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Native status
hearings all
on Oahu

Six hearings next week on
the Hawaiian bill are moved
from the neighbor islands

---

By Pat Omandam
Star-Bulletin

Congressional hearings scheduled statewide next week on a bill dealing with the political status of native Hawaiians will all be held on Oahu to accommodate U.S. Sen. Daniel K. Akaka, who is recovering from hip replacement surgery.

Akaka's doctor has not yet cleared him for air travel, his spokesman Paul Cardus said today. Akaka had surgery to replace his right hip on Aug. 5 at Queen's Medical Center.

He spent five days at the Rehabilitation Center at Kuakini and is now at home in Honolulu resting and undergoing physical therapy.

"When he advised his colleagues that he couldn't fly, they thought that the best option, based on his leadership role in this, was to move them to Honolulu," Cardus said.

The six joint hearings by the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs and the House Committee on Resources were planned on each of the major Hawaiian islands next Monday to Friday. Cardus said the hearing dates remain the same, but the sites will all be at the Blaisdell Center's Pikake Room.

The exact meeting times were to be finalized later today. There likely will be a half-day hearing on Monday followed by daylong hearings the rest of the week, Cardus said.

Neighbor island residents who signed up to testify -- about 100 in all -- are being contacted and given the opportunity to speak in Honolulu or to submit written testimony. The joint committee is also looking at teleconferencing, if possible, Cardus said.

A U.S. Supreme Court decision last February opened the Office of Hawaiian Affairs election to all voters. That prompted concerns race-based programs for Hawaiians were in jeopardy because they were not recognized as indigenous people by the federal government.

In July, Hawaii's Congressional delegation introduced a measure, known as the Akaka Bill, that proposes to recognize Hawaiians as the indigenous people of Hawaii.

It also allows Hawaiians to form an interim governing council to set guidelines for the election of a native Hawaiian governing body to engage in government-to-government relationships with the United States.

The bill states Hawaiians have an inherent right to self-determination.

The delegation hopes to pass the bill this session before Congress adjourns in early October.