Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Obama administration hearings in Hawaii incite racial disputes

A proposal by the Obama administration to create a new relationship with ethnic Hawaiians backfired on the administration Monday as native Hawaiians rallied in force against the proposal to reestablish a “government-to-government relationship” between the United States and the Native Hawaiian community. The U.S. Department of Interior, here in Hawaii on the president’s behalf, is holding a series of “Advanced Notice of Proposed Rule Making” hearings about the plan to “more effectively implement the special political and trust relationship that currently exists between the Federal government and the Native Hawaiian community.” The capitol auditorium was so packed Monday, organizers sent the overflowing crowd to other rooms in the capitol to view the hearing remotely. The vast majority of native Hawaiians who testified were indignant, and even outraged, that the federal government would try to insert itself or side with any native Hawaiian faction vying to take power away from other Hawaiians by officially organizing and negotiating. They scolded, shouted at, and questioned the motives of, Interior Department officials. University of Hawaii Hawaiian studies professor Jonathan Osorio said the Department of interior should not intervene and impose additional “aggression upon our nation.” While the debate is stirring up an already racially divided community, constitutional experts are arguing The White House and Department of Interior have no legal right to create such a relationship and has no business holding these hearings in the first place. Former Hawaii State Attorney General Michael Lilly said at a recent forum that unlike native Americans, native Hawaiians have no tribe, and therefore the United States cannot enter into a treaty relationship. “The current effort to recognize a separate ethnic tribe by the Department of the Interior is unconstitutional because, under the Constitution, it is the Congress that has the plenary power to recognize tribes and ratify treaties. That power does not reside in the Executive branch of the federal government or with the various states. So the current effort aimed at creating a tribe of Hawaiians has no legal basis,” Lilly said...more

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