[ OUR OPINION ]

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McCain should refrain
from blocking Akaka bill

THE ISSUE New Senate Indian Affairs Chairman John McCain says he opposes the Hawaiian recognition bill.

SENATORS Inouye and Akaka achieved a major breakthrough last October when they maneuvered an agreement that seemed to assure removal of roadblocks and probable enactment of the Hawaiian sovereignty bill. However, Sen. John McCain, the new chairman of the committee with jurisdiction over the issue, now has voiced his opposition to the bill. Hawaii's senators and Governor Lingle now must persuade him to refrain from using his authority to strangle the bill in his committee.

The Akaka bill's chief antagonist had been Sen. Jon Kyl, whose anonymous hold on the bill prevented its consideration by the full Senate in its last session. When Akaka and Inouye offered the bill's text as an amendment to a bill dear to Kyl, McCain's fellow Arizona Republican agreed to drop his hold on the Akaka bill if they would withdraw the amendment. Kyl and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist agreed to bring the Akaka bill to the Senate floor no later than Aug. 7 of this year.

McCain, who took over chairmanship of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee in the new session, told Stephens Media Group that he opposes the Akaka bill, maintaining that it would betray an understanding that went with Hawaii's statehood.

"When Hawaii became a state," McCain said, "there was an implicit agreement at that time that native Hawaiians would not receive the same status as native Americans." McCain was not in Congress in 1959 -- he had just begun his 22-year career as a naval aviator -- and he provided no documentation to support his revisionist understanding of the Hawaii Statehood Admissions Act. That is why he referred to the supposed agreement as "implicit."

"We are prepared to walk through the history and brief him or his staff on our perspective," said Haunani Apoliona, chairwoman of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. Governor Lingle said she will put McCain on her "visit list" when she travels to Washington in February.

McCain said he would prefer an increase in the budget to "reflect the needs of native Hawaiians than take it from the federally recognized tribes." His statement displays ignorance of the Akaka bill's contents.

The bill specifies that Hawaiians will not compete with Indian tribes for dollars distributed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Instead, the benefits of Hawaiian recognition would be implemented by the Office of Native Hawaiian Affairs, a separate agency created by Congress last year within the Interior Department.

McCain did not say whether he will use his new position to block the Akaka bill's movement to the Senate floor. Such a tactic would be a rude undermining of the agreement made only three months ago by Kyl and Frist.