's unprecedented.
"The focus now needs to turn to people who have registered their support and engage everyone to share their mana'o (thoughts) to dream about what this nation would be about," she added.
UH has been home to much of the sovereignty debate for many years. Elsewhere on campus is Jonathan Osorio, professor at the Kamakakuokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies. Osorio sees the creation of a governmental entity through this process as an effort by state and federal governments to extinguish claims for restoration of sovereignty that should be pursued using international law.
"The only political change I'm willing to fight for is the one that is lawful," Osorio said. "The others really don't make any sense. They only make sense to the state.
"What the state really wants to do is negotiate with somebody over those ceded lands," he added, referring to the Hawaiian government and crown lands that were ceded to the U.S., and then the state of Hawaii, after annexation and statehood.
"They want an end to our claim," Osorio said. "The only thing we have to lose as a nation is that claim to the ceded lands. We should not be cooperating with the state on this."
The creation of the roll is the most recent development since Gov. Neil Abercrombie signed Act 195, the 2011 state law setting up the roll commission.
The law officially gave state recognition of Native Hawaiians as the islands' only indigenous people "to facilitate their self-governance." The rolls define those eligible "to participate in the organization of the Native Hawaiian governing entity," according to the law.
Namu'o said subsequent amendments made certification of Native Hawaiians easier by allowing the commission access to state birth records for a basic check of whether an individual's Hawaiian ancestry is documented. The difficulty of that check frustrated previous enrollment projects, he said, referencing in particular Kau Inoa, an initiative OHA launched 10 years ago.
Another state law also allowed the commission to fold the Kau Inoa enrollment into the new rolls, and that has drawn criticism from opponents. Osorio said the commission's reliance on Kau Inoa shows how far it fell short of its initial pledges about a grassroots effort.
"When the commission was formed they said things like, 'We're trying to create a movement here,'" he said. "They really didn't.
"The majority of that list were people who were rolled in," he added. "While state law may make that legal, my question is, why would you mess around with something as important as democracy in that way, creating that law, in order to make it appear that there's more support than there is?"
That critique is echoed by Keli'i Akina, who last year became president and chief executive officer of the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii, a nonprofit think tank.
"OHA and the state of Hawaii should not be in the nation-building business," he said, adding that the roll "fails to represent the will of the people as it excludes more than 70 percent of all Hawaiians and 100 percent of non-Hawaiians."
The Grassroot Institute has opposed the Akaka Bill and other Hawaiian sovereignty campaigns. For example, Akina cited comments made by several sources last year that an alternative route to federal recognition was being pursued, one that could be initiated by President Barack Obama or within the U.S. Department of the Interior, under his administration. The fact that a Hawaii-born president is in the White House has brightened hopes among many supporters for federal recognition.
However, Akina pointed to a letter to Obama signed by four of the eight members of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, asserting that executive action of this kind would be unconstitutional.
He added that, because he wants this point of view better represented in Hawaii, he plans to run for a seat on the OHA Board of Trustees.
"A trustee can bring positive influence to resolving these issues," Akina said, "meeting the needs of Hawaiians within the context of being citizens of the United States."
More recent pursuits of an administrative alternative to the Akaka Bill are being kept under wraps, if they do exist. A spokeswoman would say only that the Department of the Interior is "closely monitoring the developments at the state level."
In contrast to those opposed to working within federal or state governments, there are other organizations and individuals within the Hawaiian community officially backing this approach. Among them is the Association of Hawaiian Civic Clubs.
Soulee L.K. Stroud, association president, noted that there are some among the constituent 68 clubs that disagree, but the majority vote of the association favored the roll, whether people signed on via Kau Inoa or the current enrollment.
He acknowledged that more than 88,000 of the signatures came from the decade-old Kau Inoa initiative, but added that both enrollments stated the intent was to facilitate formation of a government.
And he agreed with McGregor that Hawaiians concede no right to seek international redress just by securing federal and state recognition.
"I think a lot of folks view federal recognition as giving up," he said. "I view it as protecting rights that are already in place."
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http://www.civilbeat.com/articles/2014/05/12/22069-is-hawaii-a-nation-or-a-state/
Honolulu Civil Beat, May 12, 2014
Is Hawaii a Nation or a State?
By Chad Blair
Does the Hawaiian Kingdom still exist?
A renewed effort to answer that sensitive question has divided the quasi-state agency whose mission is to protect Hawaii's people, environmental resources and assets.
The divergent views became obvious when Kamana'opono Crabbe, chief executive officer of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, wrote a letter to John Kerry, the U.S. secretary of state, on May 5 to obtain a legal opinion on Hawaii's sovereign status.
Among the questions Crabbe had for Kerry was this: "If the Hawaiian Kingdom continues to exist and the sole-executive agreements are binding on the United States, have the members of the Native Hawaiian Roll Commission, Trustees and staff of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs incurred criminal liability under international law?"
That news broke Friday morning. By the afternoon, all nine OHA trustees had some news of their own: They wrote a letter to Kerry telling the secretary that Crabbe's letter did not reflect the position of OHA or its trustees.
Crabbe's letter was rescinded on the same day it was released. By Saturday morning, however, one of the trustees, took his name off the letter to rescind the letter. Dan Ahuna wrote OHA Chairwoman Colette Machado that it is "in the best interest of our people" to gather pertinent information on what Crabbe requested.
The latest development came Monday when Crabbe held a press conference at OHA's headquarters in Iwilei to stand firm on his decision to write to Kerry. At least one more trustee has also dissented from the letter to rescind, and others may follow.
Exactly what is going on at OHA?
Divergent Views of the Overthrow
Before Crabbe's press conference, dozens of people gathered outside OHA's offices at the Gentry Pacific Design Center. Some sang songs, played traditional drums and performed hula.
When Crabbe appeared, the crowd applauded and followed him into the OHA boardroom for the press conference. Students from Halau Lokahi charter school, all wearing blue T-shirts, performed a traditional pule, or prayer, led by kumu hula Hina Wong-Kalu, a cultural practitioner.
"I continue to believe my decision to send the letter was in the best interest of OHA and the beneficiaries we serve," he told a packed OHA boardroom full mostly of Crabbe supporters, including activists for Hawaiian independence.
In his letter to Kerry, Crabbe said he was motivated to write after learning about arguments about the overthrow from Williamson Chang, a professor at the University of Hawaii law school, and Keanu Sai, a political scientist. Crabbe summarized those arguments and referenced other material in his letter, in essence stating that they raise the question of the overthrow's legality.
The views of Sai, who runs the Hawaiian Kingdom blog, have been known for some time.
"Welcome to the website of the Hawaiian Kingdom Government presently operating within the occupied State of the Hawaiian Islands," he writes on the blog's homepage. "Since the Spanish-American War, 1898, our Nation has been under prolonged occupation by the United States of America."
The Hawaiian Kingdom was overthrown in 1893, but more than 120 years later there are strong differences of opinion, much of it scholarly, about how to understand what happened.
This broad history is well known: The kingdom became a republic and then a territory, when it was annexed by the United States in 1898. The territory was under martial law during much of World War II. Statehood came in 1959.
But the origins of the overthrow and its aftermath are complicated and fiercely disputed. Broadly speaking, there are some who believe Hawaii is still an independent nation, while others say the past is past and Hawaii has long been part of the United States.
Crabbe described confusion over the facts of the overthrow as "this cloud" that hovers over Hawaii to this day. What Hawaiians need, he said, is "accurate information and the truth."
Trustee Posts Up for Election
The turmoil at OHA comes as the Native Hawaiian Roll Commission announced last week that it had signed up 130,000 Native Hawaiians to establish a constitution for an independent Hawaiian nation as early as January. The commission was created by the Hawaii Legislature in 2011 in order to found a nation with its own laws separate from the United States but recognized by the federal government.
The turmoil also comes just weeks before the June 3 deadline to file to run for several OHA trustee positions. For the first time, OHA has a primary instead of just a general election.
Candidates who have already said they are running include Wong-Kalu, the kumu hula; Mililani Trask, a former OHA trustee and sovereignty activist who lately has focused on geothermal energy development; and Dennis "Bumpy" Kanahele, a Hawaiian nationalist leader who has lent his support to the roll commission's well-publicized efforts to sign up more Hawaiians.
Trustee Carmen Hulu Lindsey, who is up for re-election, was the second trustee to change her mind on the Kerry letter. Trustees Rowena Akana and John D. Waihee IV, the son of former Gov. John Waihee, who is leading the roll commission, are also up for re-election.
At the Crabbe press conference, two other trustees, Oswald Stender and and Robert Lindsey, were in attendance. Another trustee, Peter Apo, has posted on his Facebook account an email to all OHA staff from Machado dated May 11.
Machado outlines the steps the trustees will take regarding the "breach of aloha" by Crabbe, identified as Ka Pouhana, a metaphor for "the central post of a hale."
While acknowledging that Crabbe had "identified important questions that have been asked by many advocates for Hawaii's independence throughout the decades since the illegal overthrow of our Queen," Machado said that Crabbe had "lost sight" of the U.S. government's relationship with Hawaii. She said that Crabbe had "disregarded trusted relationships with supporters in Washington" and bypassed the actions of Hawaii legislators who "have worked diligently" to help Hawaiians.
Crabbe also acted independent of the board and his actions, said Machado, have "serious consequences."
Apo wrote on his Facebook page, "I agree with Chair Machado's email and look forward to resolving this issue."
'A Matter of Due Diligence'
At the press conference, Crabbe said he met with Machado before sending his letter to Kerry and believed he had her approval to do so.
"I explained that my questions were a matter of due diligence and risk management to avoid OHA missteps in its nation rebuilding facilitation," he said. "Unfortunately, it is now apparent that we walked away from that meeting with a misunderstanding and misinformation."
But in a statement late Monday, Machado had a different recollection.
"The letter sent by Dr. Crabbe to Secretary of State John Kerry was dated May 5, 2014," the statement said. "It was received by the State Department on Thursday May 8, 2014. This was at least a day before Dr. Crabbe spoke to me about his letter on Friday May 9, 2014. Therefore, Dr. Crabbe did not consult with me before sending his letter, nor did I give him my blessings to proceed."
Machado reiterated that point in an interview with Civil Beat. Asked whether OHA needed a legal opinion from the federal government, Machado said a better approach would be to work with Hawaii's congressional delegation and any appropriate federal agencies.
"Let them do the research and advise on the best way to proceed," she said. "Did Kamana'o think he was going to get an answer in a week? I doubt it."
OHA now plans a hooponopono, a practice of reconciliation and forgiveness, for May 19 in executive session. Machado said any decisions that come from the meeting would be made public afterwards. She also said the business of the roll commission continues.
In the meantime, an online petition is circulating as a "strong stance to support" OHA's CEO.
Kamanamaikalani Beamer, a UH assistant professor at the Hawaiinuiakea School of Hawaiian Knowledge, said as of 11 a.m. Monday more than 1,100 people had signed it, including about 800 from Hawaii.
The petition was signed, said Beamer, by "people who care about justice, Hawaii and pono leadership who have decided to stand together."
The petition reads in part, "We believe that the four fundamental questions posed in the letter requires a response and should be looked at critically before proceeding with any further 'nation building' processes."
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http://www.staradvertiser.com/newspremium/20140513_OHA_executive_defends_letter_to_Kerry.html?id=259037431
Honolulu Star-Advertiser, May 13, 2014
OHA executive defends letter to Kerry
Inquiring about the status of the Hawaiian kingdom was the prudent thing to do, Crabbe says
By Timothy Hurley
Appearing with more than 100 supporters at the Office of Hawaiian Affairs offices Monday, OHA Chief Executive Officer Kamana'opono Crabbe didn't back down in his flap with OHA trustees over the letter he sent to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry asking for a legal opinion on whether the Hawaiian kingdom still exists as an independent nation under international law.
"I continue to believe my decision to send the letter was in the best interest of OHA and the beneficiaries we serve," Crabbe said at a news conference trustee Chairwoman Colette Machado had asked him to cancel. "I stand behind this decision and accept full responsibility for it."
In his May 5 letter, Crabbe said he would ask the trustees to refrain from pursuing a Native Hawaiian governing entity while awaiting a State Department legal opinion. He cited what he described as a growing body of evidence suggesting the Hawaiian kingdom still exists under international law and the possibility that OHA staff members may be open to criminal liability in the agency's current path in support of state-sanctioned nation building.
After learning about the letter Friday while on business in Washington, OHA trustees voted unanimously to fire off another letter to Kerry rescinding Crabbe's letter, explaining that it doesn't reflect the position of the board.
However, trustee Dan Ahuna sent a letter to Kerry on Saturday asking that his name be removed from the board's follow-up letter, and Maui trustee Carmen Hulu Lindsey asked the same Monday. In his letter, Ahuna said Crabbe was merely carrying out his fiduciary authority as OHA's chief executive.
On Monday, Crabbe told reporters he met with Machado before making his letter public and was under the impression she had given him her blessing.
"Unfortunately, it is now apparent that we walked away from that meeting with a misunderstanding and misinformation," he said.
But Machado issued a statement Monday afternoon saying she checked with the State Department and the record indicates the letter was received there Thursday -- one day before she met with Crabbe.
"Dr. Crabbe did not consult with me before sending his letter, nor did I give him my blessings to proceed," she said in the statement.
In a phone call Monday, Machado said Crabbe had plenty of opportunity to tell all five trustees about the letter on their five-day trip to Washington or to inform the full board at its May 1 meeting. Instead, she said, he asked her to stay after a trustee breakfast Friday and then handed the letter only to her.
"I was caught off guard," Machado recalled. "I reserved my composure. I didn't want to get into a scrap with him."
Machado described her reaction to the letter as "dumbfounded and stunned" because it appeared to undercut OHA's policy of working toward nation building.
OHA trustees have approved the allocation of $3.9 million for the Native Hawaiian Roll Commission's Kana'iolowalu project, which has enrolled more than 125,000 names ready to help in the creation of a native government.
In an email to the OHA community Sunday, Machado called Crabbe's move a "breach of aloha and respect" and said that while the CEO brought up some important questions, there are better avenues to have them addressed.
"I believe that the action pursued by (Crabbe) demonstrates a lack of respect for the over 125,000 Native Hawaiians who registered to participate in the process," Machado wrote.
In another email to Crabbe, she asked him to cancel his Monday morning news conference. But he replied that he would move forward to provide "clarity."
Despite Crabbe's continued defiance, Machado said Monday she is recommending that Crabbe and the board engage in hooponopono, the Hawaiian practice of reconciliation and forgiveness, in hopes of smoothing things over. Machado said the hooponopono session is expected to take place behind closed doors in executive session at the board's meeting Monday on Maui.
At OHA's Nimitz Highway headquarters, Crabbe walked into his press conference with scores of supporters, including University of Hawaii professor Jon Osorio, UH law professor Williamson Chang, Native Hawaiian psychologist Keawe'aimoku Kaholokula and Molokai activist Walter Ritte.
Crabbe told reporters he's often called upon to make tough and controversial decisions in his role as CEO and was merely trying to ensure that OHA policies were implemented with "due diligence" and "a minimization of risk" to the agency.
"I take this responsibility very, very seriously," he said.
In a prepared statement, he said experts and Native Hawaiian community members continue to raise concerns and questions about the nation-building process in the context of international law.
"Such concerns have led our community to request more time in the nation-rebuilding process to have questions -- such as I raised with Secretary Kerry -- fully explored and shared with our people so that they can make well-informed decisions throughout the process," he said.
Crabbe said he didn't believe his actions would undermine nation-building efforts.
"Currently the board proposed a policy, and we'll continue to move forward. The board took a position. My role is to implement that position, we are moving forward," he said.
Despite the conflict, he added, "I am certain that the board and I stand firmly together in our commitment to do all that we appropriately can to re-establish a Hawaiian nation."
After the news conference, UH assistant professor Kamanamaikalani Beamer said an online petition supporting Crabbe and his letter has collected more than 1,100 signatures. The petition is linked from the hawaiiankingdom.org blog.
"We simply want to support formal facilitative leadership," Beamer said. "We feel that Dr. Crabbe has embodied that and brought us to a place we can get answers and move forward as a lahui (nation)."
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http://thegardenisland.com/news/local/does-the-kingdom-exist/article_71d64854-da6f-11e3-9eb9-001a4bcf887a.html
The Garden Island [Kaua'i], May 13, 2014
Does the 'Kingdom' Exist?
by Tom LaVenture and Chris D'Angelo
LIHUE -- A letter asking whether the Hawaiian Kingdom should continue to exist as a sovereign, independent state has sent the Office of Hawaiian Affairs into a frenzy.
The May 5 letter was sent by OHA CEO Kamanaopono Crabbe to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, but the OHA Board of Trustees said it didn't support the CEO's move.
Still, Crabbe said Monday he didn't regret his decision, leaving a rocky, muddy wake between board and CEO.
After Crabbe sent his letter to former presidential candidate Kerry, all nine OHA trustees, including Kauai Representative Dan Ahuna, responded to Crabbe's request for clarification about the Hawaiian Kingdom's legal status by sending a letter of their own to Kerry on Friday.
"The contents of that letter do not reflect the position of the Board of Trustees of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs or the position of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs," the trustees wrote. "That letter is hereby rescinded."
During a press conference Monday in Honolulu, Crabbe defended his actions.
"I continue to believe my decision to send the letter was in the best interest of OHA and the beneficiaries we serve," he said.
If the letter back and forth wasn't enough, Ahuna sent a subsequent third letter to Kerry to say he had changed his position about the matter -- and didn't want to be a part of the board's rescinded letter.
"Our office does confirm that Trustee Ahuna signed the rescind letter, but since asked to be removed, and now just wants to move on to continue the important work on behalf of Native Hawaiians," Ahuna's aide Claudine Calpito wrote in an email.
Ahuna's office did not respond to questions Monday about why Ahuna changed his stance.
The U.S. State Department Press Office said it could not comment on the letters.
Speaking with nearly 100 supporters Monday at the agency's headquarters, Crabbe said he thought he had the blessing of the board's chairwoman, Colette Machado, before sharing the letter with the public. He said he believes answers to the questions in the letter are crucial for moving forward with pursuing a Native Hawaiian governing entity.
Crabbe said the board took a position, and it's his role to implement that decision.
"We are currently moving forward," he said.
Crabbe said he had several discussions with a majority of the board's nine trustees and looked forward to meeting with them next week.
"They have not asked me to resign," he said.
In his original letter, Crabbe wrote that he was concerned with an analysis by scholars alleging the federal and state governments were illegal regimes. The scholars said Office of Hawaiian Affairs trustees and Native Hawaiian Roll Commission members may be criminally liable under international law.
Crabbe said he would ask trustees to put off pursuing a Native Hawaiian governing entity until they confirmed the kingdom doesn't exist under international law. He said supporters of building a governing entity should continue their discussions.
"Remain vigilant and to be aware and to participate regarding their choice," he said. "That's what this is all about."
Kekane Pa, the Speaker of the House of the Reinstated Hawaiian Government and the Island Organizer for Kauai, congratulated Crabbe for penning the letter to Kerry. He also said Ahuna was instrumental in responding to concerns that led to the clarification request.
The Native Hawaiian Roll Commission should have ended with the defeat of the Akaka bill, Pa said. Crabbe was right to request clarification for the roll to continue in its present form at the state level to help ensure trustees and staff of OHA would not incur criminal liability under international law.
The Hawaiian Kingdom is a sovereign independent state, and OHA erred in moving to establish a new nation. The sole-executive agreements still require the U.S. to assist Hawaiians in exercising their rights under the laws of the Hawaiian Kingdom and not American law, he said.
"The Hawaiian Kingdom continues to exist," Pa said.
For the U.S. to lawfully initiate Hawaii statehood, Pa said it needed to restore the Hawaiian government in all its branches to have an order for a plebiscite referendum for the people to pursue statehood.
The Lawful Hawaiian government never signed an annexation of lands to the people, rather it was handed over illegally by the new Republic after the takeover. Today, Pa said, the federal and state recognition efforts are a continuation of the same efforts to yield more rights.
"That is not self-determination," Pa said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Hawaii Free Press, Tuesday, May 13, 2014
OHA Chaos: Machado, Crabbe Dueling Statements (full text)
By Andrew Walden
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From: Colette Machado
Sent: Sunday, May 11, 2014 5:42PM
To: ALL OHA
Subject: Message from Chair Machado
Aloha Kakou,
I am writing to our OHA 'ohana to explain the path that I will recommend that the Board of Trustees take with regard to the breach of aloha and respect by Ka Pouhana for the Board of Trustees and most of the OHA staff.
I acknowledge that Ka Pouhana has identified important questions that have been asked by many advocates for Hawai'i's independence throughout the decades since the illegal overthrow of our Queen. The He Mana'o Pono - Statement of Support petition which has (at this time) almost a thousand signatures demonstrates that these are important questions for our broader community, especially our younger generation who are just getting involved in the work that my generation has borne for decades. We stand upon the shoulders of our kupuna who worked tirelessly to stop the annexation of our beloved country, a legacy that they passed on to us through the Ku'e petitions.
The problem is that Ka Pouhana has lost sight of the nature of the U.S. government and the degree to which its executive branches will defend and justify the claim that it has imposed over Hawai'i since 1893. It is Congress that sets policy. The Executive branches of government, especially the State Department can only provide responses that uphold the status quo.
The strongest platform from which to have Ka Pouhana's questions asked and answered is an entity that represents the broad multi-ethnic community of Hawai'i (Hawaiians and non Hawaiians alike). The question about the status of Hawai'i as an independent country affects all of the people who are born and raised in Hawai'i and is separate from Kana'iolowalu. Furthermore,the Office of Hawaiian Affairs is established under the Hawai'i state constitution to be an advocate for Native Hawaiians as an indigenous, native, maoli, aboriginal people. To be effectively strategic on larger issues OHA generally works in conjunction with our Hawaiian legislators and our congressional delegation. This would have been a more effective route to take.
At another strategic level, the steps that Ka Pouhana took disregarded trusted relationships with supporters in Washington D.C. who OHA has worked with side by side to protect Native Hawaiian trusts,programs and entitlements for decades. These are additional persons who have and can assist OHA in addressing such questions in a meaningful way.
Here at home, Ka Pouhana's action by-passed our Hawaiian legislators who have worked diligently, against great odds, to protect our Native Hawaiian trusts, programs, lands and entitlements.They also sponsored and promoted Act 195 for the Kana'iolowalu roll.
With regard to our OHA 'ohana, Ka Pouhana chose to disregard the Trustees, in contravention of established policies that he promised to uphold when he sought to be appointed as the Chief Executive Officer. In his own words, Ka Pouhana asked the Trustees and the staff to "follow the book." He has placed our staff in the untenable position of figuring out how to honor established policies which he, himself had a hand in developing, or showing him the support he has earned over the past few years and at the same time upholding their respect for the Trustees.
As Ka Pouhana, he is expected to work with, not separate from the Trustees. Together, we can be most effective. Ka Pouhana's letter was dated May 5, 2014 and from that day through May 9, 2014, Ka Pouhana was in Washington D.C. with the Trustees discussing policies with federal agencies. Nevertheless, the Trustees did not learn of the letter until May 9, 2014. In my mind, I have the following questions:
First, if these concerns were so important,why did Ka Pouhana fail to discuss them with the OHA trustees, especially while we were all together in Washington D.C.?
Second, what response did Ka Pouhana expect from the State Department, as compared to policy-making bodies such as the U.S. Congress or the United Nations?
Lastly, why did Ka Pouhana delay his concerns about the legalities of Kana'iolowalu until after the roll was closed? How did he envision Kana'iolowalu being affected by these grave questions?
I believe that the action pursued by Ka Pouhana demonstrates a lack of respect for the over 125,000 Native Hawaiians who registered to participate in the process.
Honoring the aloha that our staff and Trustees have for Ka Pouhana, while realizing that the actions taken by him have serious consequences, here is the path that I will recommend to the Trustees, moving forward:
1. The Trustees shall meet in executive session to ho'oponopono with Ka Pouhana.
2. The Trustees will initiate an investigation of the breach in established processes.
3. The Trustees will discuss a strategy with Ka Pouhana for having the questions he raised addressed, without affecting the Kana'iolowalu process and OHA's commitment to facilitating a process to reorganize a Native Hawaiian Governing Entity.
4. The Trustees will take appropriate action after thoughtful and meaningful discussion on this matter.
I ask that all staff remain focused on our work to improve conditions for Native Hawaiians and to fulfill OHA's vision, mission and mandate.
Aloha,
Chair Machado
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Prepared Comments of Dr. Kamana'opono Crabbe
Office of Hawaiian Affairs Ka Pouhana and CEO Press Conference of May 12, 2014
Aloha mai kakou,
I called this media conference today to offer additional information about my letter to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, which was sent within my authority under OHA's governing documents and Hawai'i statutory law. As with any leader, I am often called upon to make tough decisions, which are sometimes controversial. I continue to believe my decision to send the letter was in the best interest of OHA and the beneficiaries we serve. I stand behind this decision and accept full responsibility for it.
As Ka Pouhana and CEO of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, I must ensure that the policies and commitments of the OHA Board of Trustees are implemented with thorough due diligence and a minimization of risk to the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. I take this responsibility seriously. And that was the chief reason for my inquiry with Secretary Kerry.
As stated in the media release sent out this past Friday, I requested that U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry seek a legal opinion of the U.S. Attorney General regarding the status of Hawai'i under international law. I also posed additional questions to clarify how the answer to that primary question impacts current efforts to rebuild a Hawaiian nation.
Answers from the U.S. Attorney General are needed for OHA to effectively facilitate a process of rebuilding a Hawaiian nation. We must start with agreed upon facts (or begin identifying points of disagreement that require clarification). Highly qualified experts have provided their answers to the questions posed. However, it would be irresponsible for OHA to assume that the United States views the situation similarly. The stakes are far too high for OHA to proceed under assumptions.
A second reason for my questions to Secretary Kerry stems from our Hawaiian community. My staff and I have held some 30 community meetings in the past two months regarding our proposed process to rebuild our nation. In that same period we also held two governance summits with key community leaders. At these gatherings, and in other virtual contexts, we heard repeatedly concerns about engaging in a process of rebuilding a nation when-following the research of many legal, historical, and political experts-our nation continues to exist in the context of international law.
Such concerns have led our community to request more time in the nation rebuilding process to have questions-- such as I raised with Secretary Kerry-- fully explored and shared with our people so that they can make well-informed decisions throughout the process.
The Hawaiian community needed to know that I was inquiring about the very matters they sought to bring forward. And this is the reason I felt it was imperative not only that I ask the questions but that the community be aware of the inquiry.
However, recognizing the gravity of the questions posed, I met with Chair Machado before making the letter public. I explained that my questions were a matter of due diligence and risk management to avoid OHA missteps in its nation rebuilding facilitation. I believed I had her consent to proceed with sharing publicly my letter to Secretary Kerry. Unfortunately, it is now apparent that we walked away from that meeting with a misunderstanding and misinformation.
Despite disagreements that will need to be worked out between myself and OHA's trustees, I am certain that the Board and I stand firmly together in our commitment to do all that we appropriately can to reestablish a Hawaiian nation. I look forward to engaging with the trustees in the ho'oponopono, which Chair Machado graciously suggested, so that we can work collectively to Ho'oulu Uihui Aloha, to Rebuild a Beloved Nation.
We must succeed in our efforts for the good of our lahui, our community, and our families for generations to come.
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http://hawaiitribune-herald.com/commentary/your-views/your-views-may-13
Hawaii Tribune-Herald, May 13, 2014, Letter to editor
Support for Crabbe
In an unprecedented display of leadership, courage and love for the land and people, Dr. Kamana'opono Crabbe brought OHA closer toward addressing fundamental questions concerning Hawaii's complex political status.
While several trustees at the Office of Hawaiian Affairs rescinded his letter to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on May 9, Kauai Trustee Dan Ahuna reversed his previous position and now supports the original letter submitted by Dr. Crabbe. The implications of Ahuna's shift will continue to unfold.
What is clear is Hawaii cannot rescind our quest for justice. Through no fault of anyone alive today, we inherited the illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian kingdom and the foundation on which rests Hawaii's present political complications.
More than 800 people have come forward in the last 24 hours to support Dr. Crabbe's attempt at bringing additional clarity on these issues. Please visit the link,
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/525/987/222/he-manao-pono-a-statement-of-support/
The people stand behind you, Kamana'opono, and true to your name, you enabled a righteous conversation and brought forth with integrity the concerns of many of Hawaii's people.
Kamana Beamer
Waimea
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http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/25510131/native-hawaiian-roll-commission-not-in-jeopardy-following
Hawaii News Now (3 TV stations), May 13, 2014
HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) -
The future of more than 125,000 people who registered for the Native Hawaiian Roll Commission, Kana'iolowalu, is not in jeopardy following a state department inquiry seeking clarification on the legal status of the Kingdom of Hawai'i.
The request sparked an internal dispute within the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, but officials say while there is hurt, there is also hope for healing as they plan to move forward with efforts to create a self-governing body for Native Hawaiians.
"We have suffered enough. We have seen despair. Now let's look to the future of rebuilding, reasserting, reestablishing ourselves as a united people," said OHA CEO Dr. Kamana'opono Crabbe, who sent the Department of Justice request.
"We stand on the shoulders of Queen Lili'uokalani and that in her humble spirit she stood down so that there would not be no bloodshed. I'm personally looking for that kind of humility in all of us to do what would be best for la hui, not what one individual has a theory about, but what would be best for all the people," said OHA Chair Colette Machado.
"I think that people mistake the idea of unity as agreement and it's not so. Unity is built on a common ground. Our common ground is that we believe in the existence of the Hawaiian nation and we believe in our ability to govern ourselves and our resources," said Roll Commission Chair and former Governor John Waihe'e.
The letter sent by Dr. Crabbe requests Secretary of State John Kerry pursue a legal opinion from the U.S. Attorney General regarding the status of Hawai'i under international law.
In it, Dr. Crabbe wrote, "I will be requesting approval from the Trustees of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs that we refrain from pursuing a Native Hawaiian governing entity until we can confirm that the Hawaiian Kingdom as an independent sovereign State, does not continue to exist under international law and that we, as individuals, have no incurred any criminal liability in this pursuit."
OHA officials say Dr. Crabbe's indication he would attempt to put a hold on nation-building efforts are what led them to send a rescind letter to Secretary Kerry.
"It was controversial, but on the other hand, I believe it has brought people much more closer to the debate and discussion of nationhood. Not to argue, but really have serious discussions about the merits of federal recognition and independence and what is the common ground we can all agree to?" said Dr. Crabbe. ""My letter would hopefully bring enough light to this matter, enough consciousness and awareness that -- what are we really asking for? We are asking for the opportunity to self-govern ourselves whatever model that is."
Dr. Crabbe says his state department inquiry was never intended to disrupt Kana'iolowalu, but aimed to acknowledge concerns that have been raised by legal and political scholars about the existence of the Kingdom of Hawai'i.
"Perhaps maybe we should consider some of the feedback and voices from our community who have alluded to these questions and very grave concerns if we move forward that it would invalidate the claims of the Hawaiian Kingdom in the international arena," Dr. Crabbe said.
OHA Chair Machado confirms trustees will move forward with their $3.9 million commitment to upholding Kana'iolowalu's efforts and honoring the more than 125,000 Native Hawaiians who've registered to participate in a nation-building process.
"Let the people decide -- who am I to say nine trustees going make that decision or one individual, our executive director? We cannot take that responsibility. Those that have come out and said, 'I am a Native Hawaiian' and we have certified you to be with your proof of birth -- that's their decision on what they want. That's democracy at its highest level," said Machado.
Everyone has a different vision of what self -governance looks like -- from total independence as a completely separate nation to federal recognition similar to what Native Americans have -- and all the other possibilities or combinations that exist along the spectrum.
"We have to create something viable for them to rely on and that's the only way to do it is creating a governing entity -- to protect all of our rights -- the land and secure all of this for the generations to come," said Machado.
Roll Commission Chair Waihe'e says Kana'iolowalu does not have a predetermined result, but is designed to bring everyone who wants to participate in the process to the table to share their views.
"This is a positive sign that people care enough to be involved. What does that mean for Kana'iolowalu? It means that we need to focus even more so on progressing forward and making sure that our people develop their own forum for discussing these kind of issues," said Waihe'e.
Kana'iolowalu is supposed to be the vehicle that brings everyone to the table and then we decide what steps to take next
"It is an opportunity for Native Hawaiians to form their own government and their own relationships and that's exciting and that's different, and I think we ought to take advantage of it," said Waihe'e.
OHA officials confirm the Native Hawaiian Roll Commission will move forward with the election of delegates and a convention this fall, in which governing documents and perhaps a constitution will be written, that will then be shared with all Native Hawaiians who registered for Kana'iolowalu to vote on perhaps as early as January of 2015.
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Jay Fidell, Think Tech Hawaii, 52 minute video of interview of Keli'i Akina, President of Grassroot Institute of Hawaii, about his candidacy for OHA trustee. Akina emphasizes he is "Proud to be American and Hawaiian" and he criticizes OHA trustees for pandering to a secessionist belief which encourages the concept that Hawaii remains an independent nation not part of the U.S., shown in CEO Crabbe's letter to Secretary of State Kerry. See the video at
http://tinyurl.com/mdc5nnw
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http://www.disappearednews.com/2014/05/oha-apparently-violated-state-sunshine.html
Disappeared News, May 14, 2014
OHA apparently violated state Sunshine Law with secret meeting(s) in Washington, DC
by Larry Geller
Tuesday's Star-Advertiser reported a meeting of OHA trustees held in Washington DC at which the trustees discussed a letter sent to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry by OHA Chief Executive Officer Kamana'opono. The trustees then voted to send a rescinding letter:
"After learning about the letter Friday while on business in Washington, OHA trustees voted unanimously to fire off another letter to Kerry rescinding Crabbe's letter, explaining that it doesn't reflect the position of the board."
[Star-Advertiser p. A1, OHA executive defends letter to Kerry, 5/13/2014]
It appears that whatever meetings the OHA trustees may have held in Washington, or any meetings since that time, were held in secret -- that is, no agendas were filed in advance with the Lieutenant Governor's office, and no public notice appears to have been given.
I attempted to call OHA Chair Colette Machado, but was routed to voicemail, so I checked instead with the Lieutenant Governor's office. They were able to confirm that no notice is on record with them, a requirement of the Sunshine Law.
The calendar page for the OHA Board of Trustees on the eHawaii.gov website shows no events for the entire month.
I learned yesterday that someone has filed a complaint on the same issue with the Office of Information Practices. Today, since telephone contact with the Chair was not successful, I faxed a request for any agendas that might have been filed, and a request for minutes of the meetings.
Stay tuned.
Although a board or commission may be traveling outside of Hawaii, the responsibility for complying with the Sunshine Laws still holds. Otherwise, boards could (for example) escape to Vegas and hold meetings outside of public scrutiny. So it's appropriate that someone filed a complaint, and I don't mind that they beat me to it.
[Thanks to the astute Disappeared News reader who called this to my attention. I'll have to admit that in reading the article, I was drawn to the significance of the letter to Kerry and didn't notice that the trustee meeting might itself be illegal under state law. OHA is a state agency and subject to open meeting and open records laws.]
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/trisha-kehaulani-watson/oha-ceo-forces-standoff-o_b_5303859.html?ir=Hawaii
Huffington Post Hawaii, May 14, 2014
OHA CEO Forces Standoff Over Sovereignty
by Trisha Kehaulani Watson
The Hawaiian sovereignty issue is heating up.
This week, Dr. Kamana'opono Crabbe, CEO of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry Friday, which, spurred by due diligence responsibilities to the Office, sought clarification on Native Hawaiian sovereignty related issues. The OHA Board of Trustees responded quickly, attempting to rescind Crabbe's letter.
The public volley fire certainly reinforces suspicions that speculated conflict has been growing in the organization over the embattled and flattering nation-building effort.
A History of Confusion
Since the Rice v. Cayatano decision in 2000, some Hawaiian organizations have sought federal recognition for Hawai'i's native people. Other Hawaiians, supporters of political independence, have consistently fought this effort, pointing at the illegal overthrow and subsequent annexation of the Hawaiian Islands as a basis for their sovereignty claims. These claims are well-documented and supported by the U.S. Apology Resolution, P.L. 103-150, signed by then President Bill Clinton in 1993, which acknowledged the illegal nature of the overthrow and subsequent illegal seizure of the lands of the Hawaiian Kingdom.
The latest episode of this long-standing issue began in 2011 when a newly elected Governor Neil Abercrombie worked with the state legislature to support a new nation-building process through the passage of Act 195. The purpose of the law was specific:
Purpose. The purpose of this chapter is to provide for and to implement the recognition of the Native Hawaiian people by means and methods that will facilitate their self-governance, including the establishment of, or the amendment to, programs, entities, and other matters pursuant to law that relate, or affect ownership, possession, or use of lands by the Native Hawaiian people, and by further promoting their culture, heritage, entitlements, health, education, and welfare.
The Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA) spent close to $4 million on the Hawaiian Roll Commission, commonly known as Kana'iolowalu, in the first two years alone. Despite this extraordinary expenditure, less than 19,000 individuals voluntarily registered by August 2013, which amounted to less than 4% of the global Native Hawaiian population.
A second bill, Act 77, was passed to in 2012 to add OHA's former efforts at a Native Hawaiian registry to the Roll, forcing many beneficiaries onto the list without seeking or obtaining their consent.
Many considered to the effort to be a largely bungled and failed one, yet the Trustees further granted additional expenditures of approximately $3 million to the floundering effort and took control over the nation-building process earlier this year.
Many have wondered why approximately $7 million of Trust funds were spent on a failed process when there remain so many critical needs in the Hawaiian community that go unmet by the Office.
OHA Takes Over the Process
When OHA took control over the process, they promised to serve as a "neutral facilitator" for the community. Many questioned this. Rather, a number of beneficiaries suspected that leaders of the effort, like former Governor John Waihe'e III and his long time advisor Norma Wong, are committed to federal recognition.
OHA did little to sufficiently address these suspicions.
The aggressive roll registry process appeared to be evidence of the larger agenda of federal recognition. In 2013, the Roll Commission and OHA began publishing public notices claiming that "Native Hawaiian who choose not to be included in the official roll risk waiving their right, and the right of their children and descendants, to be legally and politically acknowledged as Native Hawaiians..." Hawaiians began to sign up for fear of losing rights.
http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2014-05-11-1098066_10201816905366020_342446108_n.jpg
Today, only approximately 20% of Hawaiians are enrolled, and because many were automatically enrolled through Act 77 in 2012, most have not enrolled voluntarily.
In 2014, OHA announced a Convention would be held by the end of the year, and only those who were registered on the Roll would be allowed to participate. OHA then held a series of town halls across Hawai'i. The meetings were widely contentious, with many Hawaiians asking for a two-year moratorium on the process until the community could be better educated on the process.
OHA to date has refused to provide the community any additional time to educate themselves about the process.
CEO and Board Stand-Off
On Friday, May 9, in a rather shocking move, OHA CEO Kamana'opono Crabbe sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry seeking clarification on the following questions:
* First, does the Hawaiian Kingdom, as a sovereign independent State, continue to exist as a subject of international law?
*Second, if the Hawaiian Kingdom continues to exist, do the sole-executive agreements bind the United States today?
*Third, if the Hawaiian Kingdom continues to exist and the sole-executive agreements are binding on the United States, what effect would such a conclusion have on United States domestic legislation, such as the Hawai'i Statehood Act, 73 Stat. 4, and Act 195?
*Fourth, if the Hawaiian Kingdom continues to exist and the sole-executive agreements are binding on the United States, have the members of the Native Hawaiian Roll Commission, Trustees and staff of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs incurred criminal liability under international law?
It appears the letter was intentionally sent to force the Trustees to reveal any hidden agendas in the nation-building process.
The letter certainly caught OHA Board of Trustees by surprise, as they quickly sent a second letter to Kerry, signed by nine Trustees, attempting to rescind the letter.
Kaua'i and Ni'ihau Trustee Dan Ahuna appeared to have a change of heart, as he would send a letter removing his name and support from the letter rescinding the CEO's letter the next day.
Some believe the Trustees may attempt to remove Crabbe from his position for sending the letter, but for the last few years, Crabbe has used his hiring authority within the Office to strategically hire friends and allies. Trustees must consider whether or not they would face a crippling exodus by Crabbe's staff if they make any further moves to censure or remove him.
The CEO's bold move has certainly created one of the most interesting threats to the Office of Hawaiian Affairs in recent memory.
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http://www.staradvertiser.com/editorialspremium/letterspremium/20140515_letter.html?id=259338851
Honolulu star-Advertiser, May 15, 2014, Letter to editor
Crabbe's questions not unreasonable
On behalf of the members of Ka Lei Maile Alii Hawaiian Civic Club, I am writing in support of Kamana'opono Crabbe, chief executive officer of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, regarding his letter to Washington, D.C.
His sincere attempt to clarify the status of the Hawaiian kingdom as an occupied country deserves Secretary of State John Kerry's time and attention. The questions he posed are not unreasonable.
To fulfill their fiduciary responsibility in good faith, the remaining seven OHA trustees must remove their names from the May 9 letter to Kerry, as trustees Dan Ahuna and Carmen Hulu Lindsey have done.
This action would indicate solidarity among trustees and signal to the larger community that OHA's intent is to help pave the way for truth and clarity before their constitutional convention this fall.
The community must be given an opportunity to understand how the truth of our history can lead to a strong and educated populace that is able to determine the best course of action for our future.
Evern Williams
President, Ka Lei Maile Alii Hawaiian Civic Club
Kapahulu
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http://www.staradvertiser.com/editorialspremium/20140516__OHA_must_speak_with_one_voice.html?id=259491201
Honolulu Star-Advertiser, May 16, 2014, EDITORIAL
OHA must speak with one voice
It can't be easy for any of the trustees or officers of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs to remain neutral on the issue of forming a Native Hawaiian nation.
That's been a central element in OHA's agenda for years.
In addition, the majority position of OHA has been to favor one particular approach to sovereignty: seeking U.S. federal recognition for Native Hawaiians as a political entity.
But OHA's beneficiaries -- who split on whether federal recognition or full independence should be the goal -- were promised neutrality as the Native Hawaiian Roll Commission finishes its work.
In the run-up to a planned convention this fall for forming a government, the enrollees will be the ones to pick delegates and vote on any organic documents that emerge.
Clearly, the agency's capacity to perform in that role was damaged last week with its showdown over a letter sent to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.
The whole episode was a classic case of mismanagement that largely can be traced to the executive office.
The central query itself was rational enough: What, in the State Department's legal opinion, is the status of Hawaii as a sovereign entity?
Does the Hawaiian Kingdom continue to exist under international law?
Is there any criminal liability in pursuing a government entity?
Some would rightly say that these matters have been under the radar at past OHA meetings, given the very real constituency for the independence viewpoint in Hawaiian communities.
But protocol matters, and Kamana'opono Crabbe, OHA's chief executive officer, did not follow it in sending the letter without fully discussing its contents with the trustees, who seemed wholly surprised when it happened.
Crabbe has his defenders, many of whom turned out in his defense at OHA's regular board meeting Thursday on Maui. What they are overlooking, however, is that this wasn't the only crucial question raised in the letter, dated May 5.
In the closing paragraph of the 3 1/2-page letter, Crabbe wrote that while he awaits the opinion, he will ask trustees to vote for a delay in the nationhood organizational schedule. That expression of high uncertainty is not what should be telegraphed in advance of a vote.
OHA has invested a lot of energy, and money, in the pursuit of nationhood, and is trying to position itself as a facilitator of nation-building talks to occur later this year.
Some have argued that this timetable is too aggressive. They could be right.
Regardless, setting the timetable is a matter for the OHA Board of Trustees, the ones elected by and accountable to the beneficiaries of the Native Hawaiian Trust Fund.
Crabbe, by contrast, is answerable to the board. That is how OHA is set up.
And there are some trustees who would reasonably argue that a time clock is ticking if all possible sovereignty options -- including federal recognition -- are to remain on the table.
President Barack Obama has only two more full years in his second term, and having a Hawaii-born president in office considerably improves the political climate for recognition. That is definitely an argument for pressing ahead with electing delegates and beginning the discussions sooner rather than later.
There was far less time pressure for Crabbe to send his letter. He should have put it fully before the board instead of acting unilaterally to send his query to the State Department.
Trustees reacted angrily, with good reason, and the majority voted to rescind Crabbe's letter.
In many organizations, the chief of staff taking the board by such severe surprise would be cause for dismissal.
That seems unlikely to happen here, because of the sensitivity of the issue. On Monday the board and Crabbe are due to have a closed-door "ho'oponopono" reconciliation session.
What needs to emerge from that meeting is a clearer directive on how the board and its CEO will work together on fulfilling the agency's role in the months ahead -- and if that's even possible with this CEO.
The community needs a facilitator, one that speaks with a unified voice.
---------------
http://www.staradvertiser.com/editorialspremium/letterspremium/20140516_letters.html?id=259491161
Honolulu Star-Advertiser, May 16, 2014, Letter to editor
Crabbe is best OHA CEO yet
"I could not turn back the time for the political change, but there is still time to save our heritage. You must remember never to cease to act because you fear you may fail." -- Queen Lili'uokalani, 1917
The chief executive officer of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Kamana'opono Crabbe, had the courage to do what former OHA trustees, Gov. John Waihee, Robin Danner, president of the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement president, and other leaders in the Hawaiian community have failed to do. I applaud his actions to clarify our history.
The trustees should not hide behind closed doors to reprimand the most qualified CEO in OHA's history, who has the skills to move this community forward into the next century.
Crabbe held true to the queen's words expressed in 1917. Let's stand behind him as a community, not tear him down. This is about a larger issue of setting history straight, in order to move forward.
Jacqueline Hong
Aiea
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http://us3.campaign-archive1.com/?u=f9a371d0547f107d938233d66&id=af8ace2218
Grassroot Perspective Newsletter, May 16, 2014
President's Corner
The OHA Scandal is the Inevitable Result of their Rhetoric
by Keli'i Akina, Ph.D., President/CEO, Grassroot Institute of Hawaii
When the news broke last weekend that OHA CEO Kamanao Crabbe had sought the opinion of Secretary of State John Kerry regarding the legitimacy of the US and Hawaii State sovereignty in the Hawaiian Islands,
http://new.grassrootinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Crabbe-050514_KP_Letter_to_US_State_Dept.pdf
many of the OHA trustees were quick to criticize Crabbe and distance themselves from the letter.
The Grassroot Institute, on the other hand, called for the trustees to take responsibility for their part in creating the atmosphere that led to the letter.
http://new.grassrootinstitute.org/2014/05/grassroot-institute-calls-on-oha-trustees-to-own-up-for-ceo-comments/
The public scandal has revolved primarily around second guessing and finger-pointing, but we cannot lose sight of this simple fact: CEO Crabbe's letter was absolutely consistent with the language OHA has used and the arguments they have raised throughout their effort to create a Native Hawaiian governing entity.
If Crabbe is guilty of anything, it is of taking the trustees' position to its inevitable and logical conclusion. That he embarrassed OHA and the State of Hawaii in the process only underlines the fact that neither should be in the nation-building business.
This is why it is critical that we hold OHA accountable for their actions. Regardless of what the trustees say, it is evident from the letter that Mr. Crabbe views the submission of the letter as an extension of his duty to OHA and the Native Hawaiian Roll. This was not a personal action, but the expression of the views and goals of a state agency. With OHA's agenda now exposed, all citizens of Hawaii should demand that OHA be more open about their agenda and stop their nation-building efforts completely.
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http://www.hawaiifreepress.com/ArticlesMain/tabid/56/ID/12649/Peter-Apo-OHA-should-abandon-its-role-in-nation-building.aspx
Hawaii Free Press, May 18, 2014
Copied from PeterApo.com, OHA Trustee peter Apo personal blog, May 17, 2014
http://peterapo.com/authored-works/oha-should-abandon-its-role-in-nation-building/
OHA should abandon its role in nation building
by Peter Apo
The nation-building effort undertaken by the Office of Hawaiian Affairs to move toward an 'Aha (constitutional convention) is on the verge of chaos. Anarchy is emerging as the prevailing governance model as we OHA Trustees seem like deer in headlights. The breach of institutional trust by OHA's CEO in a direct challenge to OHA's trustees has set an almost irreversible condition of operational dysfunction pitting employees, one against the other, in choosing sides. Some cower in fear for their jobs. This is the truth as I see it. I am an old man at 75 and find it excruciatingly painful to navigate the vestige of a ruptured institution that I have always revered. The core of OHA's fiduciary duty, founded as a sacred trust for the benefit of native Hawaiians and Hawaiians, is being threatened and undermined by the out of control distraction of nation building. For this reason, I propose that OHA abandon its role in nation building. That means cancelling the proposed 'Aha and reducing the scope of activities of our Washington D.C. office.
As the Chair of OHA's Asset Resource and Management Committee, I believe that our governance efforts have yielded a poor return on investment. We have spent millions skirting about the edges of federal recognition. The failure of the Akaka Bill has caused us to hit the reset button. So here we are, splintered and flailing as to where we go from here.
The larger part of our fiduciary duty to beneficiaries is to help them to achieve quality of life with respect to housing, education, business, health care, legal services, community building and empowerment, cultural growth, support of key Hawaiian institutions, and so forth. What good would it be to have a nation if our people are broke, homeless, uneducated and disabled and our most revered Hawaiian institutions struggle to survive? By focusing on improving these conditions of existence, Hawaiians will be strengthened and can make informed choices to pursue whatever forms of nation on which they can agree independent of OHA. A nation is only as good as its people. Let the people take up the banner of nationhood on their own terms.
Finally, there is a clear need for reconciliation. First, reconcile within OHA. The trust between Trustees and the CEO must be restored. Employee relations within the agency need mending. Second, is to reconcile within the Hawaiian community. Our people seem diametrically divided about whether to seek federal recognition or international recognition or no recognition. Nothing I say here is meant to discourage any individual, group, or organization from pursuing nation building. Go for it.
OHA's domination of the field of play is like a barrier reef preventing other organizations from stepping forward. If OHA relinquishes its position on the nation-building landscape it creates a vacuum and an opportunity for other Hawaiian institutions to step forward and fill the vacuum with an expanded leadership consortium. It creates a condition of "kakou" (we) and bridges the prevailing condition of us versus them.
For OHA, with all of the dissension in the community I feel that it simply is the time to stop, ho'omalu, take time, think, listen, and pray a lot. We have a lot of other work to do.
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http://www.staradvertiser.com/newspremium/hawaiinewspremium/OHA_CEO_gaining_allies_over_query_into_kingdom.html?id=259706961
Honolulu Star-Advertiser, May 18, 2014
OHA CEO gaining allies over query into kingdom
A leader in an ongoing effort to build a Native Hawaiian nation calls the dispute just a "blip"
By Timothy Hurley
The dustup between Office of Hawaiian Affairs CEO Kamana'opono Crabbe and his bosses, the OHA board of trustees, has caused a mighty ruckus in the Hawaiian community since May 9.
But it's still unclear what impact Crabbe's "unauthorized" letter to Secretary of State John Kerry seeking an opinion on the legal status of the Hawaiian Kingdom will have on OHA's support for a campaign that aims to conduct formal nation-building through the Native Hawaiian Roll Commission.
"As far as I'm concerned, this is just an internal OHA blip," said former Gov. John Waihee, chairman of the Native Hawaiian Roll Commission.
Waihee said there are more than 125,000 Native Hawaiians enrolled in the commission's Kana'iolowalu project, representing nearly 70 percent of Hawaiian adults. These Hawaiians, he said, are ready to vote for delegates, hold a convention later this year, and decide what kind of Hawaiian nation they want to create moving forward.
But Crabbe, in sending his letter, said he would seek to delay the creation of a Native Hawaiian governing entity "until we can confirm that the Hawaiian Kingdom, as an independent sovereign state, does not continue to exist under international law and that we, as individuals, have not incurred any criminal liability in this pursuit."
The trustees promptly rescinded the letter, saying it does not reflect board policy, and trustee Chairwoman Colette Machado said later that the letter appeared to undermine the trustees' $3.9 million commitment to the Kana'iolowalu process.
Meanwhile, Crabbe found additional support during OHA's regular board of trustees meetings Wednesday and Thursday. The controversy dominated the open testimony portion of the meetings on Maui and Crabbe's actions were praised by many who attended.
In addition, more than 2,400 people have signed an online petition supporting Crabbe. Among other things, the petition says Crabbe's inquiry to Kerry deserves a response and should be looked at critically before proceeding with any further nation-building effort.
The trustees will meet again at 10 a.m. Monday in Honolulu to discuss Crabbe's conduct and likely engage in hooponopono, the Hawaiian practice of reconciliation and forgiveness, behind closed doors.
Jonathan Osorio, University of Hawaii Hawaiian Studies professor, said Crabbe's move to seek clarity on the U.S. position is symbolic of a growing awareness among Hawaiians of their history -- a history, he said, stained by an illegal occupation of Hawaii by the United States dating back to the overthrow of Queen Liliuokalani in 1893.
Osorio, who stood in support alongside Crabbe at his May 9 press conference, described Kana'iolowalu as a waste of time and money, an effort that won't advance the Hawaiian nation beyond that of a Native American tribe.
"It makes no sense to accept the American fraud," he said.
But University of Illinois law professor Francis A. Boyle, an international law expert who has encouraged Native Hawaiians to press for independence for more than 20 years, said Hawaiians don't have to bother asking Kerry about the Hawaiian Kingdom. He said the State Department already addressed the issue in 1998 when he and David Keanu Sai took their case for an independent Hawaiian Kingdom before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Boyle said the court asked State Department attorneys whether the Hawaiian Kingdom is a recognized sovereign and they responded with "no," prompting the justices to throw the case out of court.
"With all due respect, I don't think asking Washington, D.C., to tell you what to do is necessary. Hawaiians need to decide for themselves. Any advice they get from Washington will be biased against them," he said.
Boyle, who has been asked by OHA to speak about such issues at a June conference to help prepare for the 'aha, or constitutional convention, said he believes what happens at the convention will be a valid exercise under international law, given the large number of Native Hawaiians who have signed up to participate.
Kana'iolowalu enrollment closed May 1, and the final roll -- which will include thousands of names from previous similar rolls -- is expected to be certified in June.
Barring any delays, those on the roll are scheduled to elect delegates to the constitutional convention in September. Delegates will convene at the 'aha in October or November, with the aim of drafting a governing document that will go back to those on the official roll in January for an up-or-down vote.
Some have described Act 195, the state law that created the roll commission, as the state version of the federal Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act, also known as the Akaka Bill, which would create a process for Hawaiians to form their own governing entity and negotiate with federal and state governments on land use and cultural issues.
U.S. Sen. Daniel Akaka first introduced the bill in 2000. But after repeated tries, he never got the Senate to approve the law before retiring a year ago. The Hawaii delegation since has pledged to take up the cause but, still lacking votes, hasn't re-introduced the legislation. Instead, they have explored other avenues for federal recognition through the Obama administration and the Department of the Interior.
Many who are working for independence reject such efforts, having turned their attention to the United Nations and other international forums in hopes of resolving what they see as a prolonged occupation.
A new book called "Liberate Hawaii," by Jon Olsen, argues that Hawaii can regain its sovereignty like Lithuania did when it became free of the Soviet Union after 50 years of similar annexation claims.
Osorio said the questions Crabbe raises are important -- if for nothing else to allow the U.S. to respond.
"These are questions that many people have been asking but we get no answers. Because officially the U.S. doesn't take notice of these questions," Osorio said. "But Kamana'o made it possible for the U.S. to actually have to take notice. And it would be a shame if the OHA trustees were to prevent that from happening.
If Kerry responds with half-truths and "untruths," then "it at least opens the door for all kinds of arguments of accuracy," he said. If Kerry doesn't reply, he said, it implies culpability.
Veteran independence warrior Dennis "Bumpy" Kanahele said he, too, supports Crabbe.
"As a high official of the state of Hawaii, someone finally had the balls to ask the hard question," he said.
At the same time, Kanahele doesn't want any delays to Kana'iolowalu.
"The reality is that a Hawaiian government is emerging, the Hawaiian people are uniting, wanting to learn and understand more about the overthrow and the political, economic, social and cultural aftermath," he said.
Roll Commissioner Robin Danner said she and her fellow commissioners are dedicated to completing their job and publishing the final roll this year.
"My hope is that the OHA trustees and their CEO will have the resolve to complete their commitment to those that enrolled as well," Danner said in a statement.
"Personally, as a Hawaiian, as a mother, a grandmother -- I don't need to go back to move forward. Hawaiian sovereignty is about moving forward, about perpetuating our culture and language, about health and housing, about focusing a native government in a government-to-government relationship with the state, the feds, and any other government in the world to advance the well-being of our people. It's not complicated."
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http://www.staradvertiser.com/newspremium/volcanicashpremium/Take_cue_from_Hawaiians_and_end_enrollment_effort.html?id=259706911
Honolulu Star-Advertiser, May 18, 2014, Columnist commentary
Take cue from Hawaiians and end enrollment effort
By David Shapiro
The chaos created in the Office of Hawaiian Affairs by CEO Kamana'opono Crabbe has squashed what little credibility existed for the Native Hawaiian Roll, Kana'iolowalu.
It's time to halt this failed project before we dump potentially hundreds of millions in public resources into a settlement with Hawaiians that settles nothing.
The state roll commission headed by former Gov. John Waihee enrolled 125,000 Hawaiians, mostly by transferring names from other lists, and OHA plans delegate elections this year for a convention to draft governing documents for an undefined Hawaiian nation.
Crabbe undercut the plan when he sent an unauthorized letter on behalf of OHA to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry suggesting Kana'iolowalu may be illegal because Hawaii remains an independent kingdom under international law and not a U.S. state.
The nine OHA trustees unanimously rescinded Crabbe's missive, but two trustees have since rescinded their agreement to rescind.
Crabbe further defied trustees by gathering 100 supporters for a news conference to defend himself, and more than 1,000 signed petitions backing him.
Trustees plan an executive session Monday to ponder their options for dealing with Crabbe and salvaging the nation-building, but it's likely a hopeless cause after the recent drama -- especially since few Hawaiians took Kana'iolowalu seriously in the first place.
Gov. Neil Abercrombie and the Legislature launched the project in 2011 to kick-start Hawaiian nation-building after the Akaka Bill to recognize a Hawaiian nation similar to an Indian tribe stalled in Congress.
Eligible to participate are 518,000 Native Hawaiians in the United States identified by the 2010 census, about 290,000 of whom live in Hawaii.
After two years and a $4 million registration campaign, Waihee's commission signed up only 19,000 Hawaiians -- 3.7 percent of those who are eligible.
This was an overwhelming "no" vote repudiating Kana'iolowalu, but Waihee and OHA pushed ahead by spending $3 million more and convincing the Legislature to add to the roll other lists of Hawaiians collected for different purposes, such as OHA's failed Kau Inoa initiative.
The current list of 125,000 represents fewer than a quarter of eligible Hawaiians, with the vast majority of the names transferred from the old lists rather than voluntary sign-ups for Kana'iolowalu.
Reasons Hawaiians cite for resisting Kana'iolowalu include concerns that it precludes any chance of real Hawaiian independence and has proceeded too fast without enough education.
Many consider it preposterous for Hawaiian sovereignty to be organized by the state from which Hawaiians seek to become sovereign; OHA, a state agency, isn't a trusted steward.
Kana'iolowalu can never produce a result that will be accepted as a settlement of Hawaiian claims.
Any accepted path forward must rise from the Hawaiian community, and the state and federal governments have no business trying to organize or control it.
Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com or blog.volcanicash.net.
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http://www.staradvertiser.com/editorialspremium/letterspremium/20140518_letters.html?id=259651041
Honolulu Star-Advertiser, May 18, 2014, Letter to editor
Crabbe did what he was supposed to do
I commend Kamana'opono Crabbe for doing his fiduciary duty and due diligence in the questions raised to Secretary of State John Kerry -- questions about the legal status of our kanakamaoli under international law that should have been raised long ago by Office of Hawaiian Affairs trustees.
Last November, OHA unanimously passed a policy to "facilitate" an exploration of nation- building, including the independence model. OHA has not addressed concerns, raised at Native Hawaiian community town hall and OHA governance meetings, that an election for delegates to a Native Hawaiian Constitutional Convention would be premature if held before the community is educated to the issues.
It is not pono for the facilitator to attempt to steer the canoe. OHA trustees should not have rescinded Crabbe's request. He was following policy the trustees correctly voted into effect last November. Crabbe's letter can only clarify this complex issue.
Moanike'ala Akaka [former OHA trustee from decades ago]
Hilo
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http://us3.campaign-archive2.com/?u=f9a371d0547f107d938233d66&id=3a18ca9c4f&e=4a7cf86850
DATELINE: May 19, 2014, Honolulu, Hawai'i
CONTACT: Keli'i Akina, (808) 591-9193 akina@grassrootinstitute.org
Grassroot Institute Applauds Trustees' Call to Halt Nation-Building
HONOLULU, Hawaii -- May 19, 2014 -- Two trustees of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs are now on record calling on the organization to move beyond its pursuit of sovereign Hawaiian nationhood. Peter Apo, in his recent blog entry, stated, "The core of OHA' s fiduciary duty, founded as a sacred trust for the benefit of Native Hawaiians and Hawaiians, is being threatened and undermined by the out of control distraction of nation building." Mr. Apo goes on to propose that OHA relinquish its role in nation-building, including, "cancelling the proposed 'Aha and reducing the scope of activities of our Washington D.C. office."
http://grassrootinstitute.us3.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=f9a371d0547f107d938233d66&id=5fe7b4e90c&e=4a7cf86850
Apo's statement echoes the earlier sentiments expressed by trustee Oswald Stender, in which Stender discussed the lack of interest in the Native Hawaiian Roll, concluding that, "there are other issues we should be working on rather than building this government that is not going to work."
http://grassrootinstitute.us3.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=f9a371d0547f107d938233d66&id=94459f73a2&e=4a7cf86850
It is notable that both Mr. Apo and Mr. Stender called attention to the vast sums that OHA has spent in the nation-building process, questioning whether it was really the best way for OHA to fulfill its duty to help Native Hawaiians. Mr. Apo writes, "What good would it be to have a nation if our people are broke, homeless, uneducated and disabled and our most revered Hawaiian institutions struggle to survive? By focusing on improving these conditions of existence, Hawaiians will be strengthened and can make informed choices to pursue whatever forms of nation on which they can agree independent of OHA."
Neither Mr. Apo nor Mr. Stender condemned Hawaiian nation-building outright, but rather expressed their belief that OHA should remove itself from the process and leave the question of self-determination and nationhood to other groups.
Keli'i Akina, President of Grassroot Institute says, "We applaud the words of Trustees Peter Apo and Oswald Stender, especially their honesty and their ability to recognize the inherent problems in OHA's nation-building process. We call upon the other Trustees to step up and take the reasonable and responsible action of cancelling OHA's efforts to build a government-sponsored, race-based nation, and redirect their attention and funds to issues that will be more effective in addressing the needs of Native Hawaiians and our state."
Dr. Akina continues, "Grassroot Institute is on record pointing out the serious Constitutional and practical questions of a government agency attempting to establish a sovereign nation. We are deeply concerned that the Native Hawaiian Roll process has not served the real needs of the Hawaiian people and all citizens of the State of Hawaii.
"It is time to put an end to actions which divide Hawaii's people and to start working together to unify and strengthen Hawaii," Dr. Akina concluded.
###
For more information or for press inquiries contact Grassroot President Keli'i Akina at (808) 591.9193 or email
akina@grassrootinstitute.org
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http://www.staradvertiser.com/news/breaking/20140519_Meeting_begins_on_letter_about_Kingdom_of_Hawaii.html?id=259877801
Honolulu Star-Advertiser, Monday May 19, 2014, Breaking News at 3:08 PM
Meeting begins on letter about Kingdom of Hawaii
By Associated Press
A closed-door meeting began Monday between trustees of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs and its CEO concerning a letter he sent to the secretary of state asking if the Kingdom of Hawaii might still exist under international law.
About 80 people packed the agency's boardroom in boisterous support of CEO Kamanaopono Crabbe before the closed-door session began.
Crabbe and the trustees have been tangled in an awkward public spat over the letter he sent on May 5 to Secretary of State John Kerry.
In the letter, Crabbe noted the U.S. government had acknowledged that the U.S.-backed overthrow of the Hawaii Kingdom in 1893 was illegal.
The letter also questioned whether the Office of Hawaiian Affairs might be violating international law as it pursues the creation of a Native Hawaiian governing entity if the kingdom continued to exist.
The trustees quickly followed up with a letter to Kerry rescinding Crabbe's correspondence. But Crabbe has won public support, including a petition signed by more than 2,500 people.
The petition said Crabbe's questions represent the perspectives of many people in "their search for justice regarding the United States supported illegal overthrow."
Before the meeting, members of the public urged the trustees to take public comments before rendering a decision on the fate of Crabbe. The trustees discussed several options, including postponing the private executive session to hear testimony. Ultimately they voted to clear the room.
Asked to leave, the crowd dawdled. Two school choirs sang songs. People who brought in a Hawaiian flag stayed put.
Crabbe dispersed the gathering by "humbly" asking for the privacy to discuss the personnel matter.
"We all know that the last few weeks have been very challenging for our community, based on my actions," he told the room. "Be patient with us. Allow us this time."
Dozens of people then filed into the concourse outside the chambers and began singing, strumming guitars and thwacking gourd drums.
---------------
http://www.staradvertiser.com/news/breaking/20140519_Meeting_begins_on_letter_about_Kingdom_of_Hawaii.html?id=259877801
Honolulu Star-Advertiser, Monday May 19, 2014, Breaking News LAST UPDATED: 06:48 p.m. HST
OHA trustees, CEO promise to work together
By Star-Advertiser & Associated Press
Office of Hawaiian Affairs CEO Kamana'opono Crabbe and the OHA trustees emerged from an all-day session of Hawaiian reconciliation and forgiveness Monday with what they called "one voice" traveling on "one path."
Crabbe still has his job and OHA will continue its nation-building efforts -- although there might be a new timeline for Kana'iolowalu, the Native Hawaiian Roll Call project that OHA has pledged to support with $3.9 million.
The trustees spent more than 6 hours behind closed doors Monday, during which Crabbe and the trustees shed tears, wept and deliberated about recent events, Crabbe said.
"We recognized the gravity of the future of our people," Crabbe said afterward. "We have to think about the broader good of our people."
Crabbe said he and the trustees want to make sure more people will participate in the nation-building process so the effort may see a delay.
Crabbe and the trustees have been tangled in an awkward public spat over the letter he sent on May 5 to Secretary of State John Kerry.
In the letter, Crabbe noted the U.S. government had acknowledged that the U.S.-backed overthrow of the Hawaii Kingdom in 1893 was illegal. The letter also questioned whether OHA might be violating international law as it pursues the creation of a Native Hawaiian governing entity if the kingdom continued to exist.
The trustees quickly followed up with a letter to Kerry rescinding Crabbe's correspondence. But Crabbe has won public support, including a petition signed by more than 2,500 people. The petition said Crabbe's questions represent the perspectives of many people in "their search for justice regarding the United States supported illegal overthrow."
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http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/25558344/office-of-hawaiian-affairs-trustees-ceo-meet
Hawaii News Now (3 TV stations), May 19, 2014
Office of Hawaiian Affairs CEO to keep job
By Mileka Lincoln
HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) -
Trustees with the Office of Hawaiian Affairs met for hours behind closed doors Monday to discuss the fate of CEO Dr. Kamana'opono Crabbe. There was concern from Dr. Crabbe's supporters, dozens of whom gathered outside the OHA boardroom, that he would be fired and the longer trustees stayed in executive session the more anxious the crowd grew. But just before 6 p.m., Dr. Crabbe and the Board of Trustees emerged united to say they were moving forward together.
Dr. Crabbe ignited an internal dispute that has since sparked a public debate after he sent an official inquiry to the state department asking for a legal opinion on whether the Kingdom of Hawaii still exists.
When OHA's nine trustees learned of the letter -- they sent a letter of their own rescinding the request. Two trustees later changed their mind and now support Dr. Crabbe's inquiry.
"In our discussions today, the board and I do agree that there's merit to the questions that were brought up in the letter. We have agreed to move forward with our community. I believe the board will be conducting a meeting on March 29 to hear feedback from our community regarding our nation building process. The board has agreed that we recognize the illegal overthrow of our Hawaiian Kingdom and how to best seek clarification of that status as we move forward," said Dr. Crabbe.
Questions have been raised about whether Dr. Crabbe had the authority to request a legal written opinion without first obtaining board approval.
Several complaints have also been filed with the Office of Information Practices challenging the trustees letter to rescind Dr. Crabbe's inquiry citing it may have violated the state's sunshine law -- which prohibits board members from voting on an action without first calling a public meeting.
Officials say all legal challenges are still under review.
Dozens of Dr. Crabbe's supporters showed up to rally for the CEO, but their attempts to sign up for public testimony were turned down as Monday's meeting was scheduled specifically as an "executive session" to consult with board counsel Robert Klein about Dr. Crabbe's conduct and to discuss appropriate action.
"It was a really gut-wrenching discussion. I think we attempted to look at the overarching issues here and not to pinpoint a particular blame on one individual. I believe the message I would like to send to all our lahui is that if OHA can repair and move forward, examine our responsibilities both at the board of trustee level and at the administrative level, and see a common, unified effort to move forward, I truly believe that we will move forward with the building of our Native Hawaiian entity. That will never change," said Chair Colette Machado.
"At the time of the discussion, we had no idea that the level of hurt was so deep that we had to take it layer by layer, and I'm so proud that we had that opportunity today with Dr. Kamana'o Crabbe in ho'oponopono and there is a unifying effort to moving forward. Once we were able to release one another from our past transgressions and all of the pilikia that may have been caused either by intention or in addition to something that came through the side door. So to me I am blessed to have had that opportunity today and then we'll be moving forward, but looking seriously at some modifications or changes to the previous policy on building the Native Hawaiian entity," Machado said.
OHA has decided to hold a public meeting on May 29 for community feedback on how to best move forward with nation-building.
----------------
http://www.staradvertiser.com/newspremium/20140520__Talks_bring_OHA_back_onto_1_path.html?id=259916491
Honolulu Star-Advertiser, May 20, 2014
Talks bring OHA back onto '1 path'
By Timothy Hurley
Office of Hawaiian Affairs CEO Kamana'opono Crabbe and the OHA trustees emerged from an all-day session of Hawaiian reconciliation and forgiveness Monday with what they called "one voice" traveling on "one path."
Crabbe still has his job, and OHA will continue its nation-building efforts -- although there might be a new timeline for Kana'iolowalu, the Native Hawaiian Roll project that OHA has pledged to support with $3.9 million.
The trustees spent more than six hours behind closed doors Monday, during which Crabbe and the trustees shed tears, hugged one another and deliberated about recent events, Crabbe said afterward.
"We have walked through very rough waters," he told dozens of supporters, many of whom kept vigil all day at the OHA headquarters on Nimitz Highway in Honolulu.
"We are a stronger people today. We are a stronger organization, a stronger OHA. We will continue to rebuild a beloved nation. We look forward to that task," Crabbe said, the trustees by his side.
"We've agreed to move forward together with one voice, in one path, not just for the betterment of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, but for the future of our haumana (students), the next generation, so that we can be responsive to our community and bring dignity to the process," he said.
Crabbe and the trustees had been locked in a dispute over a letter he sent to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on May 5 asking for a legal opinion on the status of the Hawaiian kingdom. In his letter he noted the illegal overthrow of the kingdom in 1893 and questioned whether OHA might be violating international law if it continues to pursue a Native Hawaiian governing entity. He wrote that he would recommend backing off on nation-building until he gets an answer.
The trustees promptly rescinded the letter, saying it did not reflect board policy. The trustees later offered to discuss the disagreement during a session of hooponopono, the Hawaiian practice of reconciliation and forgiveness.
Crabbe, meanwhile, picked up support during a trustees meeting held on Maui and by way of an online petition signed by more than 2,500 people.
On Monday, Crabbe admitted to being a little worried about losing his job.
"But in the spirit of our tradition to make things right, I think we recognized the gravity of the future of our people and put that behind us. We have to think about the broader good of our people," he said.
As for the letter, Crabbe said the concensus among the trustees is that there was merit to the questions he asked the secretary of state but that Monday's discussion centered more on "clarifying the protocol."
OHA trustee Chairwoman Colette Machado said much of the day was spent reviewing job responsibilities "at the CEO level and the trustee level."
"We know we have to communicate better and to continue to work together," Machado said.
Crabbe also indicated afterward that OHA may end up trying to delay the Native Hawaiian Roll process in order to allow more people to join in the nation-building process.
As it stands now, the trustees are financially supporting an effort that would see a constitutional convention in October or November. More than 125,000 people have signed up. The final day of registration was May 1.
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http://www.civilbeat.com/articles/2014/05/19/22147-oha-says-it-is-again-united-with-aloha-and-one-voice/
Honolulu Civil Beat, May 20, 2014
OHA Says It Is Again United, With Aloha and One Voice
By Chad Blair
The nine trustees of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs and its embattled chief executive officer began their day not knowing whether they would come to agreement on anything.
Seven hours later, after intense discussions and a lot of tears, they emerged from a closed-door meeting to, as Chairwoman Colette Machado put it, speak again with one voice, united in aloha.
CEO Kamana'o Crabbe agreed.
"We are a stronger people today," he said. "We are a stronger organization. We are a stronger OHA."
The dispute between Crabbe and the trustees began 10 days ago when Crabbe sought a legal opinion from U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. Did the Hawaiian Kingdom, overthrown in 1893, still exist? And if it did, what did that mean for OHA and its efforts to rebuild a Hawaiian nation?
Crabbe said at the time he believed he had the trustees' support in writing a letter to Kerry. Instead, the trustees immediately wrote their own letter to Kerry rescinding Crabbe's action. Machado said she never gave him permission to write his letter.
Two of the trustees soon changed their mind as a groundswell of support embraced Crabbe's action. Some Hawaiians disapprove of OHA and the Native Hawaiian Roll Commission that seeks to form a nation with the consent of the federal government. For them, complete independence is the only answer.
OHA's board meeting began with some attendees raising questions about the Sunshine Law, which governs public agency meetings and notices.
The meeting notice listed only two agenda items. The first was a personnel matter involving consultation with OHA legal counsel, Robert Klein, a former Hawaii Supreme Court justice, about what the board could do regarding Crabbe's conduct. The second, with Klein and two other attorneys, concerned the board's powers and duties under its governance.
Though the agenda allowed for no public testimony, dozens and dozens of Crabbe supporters nonetheless filled the OHA board room. Several of them spoke out loud, arguing that Monday's meeting also violated the Sunshine Law.
OHA's action may violate Hawaii Revised Statutes 92-3, which reads in part, "The boards shall also afford all interested persons an opportunity to present oral testimony on any agenda item."
Klein dismissed those arguments, however, stating that OHA was entitled to go into executive session without public comment.
But another trustee, Dan Ahuna, worried that OHA had violated the law.
"I'm scared about what is going on and I want to protect myself," he said.
Trustee Carmen Hulu Lindsey suggested OHA allow some testimony. But trustee Oswald Stender said it wasn't necessary, as OHA had already heard testimony "hundreds of times over" regarding Crabbe.
OHA offices have also been flooded with calls, letters and emails. Machado told Crabbe supporters Monday that their concerns had been heard "loud and clear."
"We're not dumb and deaf," she said. "We care about the future of our people."
But some in the audience would have none of that.
"Prove it!" shouted one. "You turn your backs on everyone!" yelled another.
Trustee Haunani Apoliona said it was the board's kuleana, or responsibility, to address the Crabbe matter in "a fair and open process." She said because of the Rice v. Cayetano decision that opened OHA elections to non-Hawaiians, OHA's kuleana "is much broader than just Hawaiians."
Ahuna and Carmen Hulu Lindsey are the two trustees who asked to have their names removed from the letter to rescind.
They and trustee Robert Lindsey were the dissenting votes on the motion for the board to go into executive session at Monday's meeting. Machado, Stender, Apoliona and Apo were joined by trustees Rowena Akana and John Waihee IV to move into the closed session.
Machado asked for the room to be cleared so that the trustees could begin meeting in private. But only a few people left, the rest staying in defiance.
Kumu hula Hina Wong-Kale led her Halau Lokahi students in a chant. Still, nobody left the board room.
Finally, Crabbe spoke, first in Hawaiian, then in English. He asked "humbly" for the opportunity for the board to meet privately, and he promised that the public would be informed once OHA had resolved its problems internally.
"We take this very seriously because we know what is at stake and think we will act in best interest for our lahui (nation) today," he said.
The room cleared so the meeting could begin.
How the board and its CEO proceed from here is unclear. None took questions from reporters after the meeting.
New cracks in OHA's unity emerged elsewhere. Before the meeting, Apo wrote on his blog:
The nation-building effort undertaken by the Office of Hawaiian Affairs to move toward an 'Aha (constitutional convention) is on the verge of chaos. Anarchy is emerging as the prevailing governance model as we OHA Trustees seem like deer in headlights. The breach of institutional trust by OHA's CEO in a direct challenge to OHA's trustees has set an almost irreversible condition of operational dysfunction pitting employees, one against the other, in choosing sides. Some cower in fear for their jobs.
This is the truth as I see it. I am an old man at 75 and find it excruciatingly painful to navigate the vestige of a ruptured institution that I have always revered. The core of OHA's fiduciary duty, founded as a sacred trust for the benefit of native Hawaiians and Hawaiians, is being threatened and undermined by the out of control distraction of nation building. For this reason, I propose that OHA abandon its role in nation building.
A half-dozen complaints have been filed with the state Office of Information Practices asking whether OHA violated the Sunshine Law when it rescinded the letter Crabbe sent to Kerry.
OHA was notified of one of those complaints on Friday. It has 10 business days to respond. Meanwhile, OIP is considering whether to deal with the complaints separately or consolidate them.
Civil Beat obtained one of the Sunshine Law complaints to OIP.
Donovan Preza, a geography professor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, raises questions about where Crabbe and some of the trustees were on May 9, the date of the letter to rescind. Crabbe and Machado were in Washington, D.C., Preza observes.
Referring to the Sunshine Law, he wrote, "with a few exceptions, board members are not allowed to discuss board business with each other outside of a social meeting, including by telephone or through e-mail or social media."
Those exceptions include emergencies or "unanticipated events."
"As such I am left to infer that the meeting was either an 'Emergency' meeting or a meeting for an 'Unanticipated Event,'" wrote Preza. "If it was an Emergency Meeting, then the board would have to show ... that there was 'an imminent peril to the public health, safety, or welfare.'"
Under HRS 92-8, one instance of an "unanticipated event" is an event "which members of the board did not have sufficient advance knowledge of or reasonably could not have known about from information published by the media or information generally available in the community."
Chapter 92 does not address hooponopono, however, or the practice of reconciliation and forgiveness, in executive session. Machado acknowledged that at the beginning of Monday's meeting, and it is unclear what exactly happened in executive session.
But Machado and Crabbe afterward both credited cultural practitioner Earl Kawaa with his guidance in working out their problems.
Supporters of Crabbe and critics of OHA will be keeping a close eye on the agency as it continues with its nation-building efforts. Several that spoke with Civil Beat privately said there would be repercussions should Crabbe be removed from his job at a later date.
For now, the last word is Crabbe's.
"We agreed to move forward together in one voice, in one path, not just for the benefit of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs but for the future or our haunana for the next generations in the presence of today' s leaders," he said after Monday's meetings. "That we will be responsive to our community and bring dignity to the process that is before us. And most of all, bring honor to our queen and all that stands for what is righteous and just. Our lahui."
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http://pjmedia.com/jchristianadams/2014/05/23/jim-crow-prowls-paradise/?singlepage=true
PJ Media, May 23, 2014
Jim Crow Prowls Paradise
by J. Christian Adams
Imagine if a state didn't let someone vote in an election because their grandfather wasn't the correct race. Surely lawyers in Eric Holder's Justice Department would be typing up a lawsuit as fast as fingers could fly across the keyboard. After all, Obama is the president who boasted he was a champion for voting rights, falsely we'd later learn. Eric Holder compared voter ID to a modern version of Jim Crow. But a recent federal court opinion shows Jim Crow is alive and well, and living in paradise. This week, the United States District Court in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) struck down a law that prevented American citizens from voting in a referendum on a constitutional amendment if they were not of "Northern Mariana descent." The plaintiff, John Davis, should have enjoyed the help of the United States Justice Department Voting Section in wiping out the law. From the federal court:
Northern Mariana descent, as defined by [the CNMI law] is a racial classification, and under federal law it may not serve as the basis for preventing otherwise qualified voters from voting on proposed amendments.
The federal court granted summary judgment against the CNMI on a federal voting rights statute enforced by the Justice Department, 42 U.S.C. 1971(a). Summary judgment means it wasn't even a close call. It means Holder could have brought and won the case easily. His failure to enforce the Voting Rights Act in the CNMI was perhaps more egregious than his dismissal of the New Black Panther voter intimidation case in Philadelphia. Let's see if the same stooges in academia and the media who defended the New Black Panther dismissal now defend Holder's inaction against a brazenly racially exclusionary law in the CNMI. But the CNMI isn't the only Pacific paradise where Jim Crow prowls and Eric Holder is doing nothing to enforce federal voting rights. The same movement to allocate political power to only people of color in the CNMI is alive and well in Hawaii. The Office of Hawaiian Affairs has created a racially exclusionary voter roll to conduct a state-run election. (The materials from the office must be seen to be believed.) A 2011 Hawaii law limits registration on this roll to only those who had an ancestor who lived on Hawaii in 1778 or received race-based land benefits in 1921. It also allows anyone with a "significant connection" to the "Native Hawaiian community" to register for the roll, which should nicely scoop up the radical academics who have flocked to the University of Hawaii to agitate for exactly this sort of race-based separatism.
The Hawaii law is being implemented with great fanfare, including a plan for racially correct Hawaiian voters to elect delegates to an "Aha," or Constitutional Convention to draft a governing document for the new Native Hawaiian nation. Remember, this nonsense is being paid for and administered by the government of Hawaii. Never mind that the United States Supreme Court spanked Hawaii in 2000 for creating an almost identical racially exclusionary election. Surely the Justice Department Voting Section has rushed to stop the brazenly discriminatory creation of a race-based voter roll? Surely the interests of the United States run counter to a separatist movement funded and run by the Hawaiian government? Think again. Eric Holder is too busy worrying about Texas and North Carolina voter identification laws, which creates an irony we will return to momentarily.
First let's visit Guam, a beautiful and strategic Pacific island, one round trip south of Tokyo in a B-29. Guam has created a racially discriminatory voter roll just like the one in Hawaii and the CNMI. In Guam, you are only allowed to register to vote if you had an ancestor living on Guam who became an American citizen in 1950. The problem for thousands of American citizens living on Guam in 2014 -- nearly everyone on Guam in 1950 was of the Chamorro race. This has created a racially exclusionary voter roll for a plebiscite election populated only by voters with Chamorro bloodlines. And what will be on the ballot in the this plebiscite? Whether or not Guam should break away from the United States. Separatism is driving the desire to create a racially exclusionary electorate on Guam, just like in Hawaii. Along with the Center for Individual Rights and others, I am representing US Air Force Major Dave Davis (Ret.), a white American citizen on Guam who was denied the right to register to vote for the plebiscite. Dave doesn't have the right racial bloodlines to vote.
Dave relentlessly badgered Eric Holder's Justice Department Voting Section for help. Predictably, as in the CNMI and Hawaii, Eric Holder offered no help. Holder has other priorities than Mr. Davis. Eric Holder called voter ID the modern version of Jim Crow. So a historical refresher is in order.
When it came to voting, Jim Crow created all manner of tricks and traps to block black voters from registering to vote. Jim Crow had close cousins like separate water fountains, restrooms and lunch counters. But in voting, Jim Crow was all about keeping blacks off the registration rolls. In Oklahoma, Mr. Crow said that unless your grandfather was eligible to vote, you couldn't register to vote without passing a complicated literacy test designed to trap black registrants. You needed the right bloodlines to participate in an election. The Supreme Court struck down that trick in Guinn v. United States. Jim Crow wasn't about voting laws that applied equally to everyone, like voter ID. Jim Crow wondered who your grandfather was. Jim Crow made sure you couldn't get registered if your bloodlines weren't racially correct. Jim Crow is alive and well in paradise. What is happening in Guam, the CNMI and Hawaii bears far more resemblance to Jim Crow than the voter ID laws the Justice Department is spending millions of dollars fighting.
When I did my interview with Megyn Kelly in July 2010, I knew that the New Black Panther case wasn't the only matter where a racialist policy by Holder's Justice Department left some voters unprotected from racial discrimination. After leaving DOJ, I talked to American patriots like Dave Davis who said he had been begging for DOJ help to break down racially discriminatory barriers to the ballot box, but had received none. The New Black Panther dismissal was the first example of Holder's racially exclusionary priorities, but it wasn't the only one. When President Obama boasted that his Justice Department had brought 102 voting rights cases, I knew the numbers were phony. Hans von Spakovsky and I explained in detail how the president's list was phony.
Surely an attorney general committed to protecting the voting rights of all Americans, and not just "my people" or "people of color," could have found the time to submit even an amicus brief in the CNMI case, at a minimum. The CNMI law itself should have been attacked in court by Holder under 42 U.S.C. 1971(c), a law which allowed Holder to bring the suit instead of the plaintiff. Sadly, the voting rights of CNMI plaintiff John Davis don't seem to be a priority of Eric Holder. Perhaps cases against the CNMI and Hawaii were never brought because the lawyers who have been hired by Eric Holder share Holder's priorities. PJ Media's Every Single One series revealed the ideological homogeneity of the new Voting Section lawyers.
The Voting Section lawyer assigned to the CNMI is Elizabeth Westfall. It was her job to monitor election litigation in the CNMI and press to vindicate the voting rights of CNMI citizens who were discriminated against. ws Under Voting Section procedures, Westfall would be the first to identify the plight of John Davis and organize DOJ aid. This also gives her the ability to deep-six the matter. John Davis helps pay Westfall's salary, and John Davis deserved protection. The Every Single One series described her background:
According to the Federal Election Commission website, she contributed nearly $7,000 to Barack Obama's 2008 presidential election campaign, contributed another $4,400 to Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign, contributed $2,000 to Wesley Clark's presidential campaign in 2004, contributed $3,000 to John Kerry's presidential campaign and compliance fund in 2004, contributed $500 to former Senate Democratic Majority Leader Tom Daschle's PAC in 2004, and contributed $2,000 to Hillary Clinton's U.S. Senate campaign in 2000. In addition to this incredible funding of Democratic candidates, Westfall worked for six years at the far-left Advancement Project, directing its Voter Protection Program and managing its litigation and advocacy activities. She also previously served as a staff attorney at the Washington Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights in its Fair Housing Group, and worked on the Hill as a legislative assistant to then-Congressman Bill Richardson (D-NM). On Westfall's self-drafted Harvard alumni biography, she notes that she has testified before the U.S. Congress about supposed "barriers" to voter registration, "unwarranted" purging of the voter rolls, and voter caging.
Ironically, instead of fighting the modern version of Jim Crow in the CNMI, Westfall spends her time fighting Texas voter identification laws in court. Or consider the DOJ lawyer assigned to Hawaii, Catherine Meza. Instead of bringing a case to knock down the racially exclusionary Hawaii voter registration roll, Meza is busy attacking North Carolina voter id in court. Her priorities as outlined in the Every Single One series:
Ms. Meza, who contributed $450 to Barack Obama's presidential campaign before getting hired by the Voting Section, has a rich history of liberal advocacy. During law school at Berkeley, she interned for (i) the NAACP LDF, where she worked on voting rights and "economic justice" issues, (ii) Bay Area Legal Aid, (iii) the ACLU of Northern California, (iv) the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF), (v) Centro Legal de la Raza, and (vi) the East Bay Community Law Center Workers' Rights Clinic. On her resume, Meza proudly proclaims her membership in the American Constitution Society and her role as an Advisory Board Member of the Thelton Henderson Center for Social Justice. Meanwhile, while working a brief stint at the Fried Frank law firm after law graduation, she assisted on a pro bono case seeking to preserve the confidentiality of ID cards issued to illegal aliens by the city of New Haven, Connecticut, an effort to help illegal aliens avoid being prosecuted for violating federal law. She also helped draft a report for the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination in which she suggested that the U.S. "government's programs and policies continue to perpetuate segregation and concentrate poverty in communities of color."
There's that "of color" thing again. It is no surprise to anyone with walking around sense that civil rights no longer means what it used to mean. The moral victories of the civil rights movement have been squandered by people like Eric Holder and Catherine Meza. In the 1960s, civil rights meant the government would stop using race to provide benefits and impose barriers. Today, the civil rights industry is usually about using race to provide benefits and impose barriers.
That Holder's version of justice doesn't include some Americans living in Guam, the CNMI and Hawaii should surprise nobody after six years of the Obama presidency. These racially exclusionary efforts are explicit attempts to diminish American sovereignty. The advocates don't expect it to happen overnight. But like the Chinese proverb that says "three feet of ice is not formed in a single day," efforts to divide Guam, the CNMI and Hawaii between natives and the American "colonizer" are long-term efforts. Over 8,000 sailors, soldiers and Marines died on these islands in the 20th century. They bore the battle and allowed American ideals of constitutional equality to extend westward. They also secured the most important deep water ports in the Pacific and strategically essential airfields from which I watched American F-22 Raptors land alongside Japanese F-2s. That separatists are using the tricks of Jim Crow to erode the political order in the Pacific while Holder sits silent is a dangerous disgrace.
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http://us3.campaign-archive2.com/?u=f9a371d0547f107d938233d66&id=58f07343fe&e=4a7cf86850
Grassroot Institute of Hawaii, press release May 23, 2014
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
DATELINE: May 23, 2014, Honolulu, Hawai'i
CONTACT: Keli'i Akina, (808) 591-9193 akina@grassrootinstitute.org
Decision on CNMI Vote Demonstrates the Illegality of OHA's Nation-Building Process
HONOLULU, Hawaii -- May 23, 2014 -- A federal court has struck down a race-based voting scheme in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), thereby highlighting the Constitutional problems inherent in elections based on race or ancestry -- including the upcoming election planned by the Office of Hawaiian Affairs.
At issue was a CNMI law that prevented citizens from voting on a referendum on a Constitutional Amendment related to property rights if the citizen was not of "Northern Mariana descent." The U.S. District Court in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands granted summary judgement in favor of the plaintiff, ruling that the CNMI law defining "Northern Marian descent" created a racial classification, and that, "under federal law it may not serve as the basis for preventing otherwise qualified voters from voting on proposed amendments." The District Court also refused to see a distinction between ancestry and race where the effect so clearly favors a specific racial group.
The decision raises interesting questions regarding the legality of the proposed Constitutional Convention that the Office of Hawaiian Affairs has planned for 2014. Voting eligibility for that election is at present limited to those who have signed up for or been added to the Native Hawaiian Roll, the qualifications for which are also strongly weighted toward race and ancestry.
"The CNMI decision is a clear warning to the State of Hawaii and the Office of Hawaiian Affairs that their nation-building process has strayed into unconstitutional territory," stated Keli'i Akina, Ph.D., President of the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii. "By persisting in this plan, not only do they continue to sow divisiveness and confusion, but they are also failing their own constituency. The Native Hawaiian people are not helped by a process that spends millions of dollars in pursuit of an election and enrollment effort of such questionable legality. It's time for the state and OHA to get out of the nation-building business and get back to working for the best interests of all Hawaiians."
###
For more information or for press inquiries contact Grassroot President Keli'i Akina at (808) 591.9193 or email
akina@grassrootinstitute.org
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http://www.hawaiifreepress.com/ArticlesMain/tabid/56/ID/12707/Feds-Begin-lsquoRule-Makingrsquo-to-Create-Akaka-Tribe.aspx
Hawaii Free Press, May 24, 2014
Department of the Interior Considers Creation of a Native Hawaiian Government by Administrative Rule
News Release from Grassroot Institute
HONOLULU, Hawaii -- May 23, 2014 -- The Obama Administration is considering an end-run around Congress and the voters by creating a Native Hawaiian governing entity via executive action.
The Department of the Interior (DOI) has issued an advance notice of proposed rule-making (ANPR) in order to, "solicit public comments on whether and how the Department of the Interior should facilitate the reestablishment of a government-to-government relationship with the Native Hawaiian community." The notice can be viewed at:
http://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/eAgendaViewRule?pubId=201404&RIN=1090-AB05
The move was not unexpected, given the stated intention of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs that it would follow up the Native Hawaiian Roll, election, and Constitutional Convention with an effort to seek federal recognition. However, the timing of the proposed rule raises questions about the forces pushing the nation-building process forward even while OHA comes under increased scrutiny for its actions and statements during the enrollment period.
Moreover, it is uncertain whether such a rule from the DOI could withstand a legal challenge. As recently as September 2013, four members of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights wrote a letter to President Obama, urging him not to pursue the creation of a Native Hawaiian government through executive action. The letter discussed the issue from both a historical and legal perspective, concluding that, "conferring tribal status on a racial group is itself a violation of the equal protection guarantees of the Constitution." The Commissioners noted that creation of a Native Hawaiian government was outside of the scope of Congress's powers, and "doubly so" for the President.
"It is troubling to see such unwise and precipitous action from the Secretary of the Interior," stated Keli'i Akina, Ph.D., President of the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii. "Not only does the proposed rule violate the Constitution by creating a race-based government, but it also violates the spirit of ohana and unity that makes Hawaii unique. The fact that this proposed rule comes even as more Native Hawaiians are questioning the Roll, OHA, and the nation-building process is a violation of the trust that we have put in our leaders."
Dr. Akina continued, "This end run around the democratic process is a violation of everything that Native Hawaiian tradition and culture stand for. Moreover, it raises the question of who is truly being empowered by the nation-building efforts--the people or the politicians? Enough with these unconstitutional efforts to build a government based on race. Let's get back to the business of helping Native Hawaiians in real, tangible ways."
The letter from the Civil Rights Commissioners can be found in its entirety at
http://new.grassrootinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Akaka-Letter-September-2013-Final.pdf
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http://washingtonexaminer.com/obama-interior-department-reviving-a-truly-bad-policy-congress-has-rejected/article/2548872
The Washington Examiner, May 24, 2014
Obama Interior Department reviving a truly bad policy Congress has rejected
BY MICHAEL BARONE
Some bad ideas are hard to kill. An example is the proposal to treat Native Hawaiians like an Indian tribe. Former Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii) advanced legislation to do that for years, but it did not pass even when Democrats had supermajorities in Congress.
But, as Barack Obama has said, he is not going to be stymied by the old superstition that only Congress can pass a law. The Interior Department has announced it "is considering whether to propose an administrative rule that would facilitate the re-establishment of a government-to-government relationship with the Native Hawaiian community, to more effectively implement the special political and trust relationship that Congress has established between that community and the United States."
Actually, Congress has declined to establish such a relationship, and the only "government-to-government" relationship with Native Hawaiians, the state of Hawaii's Office of Hawaiian Affairs, which was ruled unconstitutional as racially discriminatory by the Supreme Court in the 2000 case of Rice v. Cayetano.
The apparent analogy here, one invoked by Akaka, is to Indian tribes. But as four members of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission pointed out in a September 2013 letter to President Obama, the analogy is faulty. Federally recognized Indian tribes "are defined by political structure and the maintenance of a separate society." Native Hawaiians have not been a separate society for nearly 200 years. The kingdom of Hawaii in fact encouraged immigration from abroad and, far from frowning on intermarriage, tended to encourage it. Hawaii had a population of 1,360,301 in the 2010 Census, but only 80,337 people reported themselves as being solely of Native Hawaiian ancestry and another 209,633 reported mixed ancestry including Native Hawaiian.
When Hawaii was admitted to the Union more than 50 years ago, advocates of statehood were proud of its mixed racial heritage. Setting people of Native Hawaiian descent (and how much Native Hawaiian blood would you have to have to qualify?) aside as a special group, as a quasi-government, perhaps entitled to special benefits, is entirely contrary to this aloha tradition and to the spirit of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. If the Interior Department pushes ahead on this, it will be violating the Constitution by usurping Congress' power to make laws and by imposing a system of racial discrimination.
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http://www.staradvertiser.com/newspremium/hawaiinewspremium/20140525_Rule_aims_at_recognition_for_Native_Hawaiians.html?id=260584281
Honolulu Star-Advertiser, May 25, 2014
Rule aims at recognition for Native Hawaiians
A federal proposal is not concerned with governance, an OHA trustee emphasizes
By Rob Shikina
The U.S. Department of the Interior is considering an administrative rule to create a Native Hawaiian government, marking the first time the federal government has taken a step to give Native Hawaiians federal recognition without congressional approval.
"We're pleased with the progress," said Oswald Stender, a trustee for the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. "What they're doing is doing due diligence on our request to have Hawaiians recognized as indigenous people."
Stender said OHA's board of trustees met with the Interior Department earlier this month to discuss obtaining federal recognition to protect Native Hawaiian entitlements from legal challenges. He didn't know about the department's request for comments, but said it is probably a continuation of OHA's discussion.
"This is moving at warp speed," he said.
The notice, published in the Interior Department's spring agenda, says the department is seeking comments on whether and how the department should aid in the creation of a "government-to-government relationship with the native Hawaiian community."
Hawaii's congressional delegation also previously said it was trying to pursue other avenues to federal recognition for Native Hawaiians after Republican-led opposition blocked efforts in Congress.
Under federal law, an American Indian group may become federally recognized by an act of Congress, through administrative procedures or by a decision of the U.S. Supreme Court. The delegation was looking into whether Native Hawaiians could be recognized without Congress.
U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, said in an email that the publication of the proposed rule marks "the beginning of an important public dialogue."
"I encourage broad participation so the full range of voices in Hawaii are heard during the federal rulemaking process," he said. "Separate is not equal. Native Hawaiians deserve the right to self-governance."
U.S. Rep. Colleen Hanabusa, D-Hawaii, mentioned the proposed federal rule during her report to delegates Saturday at the Democratic Party's state convention in Waikiki.
"Transparency and Native Hawaiian self-determination are essential parts of our platform, and we must never give up, " she said, "because this is also why we are Democrats."
But not all were happy with the agency's move.
Keli'i Akina, president of the nonpartisan think tank Grassroot Institute of Hawaii, said it was troubling to see such "unwise" action from the interior secretary.
"Not only does the proposed rule violate the Constitution by creating a race-based government, but it also violates the spirit of ohana and unity that makes Hawaii unique," he said in a statement.
He said the proposed rule comes as questions have been raised about the Native Hawaiian Roll Commission, OHA and the nation-building process.
"This end run around the democratic process is a violation of everything that Native Hawaiian tradition and culture stand for," he said.
Stender said while the goal is self-governance, OHA is asking the federal government only for recognition, not governance.
The issue of a Native Hawaiian government will be handled at another time by those who signed up through the Native Hawaiian Roll Commission, Stender said.
He acknowledged, however, that how the federal government will come to recognize the Native Hawaiian government after it is formed still needs more research.
But separating the two issues fixes the problem with the Akaka Bill, which stalled in Congress for 13 years. That bill addressed both recognition and governance, Stender said.
"All we want to do with the Interior is to get the president to recognize Hawaiians as being indigenous so we can protect our entitlements," he said in a telephone interview. "This effort that we're doing now has nothing to do with governance."
OHA officials hope recognition can be obtained before President Barack Obama leaves office.
"The entitlement issue is very serious and we want to protect these entitlements, so that's the only way do it," Stender said.
He expects there to be legal challenges, but said the result of other lawsuits have been favorable to OHA's position.
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http://www.staradvertiser.com/newspremium/20140526_OHA_seeks_opinions_on_nation_building.html?id=260641041
olulu Star-Advertiser, May 26, 2014
OHA seeks opinions on nation building
By Timothy Hurley
The Office of Hawaiian Affairs will hold a special meeting Thursday to gather public comment on the agency's nation-building efforts -- the possible first step in what may lead to a delay in the process.
The idea for the meeting -- scheduled for 10 a.m. in the boardroom of OHA's Nimitz Highway headquarters -- apparently arose May 19 during a closed-door meeting with the OHA trustees and CEO Kamana'opono Crabbe.
The private executive session was held to discuss Crabbe's job performance in the wake of his "unauthorized" letter to Secretary of State John Kerry, asking whether the Hawaiian kingdom still exists under international law. In his letter, Crabbe suggested that OHA back off on the nation-building process until it is able to determine whether the agency is violating international law in that pursuit.
The trustees rescinded the letter, saying it did not reflect board policy. Crabbe then held a news conference to explain his action despite being asked by OHA Chairwoman Colette Machado to cancel it.
In addition to the job review, the trustees and Crabbe engaged in a session of hooponopono, the Hawaiian practice of reconciliation and forgiveness. Afterward they emerged together to announce they are moving on with "one voice" and with a promise to continue nation building -- a process to which the OHA trustees have pledged $3.9 million.
Just how fast the nation-building process goes from here appears uncertain.
As it stands now, May 1 was the final day to register to participate in the nation-building effort, and the official roll is expected to be certified by the Native Hawaiian Roll Commission next month.
The current proposed timeline calls for the election of delegates in September. A convention, or 'aha, to draft a governing document, would happen in October or November. An up-or-down vote on the document would be held in January with only those listed on the official roll eligible to vote.
However, Crabbe said he's heard concerns that there needs to be more time for the process and more education -- as well as consideration for another way to sign up participants.
"At the same time, we have heard from many who support the current timetable and process as approved by the trustees," Crabbe said in a statement. "These issues must have full deliberations before the Board of Trustees."
Former Gov. John Waihee, chairman of the Native Hawaiian Roll Commission, said he's fine with the current timeline and the number of people signed up during the commission's Kana'iolowalu drive -- more than 125,000, including thousands of names that were transferred from similar rolls.
"Of course, the commission has always taken the position that it wants to be accommodating as possible," Waihee said.
The more people who register, the better, he said. However, he cautioned, verifying Hawaiian status does take time.
The U.S. Department of the Interior recently disclosed that it is considering a proposal to formally recognize Native Hawaiians in a government-to-government relationship. OHA officials say they've been pushing for the proposed rule -- which acknowledges Native Hawaiians as an indigenous people -- as a way of protecting entitlements.
In a related development, the state Office of Information Practices has received a half-dozen complaints accusing the trustees of violating the state's Sunshine Law when it held meetings in Washington, D.C., in early May.
The trustees voted to rescind Crabbe's letter May 9 from Washington following a week of meetings with lawmakers and other national and international officials.
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http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2014/05/obama-looks-to-bypass-congress-and-promote-racial-spoils-in-hawaii.php
Powerline, May 26, 2014
OBAMA LOOKS TO BYPASS CONGRESS AND PROMOTE RACIAL SPOILS IN HAWAII
BY PAUL MIRENGOFF
When we pledge allegiance to the flag, we also pledge allegiance to the Republic for which it stands -- "one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."
The modern American left has put each of these qualities up for grabs. For example, implementing "social justice" would make it logically impossible to provide justice for all of us as individuals.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2014/02/social-justice-a-nonsensical-concept.php
The left is also unfavorably disposed to the idea of one indivisible nation. The Akaka Bill was a good example. As Gail Heriot and Peter Kirsanow explained,
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052748703411304575093180795586118
this legislation, which the House passed in 2010, would have enabled the nation's approximately 400,000 ethnic Hawaiians to organize themselves into one vast Indian tribe. That tribe would have been endowed with the "inherent powers and privileges of self-government," including the privilege of sovereign immunity from lawsuit. By clear implication, the tribe would also have had the power to tax, to promulgate and enforce a criminal code, and to exercise eminent domain.
Existing Indian tribes have a degree of sovereignty. But this was an attempt to establish and empower a tribe where none existed, and to do so along racial lines. Naturally, as Heriot and Kirsanow explained, the attempt was really about funneling billions of dollars to ethnic Hawaiians, a Democratic constituency.
Under the Akaka Bill, a federal commission appointed by the Secretary of the Interior would have decided who could join this special tribe. These commissioners would have been charged with examining applicants' backgrounds to ensure that only "qualified Native Hawaiians" with the right amount of Hawaiian blood join the tribe. Thus, the Akaka Bill would have granted privileges to a race, not a real tribe.
The Senate didn't pass the Akaka Amendment. But now the Obama administration may be gearing up to bypass Congress and establish a Native Hawaiian tribe.
The advance notice of proposed rulemaking is couched in terms of re-establishing a government-to-government relationship with the Native Hawaiian community. However, it's doubtful that a "Native Hawaiian community" exists except as a left-wing construct, and certainly it has no government. Like the Akaka Bill, Team Obama is seeking to create a new government within the United States, not to re-establish contact with one.
Last year, in response to reports that President Obama would attempt to implement the Akaka Bill through executive action, the four Republican-appointed members of the Civil Rights Commission (Heriot, Kirsanow, Abigail Thernstrom, and Todd Gaziano) wrote a letter to him warning against any attempt to confer tribal status upon Native Hawaiians.
The letter made these main points:
Neither Congress nor the President has [the] power to create an Indian tribe or any other entity with the attributes of sovereignty. Nor do they have the power to reconstitute a tribe or other sovereign entity that has ceased to exist as a polity in the past. . . .
Real tribes -- the kind the Federal government may recognize -- are defined by political structure and the maintenance of a separate society, not by bloodlines. A mere shared blood quantum among the members of a group is not sufficient for the federal government to recognize an Indian tribe. . . .
The efforts to obtain federal recognition of native Hawaiians as an Indian tribe or other sovereign entity are attempts to create a tribe out of a race. There is no native Hawaiian entity, let alone a governing body that has existed on anything approaching a continuous basis since 1900. . . .
There is no political unit presently governing Native Hawaiians, and judging from the response thus far to the state-sponsored enrollment process, there may be far less interest in creating one than the country has been led to believe. Additionally, the very high percentage of people reporting mixed-race ancestry as opposed to pure Native Hawaiian ancestry indicates that a "predominant portion of the petitioning group" does not comprise a distinct community.
The irony of the current demand to confer tribal sovereignty on members of the Native Hawaiian race is that the Kingdom of Hawaii, which is now pointed to as evidence that this racial group once functioned as a distinct and separate Native Hawaiian polity, was actually an impressively modern multi-racial society in which immigrants were not only welcome, they were sought after. The Hawaiian monarchs ruled over anyone who was a member of their political community, not merely Native Hawaiians. . . .
Rewriting history to create a tribe out of the Native Hawaiian race would open a Pandora's box for other groups that seek tribal status. Cajuns are an identifiable ethnic group in Louisiana who have had a continuous presence there for over two hundred years. Their ancestors may have been none too pleased when Napoleon sold the lands of the Louisiana Purchase to America, and they had no opportunity to assert sovereignty. Should Cajuns be allowed to seek tribal status?
Should the Amish of Pennsylvania or the Hasidic Jews of New York be allowed to seek tribal status? Both groups have far more separation from mainstream society, much lower rates of intermarriage, and all-encompassing rules governing the lives of members than do Native Hawaiians. Both groups also have histories stretching far back.
Lastly, it is worth mentioning that the proponents of Hawaiian statehood were at pains to stress the state's multiracial character. Proponents emphasized that Hawaiians, regardless of racial background, were Americans in spirit.
If native Hawaiians wished to receive tribal status, this was the time to raise the issue. Instead, 94.3 percent of all Hawaiians voted in favor of statehood -- and they did so after their representatives rejected separate tribal enclaves in Hawaii that were being created at the same time in Alaska for the Inuit and other native Alaskans. . . .
But back then, in 1959, liberals were serious when they pledged allegiance to a Republic consisting of one nation indivisible nation.
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Stop Appeasing Hawaii's Racial Separatists
by Kenneth R. Conklin
Full essay on webpage at http://tinyurl.com/ldwhk38
Somewhat shorter version at Hawaii Political Info online newspaper on May 27, 2014
http://www.hawaiipoliticalinfo.org/node/7514
Approximately 35,000 ethnic Hawaiians have signed the racial registry in the Kana'iolowalu process. An additional 90,000 names were stolen from previous racial registries without their permission and added to the new registry. Every one of those 125,000 people have provided proof of their Hawaiian race. Proof of race was the only proof demanded for any of these registries. The whole thing is all about race. [note 1]
Furthermore, they seek to create a separate government exclusively for their racial group. That makes them racial separatists. Their new government will then demand money and land from an ever-shrinking State of Hawaii; i.e., from all the rest of us.
The 35,000 who directly signed up for the Kana'iolowalu registry signed an official declaration whose first line clearly says "I affirm the unrelinquished sovereignty of the Native Hawaiian people and my intent to participate in the process of self-governance." That means they do not acknowledge the sovereignty of the United States in Hawaii. These are the people who support OHA CEO Kamana'o Crabbe's letter to Secretary of State John Kerry demanding confirmation of their belief that the Kingdom of Hawaii continues to exist as a sovereign independent nation. They say there was no Treaty of Annexation between Hawaii and the U.S. They say the statehood vote of 1959 was improper. However delusional and misguided those belief are, these people are secessionists in addition to being racial separatists.
Most ethnic Hawaiians are proud to be Americans. But some say they are victims of an armed American invasion and 121-year belligerent occupation of their independent nation of Hawaii. Those activists blame the U.S. for the revolution of 1893 that overthrew the Hawaiian monarchial government. People who believe this twisted historical narrative clearly view the U.S. as an enemy and an oppressor of the ethnic Hawaiian people.
It's time for the government of the State of Hawaii to stop its policy of appeasement toward these anti-American racial separatist secessionists. The people of Hawaii should express outrage toward them, and toward the politicians who coddle and appease them. Soon the Roll Commission will publish all their names. Then we should let them know our disapproval of what they are doing, while treating them with the respect they deserve as human beings and the aloha they deserve as our fellow citizens of the United States.
The law sending 20% of ceded land revenue to OHA is not in the state Constitution; it is merely an ordinary law which the legislature should repeal at the earliest opportunity. The legislature should offer a Constitutional amendment, and the voters should approve it, to abolish OHA. The legislature should repeal Act 195 (2011) which authorized the Kana'iolowalu process and Act 77 (2013) which authorized the theft of 90,000 names from previous racial registries. The legislature should pass a resolution urging Congress to repeal the apology resolution (1993), because that's what encouraged the growth of anti-American secessionist attitudes and demands for reparations. [note 2] The legislature should pass a resolution urging Congress to repeal and de-fund all the Hawaiian racial entitlement programs, because addiction to the flow of federal dollars for those programs is what has caused Hawaii's racial entitlements empire to demand federal recognition for a phony Hawaiian tribe as a way to protect those illegal race-based programs against court challenges. [note 3] Let government provide help to needy people based on need alone, not race. If ethnic Hawaiians are truly the neediest people, then they will get most of the help even when help is based on need alone.
Recently we have seen Russia take over Crimea. Now the ethnic Russians living in other parts of eastern Ukraine, and especially the Donetsk region, are demanding ethnic separatism and an ethnic-based government. During the last couple of decades we have seen ethnic cleansing in Bosnia, Darfur, South Sudan, Zimbabwe, Rwanda, and other places, with tragic consequences. We must not allow the scourge of ethnic separatism and demands for race-based government to destroy our beloved Hawaii. [note 4]
NOTES
1. May 2014 progress report on the Kana'iolowalu process and work of the Roll Commission in carrying out the enabling Act 195 (2011) and Act 77 (2013):
http://tinyurl.com/l26kh8o
2. U.S. apology resolution 20th anniversary -- A resolution was introduced in the Hawaii legislature to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the U.S. apology resolution; and testimony was offered to the Hawaii legislature in the form of a substitute resolution explaining that the apology resolution is filled with falsehoods, has produced bad consequences, and should be repealed. Detailed analysis of the falsehoods in the apology resolution and the bad consequences:
http://tinyurl.com/bkvv8e8
3. The main reason OHA is seeking federal recognition for a phony Hawaiian tribe is addiction to the flow of federal dollars for racial entitlement programs, and a need to protect those illegal programs against court challenges. Oswald Stender, an OHA trustee, clearly stated that's OHA's main motive in an article in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser of May 25, 2014: "Stender said OHA's board of trustees met with the Interior Department earlier this month to discuss obtaining federal recognition to protect Native Hawaiian entitlements from legal challenges. ... Stender said while the goal is self-governance, OHA is asking the federal government only for recognition, not governance. 'All we want to do with the Interior is to get the president to recognize Hawaiians as being indigenous so we can protect our entitlements,' he said in a telephone interview. 'This effort that we're doing now has nothing to do with governance. ... The entitlement issue is very serious and we want to protect these entitlements, so that's the only way do it,' Stender said." How did these racial entitlements get established? Over a period of decades, Hawaii was the only state that had both of its Senators, Dan Inouye and Dan Akaka, serving on the Indian Affairs committee. Why did they serve there when there are no Indian tribes in Hawaii? Every time a bill went through the committee to provide federal megabucks for housing, healthcare, education etc. to all federally recognized tribes, Akaka and Inouye inserted "and Native Hawaiians." It's contrary to the 14th Amendment equal protection clause to give government handouts to racial groups which are not federally recognized tribes. Sooner or later someone who has "standing" will succeed in lawsuits nullifying all those programs unless the phony Hawaiian tribe gets created and recognized. The new strategy is to recognize them as an "indigenous" group even before they create their "tribe", to be sure the job gets done while Obama is still President. The complete newspaper article containing the Oswald Stender quotes and a description of the new rule-making process in the Department of Interior to recognize a Hawaiian tribe is behind a paywall at
http://www.staradvertiser.com/newspremium/hawaiinewspremium/20140525_Rule_aims_at_recognition_for_Native_Hawaiians.html?id=260584281
4. See 302-page book "Hawaiian Apartheid: Racial Separatism and Ethnic Nationalism in the Aloha State" at
http://tinyurl.com/2a9fqa
** Most of this essay was published in Hawaii Political Info online newspaper on May 27, 2014 at
http://www.hawaiipoliticalinfo.org/node/7514
-------------------
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/378839/native-hawaiians-and-obama-overreach-roger-clegg
National Review Online, May 27, 2014
Native Hawaiians and Obama Overreach
By Roger Clegg
As is its habit, the Obama administration chose a Friday afternoon to announce an important initiative, namely its consideration of "an administrative rule that would facilitate the reestablishment of a government-to-government relationship with the Native Hawaiian community." As is also its habit, the administration is attempting an end-run of Congress here, which has repeatedly refused to go down the road of making Native Hawaiians into some sort of Indian tribe -- and rightly so. The Supreme Court has made clear that Native Hawaiians are an ethnic group -- and they are, conversely, not a political entity -- so that singling them out for special treatment is unconstitutional, as well as divisive and unfair. The Bush administration and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights said so, too, as did a National Review cover story, but apparently the Obama administration is committed to playing the race card, whenever and wherever possible.
----------------
http://www.cato.org/blog/obama-administration-abuses-executive-power-pursue-race-based-government
The CATO Institute blog, May 27, 2014
Obama Administration Abuses Executive Power to Pursue Race-Based Government
By ILYA SHAPIRO
The administration has apparently decided to combine the alarming developments I chronicled in my last two blogposts, which dealt with racial discrimination in Hawaii and President Obama's abuse of executive power. In a classic Friday-afternoon news dump -- and on the eve of a holiday weekend, no less -- the Interior Department issued an advance notice of proposed rule-making (ANPR) to "solicit public comments on whether and how the Department of the Interior should facilitate the reestablishment of a government-to-government relationship with the Native Hawaiian community." (Our friends at the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii broke the news; it helps that their weekend starts six hours after Washington's!)
This would be an end-run around both Congress and the Constitution, marking the first step toward the creation of a race-based government in Hawaii. That is, with variations of the Akaka Bill stalled in Congress for over a decade -- and Daniel Akaka no longer in the Senate, and congressional Democrats on their heels more generally -- the administration has decided that this is yet another area where it can't wait for the legislative branch. Even setting aside the Fourteenth/Fifteenth Amendment and policy problems with any proposed racial governing body, this brazen executive action raises serious separation-of-powers concerns.
As recently as September 2013, four members of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission wrote a letter to President Obama, urging him not to unilaterally push for a Native Hawaiian government. After extensive historic and legal analysis, the letter noted that "conferring tribal status on a racial group is itself a violation of the equal protection guarantees of the Constitution." Moreover, "as beyond the scope of Congress's powers as it would be for Congress to attempt to organize Native Hawaiians as a tribe, we believe it would be doubly so for you to attempt to do so by executive action."
Quite so. I just wish that the next time the executive branch wanted to piggyback off my ideas, it would pick some reform proposals rather than mixing two blatantly illegal policies I've criticizing.
For more, see Roger Clegg at NRO
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/378839/native-hawaiians-and-obama-overreach-roger-clegg
and Grassroot's continuing investigation.
http://new.grassrootinstitute.org/2014/05/department-of-interior-secretly-planning-native-hawaiian-recognition-since-2012/
---------------
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/05/27/obama-administration-seeks-race-based-government-in-hawaii/
AND
http://dailycaller.com/2014/05/27/obama-administration-seeks-race-based-government-in-hawaii/
Fox News, AND The Daily Caller, May 27, 2014
Obama administration proposes race-based legal system in Hawaii
By Neil Munro
President Barack Obama's administration has quietly suggested it is willing to create a two-tier race-based legal system in Hawaii, where one set of taxes, spending and law enforcement will govern one race, and the second set of laws will govern every other race.
The diversity proposal is portrayed as an effort to create a separate in-state government for people who are "native Hawaiians."
If Obama succeeds, "what's to prevent creating similar [self-governing racial] groups out of say, Cajuns, or Orthodox Jews or Amish?" said Gail Heriot, a commissioner on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
"If you can do that with groups that are already part of the mainstream, you can balkanize the country," said Heriot, who is a law professor at the University of San Diego.
But the proposed measure to increase legal diversity is illegal because the president doesn't have the power to grant one group of Americans the status of a separate government, she said.
"There is no constitutional basis for conferring such status, and Congress has repeatedly refused to confer this status," said Carissa Mulder, a spokeswoman for two members of the federal Commission on Civil Rights.
"This seems to be yet another case of the Obama administration ignoring the law to achieve its policy objectives," she added.
The move was announced Friday before Memorial Day as White House officials and congressional Democrats stepped up predictions that the president will try to bypass congressional opposition to his progressive policy preferences.
Last week, for example, Democratic Senate leader Harry Reid suggested the president would reduce enforcement of federal immigration law because the House has not agreed to double the current inflow of almost two million immigrants and guest workers per year.
The proposed new legal regime for Hawaii is sketched in a federal document released Friday, dubbed an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking.
"The Secretary of the Interior is considering whether to propose an administrative rule that would facilitate the reestablishment of a government-to-government relationship with the Native Hawaiian community," said the document.
The goal, it claimed, is "to more effectively implement the special political and trust relationship that Congress has established between that [Hawaiian] community and the United States."
The move is likely intended to protect lucrative financial set-asides for Americans who are also part of the Hawaiian racial group, said Heriot.
These set-aside, which include cheap loans, are being threatened by the Supreme Court's move to curb racial divisions and imposed racial diversity. In 2000, for example, the court's Rice vs. Cayetano decision allowed non-Hawaiians to participate in the election of trustees for the state's wealthy Office of Hawaiian Affairs.
The office holds a large tract of land in Hawaii under a legal trust, which generates revenue that is distributed to racial Hawaiians.
The 7,300 square kilometers of land were granted as a trust to the native Hawaiians in 1920 instead of creating a new tribal reservation that would have segregated Hawaiians from America's mainstream government, economy and society. The transfer was solidified in 1959 when Hawaiians voted to become a state in the union, and in 1978 by the creation of the office to oversee use of the trust.
The land was awarded as trust, not a reservation, because Hawaiians were full citizens, said Heriot. "They're part of the mainstream," she said.
The Cayetano decision shows the court doesn't want to encourage further moves toward tribal and racial separatism by granting more power to the race-based groups, such as the Office of Hawaiian affairs, she said.
"Once they made that decision, it's pretty clear that whole [office] is in jeopardy," over the long run, said Heriot.
In response, Hawaiian groups lobbied Congress to pass the Akaka bill, named after Sen. Daniel Akaka, a native Hawaiian senator.
The bill would have imposing variety on Hawaiians' shared government, via the creation of a tribal government for Hawaiians.
That bill would have converted Hawaiians' status from normal Americans into to subgroup similar to American Indians. Many Indians live on reservations governed by tribal governments since they were overrun during the European settlement of north America. The Akaka bill would also have transferred the Hawaiian land to the new tribe, allowing it to be used to generate wealth via gambling and other businesses for racial Hawaiians, she said.
But the Akaka bill has failed to gain any traction since 2010, prompting advocates to try this new regulatory end-run around Congress, said Heriot.
Heriot and three other members of the civil rights commission opposed the Akaka bill.
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http://new.grassrootinstitute.org/2014/05/department-of-interior-secretly-planning-native-hawaiian-recognition-since-2012/
Grassroot Institute of Hawaii blog, May 27, 2014
Department of Interior Secretly Planning Native Hawaiian Recognition Since 2012
Grassroot Institute investigation raises questions about DOI timing and OHA's strategy
by Malia Hill
HONOLULU, Hawaii -- May 27, 2014 -- Further investigation of the Department of the Interior's plan to recognize a Native Hawaiian governing entity via administrative rule has revealed that the agency has been secretly working toward such an action since at least 2012.
The Grassroot Institute of Hawaii broke the story
http://new.grassrootinstitute.org/2014/05/department-of-the-interior-considers-creation-of-a-native-hawaiian-government-by-administrative-rule/
of the DOI's advance notice of proposed rule-making (ANPR) regarding a, "government-to-government relationship with the Native Hawaiian community," on May 23, 2013.
http://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/eAgendaViewRule?pubId=201404&RIN=1090-AB05
Further investigation now reveals that the US Department of the Interior has been engaged in this regulatory review since 2012.
http://new.grassrootinstitute.org/2014/05/department-of-interior-secretly-planning-native-hawaiian-recognition-since-2012/
Three previously undiscovered announcements were titled "Procedures for Reorganizing the Native Hawaiian Community as an Indian Tribe." The three DOI "Rule Making" announcements were posted on the federal reginfo.gov website in 2012, Spring 2013 and Fall, 2013 -- where they remain online alongside the latest announcement which is linked under "Spring, 2014."
http://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/eAgendaViewRule?pubId=201403&RIN=1090-AB05
It is now clear that the US Department of the Interior has been quietly reviewing "Procedures for Reorganizing the Native Hawaiian Community as an Indian Tribe" since 2012. "Procedures for Reestablishing a Government-to-Government Relationship With the Native Hawaiian Community" is merely a continuation of the same process under a new title. The 2012 announcement
http://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/eAgendaViewRule?pubId=201210&RIN=1090-AB05
is marked, "First time published in the Unified Agenda."
http://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/eAgendaViewRule?pubId=201210&RIN=1090-AB05
The latter three announcements are all marked, "Previously published in the Unified Agenda."
http://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/eAgendaViewRule?pubId=201404&RIN=1090-AB05
The timing of the DOI's action raises questions about the long-term strategy of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. OHA has found itself under scrutiny of late for its actions regarding the Native Hawaiian Roll and election as well as a letter from its CEO to Secretary of State John Kerry questioning the sovereignty of the state and federal governments in Hawaii. Moreover, the Star-Advertiser reports that OHA Trustee Oswald Stender has acknowledged that he and the other Trustees met with Interior Department officials in Washington, DC earlier this month in order to discuss plans for federal recognition.
http://www.staradvertiser.com/s?action=login&f=y&id=260584281
"The Office of Hawaiian Affairs is throwing away its credibility with both hands," stated Keli'i Akina, President of the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii. "OHA has repeatedly told its beneficiaries that it will remain neutral and that any form of nation-building is yet to be decided by the Native Hawaiian people. In reality, OHA continues to work actively toward federal recognition, advancing a process which has been taking place in secret for years within the federal executive branch. OHA claims that this is just a formality to maintain benefits, but the truth is right there in black and white -- how can there be a government-to-government relationship with the Native Hawaiian community unless that community has created a government?"
"The timing of the DOI announcement stretches coincidence to the limit -- especially now that we know that this has been in the planning since at least 2012," continued Dr. Akina. "The mad rush to create a Native Hawaiian government over the concerns and objections of legal scholars, the public, and the Native Hawaiian community itself makes one question OHA's motivations. The Constitution is not on their side, whether they pursue a race-based election or attempt an end-run around Congress by trying to create a race-based nation via executive action. It is unlikely that either will withstand a legal challenge. How do OHA's beneficiaries benefit from the millions of dollars being spent in the effort, diverted from real needs such as housing, education, health, and jobs? OHA and the State of Hawaii must get out of the nation-building business before they do further harm to the unity of all people in our state and the unity of all Native Hawaiians."
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http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/may/28/native-hawaiians-would-be-indians-under-obama-plan/
The Washington Times, May 28, 2014
Native Hawaiians would be 'Indians' under Obama plan
By Valerie Richardson
The Obama administration is quietly moving again to bypass Congress on yet another policy issue, this time by enacting the much-disputed bill that would grant tribal sovereignty to Native Hawaiians.
The Interior Department issued a notice of proposed rule-making Friday, before the holiday weekend, to solicit comments on how to "facilitate the re-establishment of a government-to-government relationship with the Native Hawaiian community."
The Akaka bill, named for its sponsor, former Sen. Daniel Akaka, languished in Congress for over a decade, but Hawaii Democrats have since urged President Obama to use his executive authority to declare that Native Hawaiians are an Indian tribe.
Gail Heriot, a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and a professor of law at the University of San Diego, called the administration's decision "very troubling."
"The Obama administration appears to be gearing to take an aggressive stance on this issue," Ms. Heriot said this week. "I believe the Akaka bill itself would have been unconstitutional. It will be at least as unconstitutional if the executive branch attempts to accomplish the same result by itself."
Four commissioners warned Mr. Obama in a Sept. 16 letter that the move would be "unwise and unconstitutional." The commission has eight members, although there are currently two vacancies.
"Neither Congress nor the president has to power to create an Indian tribe or any other entity with the attributes of sovereignty. Nor do they have the power to reconstitute a tribe or other sovereign entity that has ceased to exist as a polity in the past," said the letter. "Tribes are 'recognized,' not created or reconstituted."
Granting tribal status would allow the state's Office of Hawaiian Affairs to provide race-based benefits for Native Hawaiians, a practice that was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 2000.
Since 2011, the OHA has urged Native Hawaiians to sign up on a registry known as Kana'iolowalu, although the effort hasn't met with much enthusiasm. About 126,000 Native Hawaiians are now listed on the roll, but as many as 100,000 of those names were imported from other government documents, said Malia Hill, policy director of the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii.
Keli'i Akina, Grassroot Institute president, called the administration's move an "end run around the democratic process [that] is a violation of everything that Native Hawaiian tradition and culture stand for.
"Moreover, it raises the question of who is truly being empowered by the nation-building efforts -- the people or the politicians?" said Mr. Akina in a statement. "Enough with these unconstitutional efforts to build a government based on race. Let's get back to the business of helping Native Hawaiians in real, tangible ways."
Supporters of the Akaka bill, including Sen. Brian Schatz, Hawaii Democrat, say the special status is needed in order to ensure Native Hawaiians have "justice."
"Native Hawaiians are the only federally recognized Native people without a government-to-government relationship with the United States, and they deserve access to the prevailing federal policy of self-determination," said Mr. Schatz in a June 11 floor speech.
The lawmaker also downplayed the argument that Native Hawaiians are not Indians.
"Opponents have argued that Native Hawaiians are not 'Indians,' as if the word applies to Native people of a certain racial or ethnic heritage or is limited to indigenous people from one part of the United States but not another. This is misguided," he said.
Critics maintain tribal status for Native Hawaiians, who live throughout the state alongside citizens of other ancestries, would create two separate systems of government based on race.
Such a decision would also create a precedent for other groups such as Cajuns, Amish or Hasidic Jews, the civil rights commission members said in their letter.
Mr. Obama, who grew up in Hawaii, said during the 2008 presidential campaign that he would sign the Akaka bill if it passed during his presidency.
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http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/divide-and-conquer-obama-inc-wants-tribal-status-for-hawaiians/
Frontpage magazine, May 28, 2014
Divide and Conquer: Obama Inc. Wants Tribal Status for Hawaiians
by Daniel Greenfield
There's no end to the malicious acts of political vandalism coming out of Washington D.C. lately. This latest one would use indigenous legislation to revert Hawaiians from Americans to tribal members.
http://dailycaller.com/2014/05/27/obama-administration-seeks-race-based-government-in-hawaii/
Obama's administration has quietly suggested it is willing to create a two-tier race-based legal system in Hawaii, where one set of taxes, spending and law enforcement will govern one race, and the second set of laws will govern every other race.
The diversity proposal is portrayed as an effort to create a separate in-state government for people who are "native Hawaiians."
"There is no constitutional basis for conferring such status, and Congress has repeatedly refused to confer this status," said Carissa Mulder, a spokeswoman for two members of the federal Commission on Civil Rights.
Illegal alien amnesty is also illegal. So is running guns to drug dealers to shut down the Bill of Rights or putting a man in jail for making a movie that offends Muslims.
Obama's philosophy is to do whatever he wants and dare what's left of the government to stop him.
The move was announced Friday before Memorial Day as White House officials and congressional Democrats stepped up predictions that the president will try to bypass congressional opposition to his progressive policy preferences.
The proposed new legal regime for Hawaii is sketched in a federal document released Friday, dubbed an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking.
"The Secretary of the Interior is considering whether to propose an administrative rule that would facilitate the reestablishment of a government-to-government relationship with the Native Hawaiian community," said the document.
Hawaiian groups lobbied Congress to pass the Akaka bill, named after Sen. Daniel Akaka, a native Hawaiian senator.
The bill would have imposing variety on Hawaiians' shared government, via the creation of a tribal government for Hawaiians.
That bill would have converted Hawaiians' status from normal Americans into to subgroup similar to American Indians. Many Indians live on reservations governed by tribal governments since they were overrun during the European settlement of north America. The Akaka bill would also have transferred the Hawaiian land to the new tribe, allowing it to be used to generate wealth via gambling and other businesses for racial Hawaiians, she said.
The larger agenda is divide and conquer. Create countless subdivisions with special rights and privileges. Set groups against each other and turn government into the ultimate arbiter of the conflicts you've created. It's a familiar pattern from history.
Sadly history is repeating itself.
-----------------
http://www.staradvertiser.com/news/breaking/20140528_feds_may_pursue_relationship_with_native_hawaiians.html?id=261027751
Honolulu Star-Advertiser, May 28, 2014 Breaking News at 5:12 PM
U.S. may pursue relationship with Native Hawaiians
By Cathy Bussewitz, Associated Press
The federal government is considering re-establishing a government-to-government relationship with Native Hawaiians, just weeks after the head of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs sought clarity on whether the Hawaiian Kingdom still exists in the eyes of the United States.
The Department of the Interior wants to hear from the public to help decide which way to proceed, Mark Lawyer, deputy director of policy and regulatory affairs, said Wednesday.
"We're not committed to anything at this point. We just want to hear from the public," Lawyer told The Associated Press.
The advanced notice of proposed rulemaking is being reviewed by the Office of Management and Budget before it is distributed, he said. Then, if it is approved, public comments will help determine whether and how the federal government will proceed.
The Office of Hawaiian Affairs said it applauds President Barack Obama's administration for reaffirming the special political relationship between the federal government and Native Hawaiians.
"For decades, OHA and other Native Hawaiian organizations and individuals have advocated for the creation of a pathway to re-establish a formal government-to-government relationship with the United States and to protect existing Hawaiian rights, programs and resources," said Colette Machado, chairwoman of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, and Kamanaopono Crabbe, the office's CEO, in a joint statement.
The potential federal recognition does not change their commitment to leaving all options open in the nation-building process, and they still plan to elect delegates to draft a proposed constitution, they said.
Crabbe and other Office of Hawaiian Affairs trustees had been at odds after the letter he sent May 5 to Secretary of State John Kerry. In the letter, Crabbe said the U.S. government had acknowledged that the U.S.-backed overthrow of the Hawaii Kingdom in 1893 was illegal. The letter also questioned whether the Office of Hawaiian Affairs might be violating international law as it pursues the creation of a Native Hawaiian governing entity if the kingdom continued to exist.
Critics said the move by the Department of the Interior could undermine recent efforts by Native Hawaiians to create an independent government.
The department's actions appear to mirror the process that the U.S. government uses to recognize Native American tribes, said Williamson Chang, law professor at University of Hawaii.
"A federal Indian tribe doesn't have very much sovereignty, very much power, and the U.S. has full say as to what it can and cannot do," Chang said. "If this is going to be the end result of what Hawaiians get, it's not very satisfying."
A new tribal government could potentially build casinos or develop land without following typical state regulations, said Kelii Akina, president and CEO of Grassroot Institute of Hawaii, a think tank.
"Hawaiians are not and have never been a tribe, and to be put under a tribal government could hinder their freedoms guaranteed by the Bill of Rights,"Akina said.
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http://westhawaiitoday.com/news/local-news/oha-meeting-air-native-hawaiian-disagreements
West Hawaii Today (Kona), May 29, 2014
and
http://hawaiitribune-herald.com/news/local-news/oha-hear-views-hawaiian-government
Hawaii Tribune-Herald, May 29, 2014
OHA meeting to air Native Hawaiian disagreements
By Nancy Cook Lauer
What promises to be a heated debate among Native Hawaiians over what kind of government they want will be aired today at a meeting of the board of trustees for the Office of Hawaiian Affairs.
The meeting, to be held at 10 a.m. at the OHA boardroom in Honolulu, will be streamed live on the Web at
oha.org/about/board-trustees
The public can submit testimony by fax to 594-1865 and it will be distributed to trustees, an OHA spokesman said.
The meeting comes as the Native Hawaiian Roll Commission, an entity set up by state law, finalizes its roll in preparation for delegate elections this fall and a planned spring convention. The purpose is to forge agreement on whether Native Hawaiians will seek status as an independent nation, a government-within-a-government or keep the status quo.
But the group, which set a goal of 200,000 Hawaiians joining the roll, has so far collected only about 132,000, said Lei Kihoi, Hawaii Island's representative on the five-member commission. There are some 530,000 Hawaiian descendants in all, with about half living in the state, she said.
OHA trustees are scheduled to talk about whether the delegate election and convention should be postponed to give the commission time to collect more signatures.
The meeting also comes on the heels of a May 20 notice from the U.S. Department of Interior signaling it's considering whether the federal government should develop a formal, administrative process to re-establish a government-to-government relationship with a future Native Hawaiian governing entity.
And, it follows a public disagreement between OHA CEO Kamanaopono Crabbe and OHA trustees after a May 5 letter Crabbe sent to Secretary of State John Kerry questioning whether OHA might be violating international law as it pursues the creation of a Native Hawaiian governing entity if the Hawaiian Kingdom continues to exist. In the letter, Crabbe said the U.S. government had acknowledged that the U.S.-backed overthrow of the Hawaii Kingdom in 1893 was illegal.
The sequence of events illustrates how deeply divided the Native Hawaiian community is over the preferred path for governance. While some advocate a complete return to a Hawaiian Kingdom, others are pushing for a more measured approach, such as a self-governing entity recognized by the U.S. government, similar to Native American and Alaska Native tribal entities.
Kihoi said as a commissioner, she remains neutral on what the outcome should be. She just wants the convention to proceed so Hawaiians' voices can be heard.
"You can recognize any group of people, that is fine, but now it's time to establish our own government," Kihoi said. "The concept will be left to the people."
Former U.S. Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, tried for 13 years to get a federal recognition bill passed in Congress. Now the Obama Administration has taken up the torch by working to promulgate rules to move the process along.
Crabbe and OHA Chairwoman Colette Machado, in a joint statement Tuesday, praised the move.
"The OHA-supported nation building process and the federal government's consideration of a federal recognition process present an opportunity for a seamless transition from nation building to pursuing federal recognition, but only if that represents the desire of the Native Hawaiian people," the statement said.
Interior Department officials also want to hear from the public, but not quite yet. Interior spokeswoman Jessica Kershaw said Tuesday that the administration isn't necessarily moving forward with a proposed rule change, but is "just signaling that we are considering doing that."
Once an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking is published, public input will be solicited, she said.
"The ANPRM would seek input from the public, including Native Hawaiians and members of federally recognized tribes in the continental United States and Alaska, on questions relating to whether the development of such a process is warranted, and if so, how it should be structured," Kershaw said.
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http://www.oha.org/sites/files/KWO614_EDIT_WEB.pdf
Ka Wai Ola [OHA monthly newspaper], June 2014, available online May 29, pp. 16-17
One Voice, One Path
by Garett Kamemoto
When Office of Hawaiian Affairs Ka Pouhana, Chief Executive Officer Kamana'opono Crabbe and OHA trustees emerged from a meeting of reconciliation on May 19, they pledged to move forward together with "one voice" traveling down "one path."
The meeting capped a tumultuous 10 days where the two sides were locked in a dispute after Crabbe sent a May 5 letter to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry asking for a legal opinion on the status of the Hawaiian kingdom, and whether OHA could be violating international law by pursuing a Native Hawaiian governing entity.
Trustees quickly rescinded the letter, saying it did not reflect board policy, although two trustees, Dan Ahuna and Hulu Lindsey, later asked their names be removed from the letter rescinding the May 5 letter.
Chairperson Colette Machado and Crabbe sat down with Ka Wai Ola on May 21 to discuss the events that led to Crabbe's decision to send his letter to Kerry, the pressures they face, criticism that OHA has not been responsive to community concerns on Nation building, and the reconciliation between the administration and trustees. To see the may 5 letter, visit
http://www.oha.org/nationbuilding/files/050514_KP_Letter_to_US_State_Dept.pdf
Crabbe: It could have gone a very typical legal, corporate route where the board convenes without me and they make a decision. ... I think a majority of the trustees felt they needed to hear from me first.
Machado: The first step was whether Kamana'o remains in the room. But it was agreed he stays because we needed to talk to him about ... what actually transpired: the transactions that took place and the outcomes. So that was the first step. I felt that the trustees were trying to move to create an equal balance for him to be participatory in the dialogue.
On the ho'oponopono (process of reconciliation) that took place during the meeting and the role of cultural practitioner Earl Kawa'a, who was credited with helping Crabbe and the board work through their problems:
Machado: (Kawa'a) was telling mo'olelo and already he could sense, I guess if you do this all the time you know when the group is ready, and he knew we were ripe already when we were talking about our true feelings. He said, "You are in ho'oponopono now, and we have to go to the next level and we take one issue at a time." That's how it happened and it was very, very valuable I can tell you.
I see some of the hurt feelings because we didn't take punitive action against (Crabbe) by at least one trustee ... but there is a unanimous agreement that we want to move forward and we still want him as the head of the organization as the chief executive officer.
Crabbe: Chair had strong words about how my actions had offended her, because while we have a good working relationship, my actions had caught her off-guard.
I had not been forthcoming. I didn't share my actions not even with the executive team. ... (Some) trustees were expecting some disciplinary action, but yet I felt compassion from them because they understood the dilemma I was experiencing. But for me, the frustration, the hurt, all of these mixed emotions, I felt we needed the kupuna (Kawa'a) to help guide not just the board, but primarily the chair and I to restore our trust in each other as the leaders and our relationship.
I think both of us were hurt, angry, frustrated because we didn't know where each other was coming from and we have a lot of moving pieces to the puzzle both internally and externally. This is not an easy process and, in a way, it comes to a point where we have to put aside our pride and our ego and reorient ourselves to our organization and our community: what's in their best interest? And I needed to call upon (Kawa'a) to help us walk through that process.
On the events that led to Crabbe sending the May 5 letter to Secretary of State Kerry:
Crabbe: What I brought to the table, which I probably never expressed to them as a whole as well as individual trustees, were the challenges I was experiencing as well as the executive team when we went out to community meetings and Kämau a Ea (Hawaiian governance summits) was some pressure from the community. I had some personal threats to myself.
Machado: He felt he was all alone with some of the things that were happening, that he was on the front line all alone. The calls were coming in, the pressure was building, the attacks and calling him names and the threats to him and his family were coming in, but he didn't share that with anybody. That he kept to himself.
Crabbe: I think that lots of things were building up and things had occurred so quickly within these past two months that not only I but I think the whole organization was under tremendous pressure from all over, and I thank the chair and the trustees for allowing just the opportunity to share and what a lot of those things had weighed into my decision. It was weeks of contemplation before I had written the letter.
Machado: I should have allowed more time where he could have said: "Chair, I need to talk to all the trustees. Can we executive session this?" Then we would be able to get the gut, the na'au, which had to come out. Instead of allowing us to have that opportunity, it went the other way and we were caught off-guard with what took place.
On the current status of the letter:
Crabbe: Based on the trustees' letter, it's been rescinded. (I'm) comfortable (with that) because stepping back now we can address these concerns.
Machado: The questions are going to be on the forefront. We need to address this openly and publicly.
What if (the State Department) did say the Hawaiian kingdom is not in force, that everything was lost in the overthrow? Where is that going to take us in what we do now? What would be the impact of the question if it was answered and it came out negative? How would that impact us? Do we know the ramifications? I don't think so. So it's a real issue. I'm hoping that as we dial (that issue) up we can bring in experts.
On community frustration that OHA has not addressed their concerns about the current process of Nation building -- including extension of time for the process to play out, an alternative way to sign up to be a part of the process and the need for further education -- and on a board meeting scheduled for May 29 to address these issues:
Crabbe: People need to understand there are (Board of Trustees) committees. There are processes that are set, and by the time it gets to the board level, you would want these issues fleshed out with staff with some other trustees. We weren't afforded the time ... to process the community meetings and the Kämau a Ea summits to move forward. There's a lot built up not just for me personally but even other trustees were feeling the same thing. It's just that we didn't know how to come together and finally address it.
I think Chair and I knew (these issues) would be on the agenda on the 29th and I think a lot of things were building up during the community meetings in April. I don't think any of us could have anticipated that the community would come out that loud or that passionate.
Machado: What we agreed to is we're going to work together, allow the (meeting on the) 29th to take place; if there are (needed) amendments, if there's a change of heart, let it be known on the 29th.
We still have (our original) plan. If it (needs to be) amended, we are going to resolve ourselves into executive session to discuss it.
We're going to begin the meeting with those that support and those who oppose. We're going to have an open dialogue for as long as it takes on the 29th. If we can go 10 hours on Maui, I can go 10 hours in a conference room.
On concerns OHA continues to seek some form of recognition on the federal level while pledging to stay neutral in the Nation-building process:
Machado: There is a unanimous agreement as trustees that it is our duty and our mission to preserve and protect our entitlements for the future, and federal acknowledgement allows for the funding to (continue to) come down.
We're clear now it's two separate issues. This governance development in Hawai'i that we're moving to create is separate from getting the acknowledgement from (the U.S. Department of) Interior about our special trust relationship.
Crabbe: Even though we're committed to our Nation-building process, another way to view it is that we still have a fiduciary obligation, because as this Nation-building process moves forward, we are still vulnerable. OHA is vulnerable, other Native Hawaiian institutions and all the federal programs are vulnerable to cuts in funding and to lawsuits. The board is very clear at all levels of government and advocacy: We have to act in the best interests to protect OHA's trust and resources and also the trusts and resources of other Native Hawaiian institutions as much as possible.
Machado: The best thing for me, as trustees, we must man up that we support federal recognition and we have and continue to support that for whatever reasons, and we support Act 195 and the state recognition. This is the trustees' policy. We need to be sure we can communicate that much more clearly.
Crabbe: Even though that's the board policies ... when we support Nation-building and say, "We are neutral; we will facilitate," it means we will try to work with other Hawaiian stakeholders whether that's Ali'i trusts, royal societies, other Native Hawaiian organizations and community leaders in bringing them into the process, supervising it and being part of decision making where OHA is not the leader. We mean it -- we want to be neutral in the sense that all of the decision making that goes into the execution of contracts, that it's a transparent process in terms of the elections and the 'aha convention structure.
I think the board has always been open to the community feedback and after the community meetings and now on May 29th we're finally getting to address it as a board, as an administration and as a community. I think OHA is much more responsive now because Chair has heard it, I have heard it, staff has heard it and other trustees have heard it, and so now let's truly hear from others and have an opportunity to get back to (the community) given we are now at a point where we can re-evaluate moving forward with our current timeline, and ask what are the education needs of our community and how people can participate in the future.
On their relationship and working together in the future:
Machado: I know for certain that no matter what happens Kamana'o and I need to be very specific and direct. If we have something to express we need to get that out straight and as succinct as what we feel from inside. We need to allow for some open dialogue and we have to be honest, not let us think that we're doing OK and we're not.
This is where we're going to improve because at the level of mihi and the level of forgiveness, for me, was deep. I went deep to open myself to asking for mihi, to forgive me. That's a commitment for me to rebuild that you no get in a business statement or motion. That comes from inside. I have to uphold that as an individual.
Crabbe: Moving forward, what I agreed to and we had clear understanding and expectations laid out, that something as great as the letter I had written, I now understand will need the input of Chair and the trustees. We need to work together to address these issues as the leaders of OHA.
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http://www.staradvertiser.com/newspremium/20140530_Lets_stall_sovereignty_OHA_CEO_says.html?id=261217041
Honolulu Star-Advertiser, May 30, 2014
Let's stall sovereignty, OHA CEO says
The movement to rebuild a Hawaiian nation requires more education, a state official says
By Timothy Hurley
The Office of Hawaiian Affairs' top administrator Thursday recommended a six- to nine-month delay in OHA's nation-building process to allow time for further education about the issues surrounding the proposed creation of a Hawaiian government.
OHA CEO Kamana'opono Crabbe also offered two alternative options for adding people to the list of those who would participate in the nation-building effort:
» Including those who have signed up for the OHA Registry Program, Na Mamo Oiwi Hawaii, which provides those who can prove their Hawaiian heritage with an official card that verifies ancestry.
» Starting a new registration process separate from OHA.
Crabbe told the OHA trustees he made his recommendation based largely on the public comments he and his staff heard during a series of town hall meetings over the last few months. Those comments included concerns that there was a lack of education about the nation-building process and that more people needed to be involved.
"We are at a fork in the road where we have to reassess," he said, referring to the impending certification of the Native Hawaiian Roll and the scheduled September election of convention delegates. "Not only is more time essential, but we need education to better inform ourselves and refine the nation-building process."
A large and spirited crowd filled the Iwilei boardroom Thursday for a meeting to gather input into the nation-building process. Chairwoman Colette Machado said the trustees would make a decision on Crabbe's proposals at a later date and then opened a hearing that lasted all day with dozens of speakers.
Many expressed support for independence and the reinstatement of the Hawaiian kingdom. Many talked about the wrongs the United States committed against the Hawaiian nation.
They described as illegal the overthrow of Queen Liliuokalani, the annexation of the Hawaiian kingdom and the statehood referendum. They said Hawaii has been -- and still is -- illegally occupied by the U.S.
Some speakers asked for additional time for nation-building so people can be educated about the Hawaiian nation's history and learn how independence can be achieved through international arenas.
Manu Kaiama was among those who urged the trustees to not be afraid of reaching out for independence. At one time it seemed impossible to fly to the moon, she said.
"It's scary to think about independence," said Kaiama, a University of Hawaii accounting instructor, "but it's the only thing that is pono."
Hawaiian Homes Commissioner Renwick "Uncle Joe" Tassill said, "We want you to get the nation back so we can hand it to our children."
Shane Cobb-Adams of Kauai urged the trustees not to settle for protecting entitlements in a process that might lead to Hawaiians being treated like Indians on a reservation. Hawaii, he said, is a rich nation with many resources.
"I'm afraid you're stepping over dollars for pennies," he said.
Others condemned the Hawaiian Roll Commission's Kana'iolowalu effort to certify convention voters, describing it as a tool of the state. They complained that the roll contains too many names of people who did not ask to be included, many of them from previously assembled rolls incorporated into the Kana'iolowalu list, which has more than 125,000 names.
Some people did testify in support of the current nation-building timeline, among them Hawaiian Roll Commissioner Lei Kihoi, who said OHA needs to accelerate a process that is long overdue.
"It's time we revive the nation. It's time to move on," she said.
A number of testifiers urged the trustees to overrule their action to rescind Crabbe's letter asking Secretary of State John Kerry whether the Hawaiian kingdom still exists under international law.
As it stands now, May 1 was the final day to register to participate in the nation-building effort, and the official roll is expected to be certified by the Native Hawaiian Roll Commission next month.
The current timeline calls for the election of delegates in September. A convention, or aha, to draft a governing document, would happen in October or November. An up-or-down vote on the document would be held in January with only those listed on the official roll eligible to vote.
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http://westhawaiitoday.com/news/local-news/oha-mulls-delayed-convention-parallel-roll
West Hawaii Today [Kona], May 30, 2014
and
http://hawaiitribune-herald.com/news/local-news/oha-asked-delay-nation-building-plan
Hawaii Tribune-Herald
By Nancy Cook Lauer
Officials at the Office of Hawaiian Affairs are asking for a six-to-nine-month postponement of a Native Hawaiian convention to determine self-governance, in order to educate the public and construct a parallel roll for those who refuse to sign onto a roll ordered by state government.
The OHA board of trustees, faced with 63 people wanting to testify, on Thursday postponed a decision until its June 5 meeting. The current plan is to hold an election of delegates this fall, followed by a spring convention.
Testifiers, many of whom flew to Oahu from Hawaii Island and other neighbor islands, were mixed on the best course of action. But most of those speaking in a daylong meeting frequently punctuated by audience outbursts and applause called for a return to a true Hawaiian kingdom, rather than seek federal recognition or a government-within-a-government status.
"There are some people, no matter what we do, they won't accept it," said Trustee Rowena Akana. "They want nationhood, period."
Many testifiers said they're distrustful of the process, known as Kanaiolowalu, of building the roll because it was mandated by the state Legislature without consulting their Native Hawaiian groups. Testifiers also questioned OHA's neutrality on the issue because it is a state agency.
"There is a lot of skepticism … born of things that have not just occurred recently, but also long, long ago," said Kehaunani Abad, OHA community engagement director. "By opening up a second roll, it demonstrates that the OHA-fielded process is independent of Act 195."
"We must move forward with a prudent and reasonable pace," said OHA CEO Kamanaopono Crabbe. "If we go through this process, we want to do it right."
The Native Hawaiian Roll Commission, which set a goal of 200,000 Hawaiians joining the roll, has so far collected only about 132,000, said Lei Kihoi, Hawaii Island's representative on the five-member commission. There are some 530,000 Hawaiian descendants in all, with about half living in the state, she said.
But many who spoke at the meeting said there are only 125,000 on the roll, even after the deadline was extended once before.
Bo Kahui, executive director for Laiopua 2020, a planning group for the Villages of Lai Opua Hawaiian Homelands in West Hawaii, urged the differing groups to come together and get something done.
"It's time for our voices to be heard. … Seize the moment now. … Seize the opportunity," Kahui said. "No one faction, no one group, can do that unless we join hands to make this real."
Maybe the group does need more time to convince people to sign up, some said.
"Many of us are still trying to understand," said Kaimi Kaupiko, who grew up in Milolii. "Whatever timeline you guys have, we want to still discuss and have these conversations."
Native Hawaiian activist Walter Ritte said the process might work better if OHA stepped aside and let a Native Hawaiian group organize the roll and convention.
"I really think it's time for the board to pass the baton now," Ritte said. "Being a state agency, you can only do so much."
At least one OHA trustee agrees. Oswald Stender looked around the packed boardroom and said a leadership group should be organized to determine "how you'd like to see this unfolding."
"You should be doing this, not us," Stender said.
Members of the self-proclaimed Hawaiian Kingdom urged fellow Hawaiians to settle for nothing less than a return to the monarchy. A recent notice by the U.S. Department of Interior that it will consider whether the federal government should develop a formal, administrative process to re-establish a government-to-government relationship with a future Native Hawaiian governing entity added fuel to the fire.
"There is no such thing as a nation within a nation. … To get state or federal recognition is moot," said Stirling Ing. "We don't need their permission. … We don't need to beg or seek for recognition. We already exist as a nation."
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http://www.civilbeat.com/2014/05/oha-grapples-future-nation-building-effort/
Honolulu Civil Beat, May 30, 2014
OHA Grapples With Future of Hawaiian Nation-Building Effort
CEO recommends extending process and creating a separate roll for those Native Hawaiians who disagree with the current process.
By ANITA HOFSCHNEIDER
Office of Hawaiian Affairs CEO Kamana'opono Crabbe urged OHA trustees on Thursday morning to extend the timeline for nation-building and consider opening up a second roll for those Native Hawaiians who disagree with the current process.
More than 100 people crowded into a hearing room at OHA headquarters to hear an update on the agency's progress on facilitating Hawaiian nationhood and share their thoughts on the best path forward.
OHA, a semi-autonomous government agency charged with helping to better the lives of Native Hawaiians, conducted an aggressive public outreach campaign over a six-week period from March to May to gather signatures for the Kana'iolowalu Roll.
The list of names, estimated at over 130,000, is intended to serve as a basis for electing delegates and holding a constitutional convention as soon as this October.
But Crabbe recommended that trustees lengthen the process by six to nine months in response to community feedback that there should be more time for public outreach and education.
Kehaunani Abad, OHA's community engagement director, described the Native Hawaiian community's comments on nation-building as remarkably consistent, explaining that while most people supported OHA's goals, many had concerns about the way the agency is managing the process.
Crabbe suggested trustees not only extend the timeline but boost public education about Hawaiian history and the options for nation-building. OHA has already conducted 20 town halls and 11 additional meetings, while also placing newspaper and radio advertising.
Crabbe also urged trustees to consider opening up a separate roll for Native Hawaiians who have shied away from the current process out of fear that its outcome is predetermined because OHA is a state entity.
Abad said a second registration process would "ensure that the nation doesn't begin with a significant divide within the lahui (nation)."
But there already appears to be widely differing views about what a Hawaiian nation would look like.
Some want the ongoing nation-building process to move forward as planned and believe federal or state recognition is the best option for the indigenous community. Nearly a dozen people held up signs at Thursday's hearing indicating that they have signed and support the current roll.
But many others want greater independence, citing the current occupation of the Hawaiian Kingdom by the U.S. government.
A popular refrain during public testimony Thursday morning was that Hawaiian sovereignty endures and that federal recognition similar to that of many Native American tribes wouldn't be adequate.
The disagreement is reflected within OHA itself. Recently, Crabbe sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry seeking a legal opinion on whether the Hawaiian Kingdom, overthrown in 1893, still exists. And if it does, what does that mean for OHA and its efforts to rebuild a Hawaiian nation? The Board of Trustees later rescinded the letter.
Trustee Rowena Akana said she was annoyed at Crabbe's proposal to delay the process and the continuing dissent from many in the community.
"After a while it gets kind of ridiculous," Akana said. "Why do Hawaiians have to look like we're such idiots fighting with each other all the time?"
But several other trustees said they support Crabbe's recommendations. Trustee Dan Ahuna emphasized that the 350,000 Native Hawaiians who chose not to sign the roll deserve to be heard.
Crabbe told reporters after the hearing that OHA may not be the best agency to facilitate the nation-building process, which he described as a work in progress.
But he said that there is "political will amongst our people to establish or restore our government that is an extension of the legacy of Queen Liliokalani."
While he wants the agency to proceed with caution, he said, "It's imperative for us to establish some political protection as soon as possible."
The question is what that looks like in the 21st century.
-----------------------
http://www.hawaiifreepress.com/ArticlesMain/tabid/56/ID/12756/Hawaiian-Sovereignty-by-Fiat-Feds-advance-notice-not-a-serious-proposal.aspx
Hawaii Free Press, May 31, 2014
Hawaiian Sovereignty by Fiat?: Interior Department Considers Granting Quasi-Nation Status through Administrative Rule Despite Bay Mills Indian Community Supreme Court Decision on Tribal Status
by James Ching, Law.com, May 30, 2014
On May 27, 2014, the Obama Administration issued an advance notice of proposed rule-making stating that it "is considering whether to propose an administrative rule that would facilitate the reestablishment of a government-to-government relationship with the Native Hawaiian community, to more effectively implement the special political and trust relationship that Congress has established between that community and the United States."
http://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/eAgendaViewRule?pubId=201404&RIN=1090-AB05)
This statement of purpose is an obvious "notice to give notice" and therefore its vague and undetailed wording might be excusable as simply an unexamined draft. However, this advance notice can be made comprehensible by a review of the history of various legislative, judicial, and administrative actions concerning Native Hawaiians' status as an indigenous people.
Particularly opaque to the uninitiated reader is the reference to "reestablishment" of a "government-to-government" relationship. After all, the last time Hawaiians had their own government was in the 19th century. Moreover, that relationship between an independent Kingdom and the US cannot be reestablished after Hawaii's 1959 admission to statehood.
However, the meaning of this curt and conclusionary statement may be teased out of the complex history of Hawaiian-US relations. Kamehameha I united the Hawaiian Islands in 1810 and established the Kingdom of Hawaii. For most of the subsequent half-century, Hawaii was subject to political intrigues of the Russians, French, Japanese, Americans, and British because of its strategic mid-Pacific location.
In 1872, the Kamehameha line was followed by the Kalakaua family, whose last representative was Queen Liliuokalani. Under pressure from a group of American businessmen, she abdicated her throne on January 17, 1893.
A provisional republic was declared and the Republic of Hawaii was established on July 4, 1894. On July 7, 1898, the Territory of Hawaii was created, followed by the Hawaiian Organic Act on February 22, 1900 which established a governmental structure.
On March 18, 1959, the Hawaii Admission Act was passed and Hawaii became a state. The federal Office of Native Hawaiian Relations was authorized by Congress in 1995 and 2004 as an Interior Department link with the state of Hawaii.
At the state level, the Office of Hawaiian Affairs was created by the state Constitutional Convention of 1978. OHA was created as a public trust, with a mandate to better the conditions of both Native Hawaiians and the Hawaiian community in general. OHA was to be funded with a pro rata share of revenues from state lands designated as ceded by the predecessor royal government to the state.
OHA was the subject of Rice v. Cayetano, 528 US 495 (2000). The Supreme Court held that the ancestry classification, "Hawaiian," as provided in Article XII of the Hawaiian State Constitution, is race-based. Therefore, limiting voter eligibility to elect OHA trustees to "Hawaiians" violated the Fifteenth Amendment. Thus, Hawaiians were a race subject to constitutional discrimination laws.
Because Congress has never acted on the creation of a Hawaiian tribe, the distinction between race and tribe is absolutely crucial to the issue of federal recognition of Hawaiians. The crucial distinction between a race and a tribe is pointed out in Michigan v. Bay Mills Indian Community, ___US___, No. 12-515 (05/27/14), issued the same day as the Hawaiian advance notice of proposed rule-making. "Indian tribes are ‘domestic dependent nations' that exercise ‘inherent sovereign authority.'" As dependents, the tribes are subject to plenary control by Congress. Yet they remain "separate sovereigns pre-existing the Constitution."
Therefore, if Congress does not restrict a tribe's sovereign immunity, the tribe is immune from suit. The Bay Mills Indian Community, as a recognized tribe, may claim sovereign immunity against Michigan's suit over the placement of a casino.
As Hawaiians have never achieved tribal status, they have no sovereign status comparable to the Bay Mills Indian Community. That they have sought tribal status in the past may be connected with Rice. In a September 16, 2013 letter to the President from four members of the US Civil Service Commission, the argument was made that "the efforts to create a [Hawaiian] tribe are in large part an effort to preserve unconstitutional race-based privileges for Native Hawaiians in the wake of Rice."
http://new.grassrootinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Akaka-Letter-September-2013-Final.pdf ;
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/sep/17/civil-rights-panel-members-urge-rejection-hawaiian/
Whatever the truth of this assertion, the members of the Civil Service Commission concluded: "Neither Congress nor the President has to power to create an Indian tribe or any other entity with the attributes of sovereignty. Nor do they have the power to reconstitute a tribe or other sovereign entity that has ceased to exist as a polity in the past. Tribes are "recognized," not created or reconstituted. . . . Real tribes -- the kind the Federal government may recognize -- are defined by political structure and the maintenance of a separate society, not by bloodline. A mere shared blood quantum among the members of a group is not sufficient for the federal government to recognize an Indian tribe. The regulations governing the recognition of an Indian tribe focus on the cohesiveness of the group and evidence of a functioning polity of long duration."
The Interior Department, in 2012 and 2013, sought to identify a Hawaiian tribe by administrative rule.
"This rule would establish a process for identifying members of the Native Hawaiian community for the purpose of reorganizing that community as four political sub-divisions or bands, organizing the bands into a confederation, and then acknowledging a government-to-government relationship with that single confederation as a tribe."
http://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/eAgendaViewRule?pubId=201403&RIN=1090-AB05
The legal authority cited for the proposed rule seemed to imply that recognition of Hawaiians as a tribe could be accomplished without Congressional involvement. Indeed, the Department's position was that Congress had already approved tribal status "based upon the intentions of Congress, as evidenced in the Hawaiian Home Lands Recovery Act of 1995 [Public Law 104-42 (1995)], and Public Law 108-199 [(2004)]."
Public Law 108-199 and Public Law 104-42 established ONHR. [Office of Native Hawaiian Relations] The Office was to "effectuate and implement the special legal relationship between the Native Hawaiian people and the United States; ... continue the process of reconciliation with the Native Hawaiian people; and ... fully integrate the principle and practice of meaningful, regular, and appropriate consultation with the Native Hawaiian people by assuring timely notification of and prior consultation with the Native Hawaiian people before any Federal agency takes any actions that may have the potential to significantly affect Native Hawaiian resources, rights, or lands."
There is a formidable Constitutional gap in the logic of this proposal for tribalization. Congress must be involved in the recognition of tribal status and it is simply too big a leap from declaration of specific Hawaiian interests vested in an Executive agency to a declaration of tribal status by Congress. The passive approval of a set of modest goals for a modest executive Office is not a direct and specific approval of tribal status for Hawaiians.
A different approach was bruited in the Akaka Bill, HR 2314, which never passed into law. The Akaka Bill, the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act of 2009, HR 2314, was intended to create a separate, race-based government specifically for Native Hawaiians. The 2010 version of the Akaka Bill states that "despite the overthrow of the ... Kingdom of Hawaii, Native Hawaiians have continued to maintain their separate identity as a single distinctly native political community through cultural, social, and political institutions ..." Therefore, "there is clear continuity between the aboriginal, indigenous, native people of the Kingdom of Hawaii and their successors, the Native Hawaiian people today ..."
http://naturalresources.house.gov/uploadedfiles/abercrombie_ans022210.pdf)
The Akaka Bill reflects a new concept of revived nationhood for Native Hawaiians based on the Kingdom of Hawaii. This is taken up in the present advance notice of proposed rule-making. The advance notice abandons reference to the tribalization of Hawaiians. This seems advisable in light of the lack of Congressional enthusiasm for the Akaka Bill, the failure of the 2012-2013 administrative proposals, and the current deadlock in Congress.
The advance notice clearly contemplates that the 19th century sovereignty of the Kingdom of Hawaii, although extinguished by statehood, was a "government-to-government" relationship between Hawaiians and the US which may be reestablished.
The citations to the notice add color to this theory of revived nationalism. Using Public Laws 104-42 and 108-199, the same references made in the first Interior Department proposal, the ONHR's duties to effectuate and implement the special legal relationship between the Native Hawaiian people and the United States. continue the process of reconciliation with the Native Hawaiian people; and fully integrate the principle and practice of meaningful, regular, and appropriate consultation with the Native Hawaiian people are meant to be the authority for Interior Department action "reestablishing" a "government-to-government" status.
The best argument for the proposal, then, is that because the ONHR was created to liaise with the Hawaiian people, Congress intended that ONHR and the Interior Department to deal with Hawaiians as a sovereign nation even if it is conceded that Hawaiians were not and never were, a tribe.
However, this requires that the language that ONHR "effectuate and implement" relations between the two "nations" be interpreted as delegation of Congressional authority to conduct foreign relations to a small Executive agency. In the present political climate, this could hardly be the case. On a more theoretical level, such cross-branch delegation, especially with such unspecific language, would not withstand a Constitutional challenge.
The new approach to rule-making in the advance notice appears futile because Congress and the President exercise coordinate power over foreign relations, the very "government-to-government" relations in question. One need go no further than to review the furor over Presidential declarations of war without Congressional approval to see that Congress could legitimately block this Interior Department approach. (See War Powers Act, Public Law 93-148 (1973))
Another facet of the prior sovereignty approach is based on Morton v. Mancari, 417 US 535 (1974). In that case, a Bureau of Indian Affairs hiring preference for Native Americans was upheld as being political and not racial in nature." Benefits were accorded to Native Americans "not as a discrete racial group, but, rather, as members of quasi-sovereign tribal entities." This "special relationship" did not trigger strict scrutiny of the preference.
Particularly important is that Congress has legislated benefits for Native Americans without requiring trial membership. If the "special relationship" in Morton does not turn on tribal recognition, then Rice is not generally viable, but rather limited to voting rights and the paramount importance of those rights to a democracy.
Unfortunately, this argument reflects the same rule of Congressional involvement as the Bay Mills Indian Community case. The Morton theory as applied to Native Hawaiian revived nationality is that Congress has specifically intervened in some benefit area, in this case either tribal status or conferring the benefit of "government-to-government" status to Hawaiians, which obviates the advance notice's approach. Both Congressional inaction on the tribal issue and the Akaka Bill indicate that this is not the case.
Another example of Congressional nonfeasance is the Apology Resolution, Joint Resolution 19, Public Law 103-150 (1993), issued on the 100th anniversary of the overthrow of Queen Liliuokalani. Although the Resolution reviews the historical facts of the overthrow, it does nothing more than to offer "an apology to Native Hawaiians on behalf of the United States for the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii" and contains nothing pertaining to sovereign revival. The Morton argument must therefore rely on the rather weak argument of delegation of Congressional power to ONHR discussed above.
In summary, it is clear that both serious Constitutional separation of power questions hinder the establishment of Native Hawaiians as a tribe and that the situation has only become worse because of the current Congressional deadlock. Because of the latter, no recognition in a Constitutional fashion may even be broached in Congress although this is the only legal route to tribal recognition. Abandoning the tribal approach altogether seems both legally and practically prudent.
The new direction in the advance notice is even worse, as there is no Constitutional theory which endorses an executive agency alone to conduct foreign relations with existing (and for that matter, former) sovereign nations and no specific legislation which endorses this approach for the Kingdom of Hawaii.
The conclusion is inescapable that the advance notice is not a serious proposal. Even assuming that the advance notice is just a draft, the question becomes "A draft of what?" Is it a "place-holder" meant to be a new assertion that an old problem is still an object of concern or an assurance to its stake-holders? In any case, one could wish that the Interior Department had a specific, practical, and Constitutional proposal backing up the language in the advance notice which hasn't yet been revealed.
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James Ching is a former Supervising Deputy Attorney General, California Department of Justice and Chief Counsel, California Board of Prison Terms. He specializes in criminal, constitutional and labor law and is the author of numerous published articles on these subjects. He has argued more than 500 cases in various appellate courts, including three in the US Supreme Court.
================
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