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GOP candidate
challenges
OHA spending

Revenue from ceded land
should benefit all state citizens,
not just Hawaiians, the
lawsuit contends

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By Pat Omandam
Star-Bulletin

The Republican candidate running against U.S. Sen. Daniel K. Akaka (D, Hawaii) has filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court saying revenue payments from state ceded lands to the Office of Hawaiian Affairs is discriminatory and should be stopped.

Candidate and attorney John Carroll seeks a preliminary injunction that would halt OHA from using its $350 million investment portfolio to help Hawaiians. He contends that it violates the equal rights amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

"The ceded land revenue, which goes directly to the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, should benefit all the people of Hawaii, not just benefit one race," Carroll said.

"Hawaii is a melting pot; it has been for over 100 years. Just as the kingdom of Hawaii encompassed all citizens, so should the state of Hawaii," Carroll said in a statement yesterday.

Carroll, who has lived in Hawaii for 49 years, is represented by former state Judge Richard Lee. The lawsuit was filed late yesterday and has been assigned to U.S. Senior District Judge Samuel P. King.

Plaintiffs' attorney Paul D. Hicks said a scheduling conference has been set for Jan. 8, 2001. But Hicks said yesterday that Carroll is considering a motion for preliminary injunction.

State Deputy Attorney General Girard Lau, who represented the state this summer in a U.S. District Court case that eventually opened OHA elections to candidates of non-Hawaiian ancestry, said yesterday that he had not seen the lawsuit and could not comment on it.

Kim Murakawa, spokeswoman for Gov. Ben Cayetano, said the governor had no comment. Cayetano told reporters yesterday the state will defend the constitutionality of OHA and what it is supposed to do for native Hawaiians.

The defendants in the case are state directors James Nakatani, Paul G. LaMahieu, Timothy E. Johns, Seiji Naya, Kazu Hayashida, Raymond Sato, as well as OHA's interim board of trustees.

Carroll claims that the defendants have denied him equal financial entitlements from the ceded land income paid to OHA and paid out by the agency's $350 million trust fund due to his race.

He cites the Feb. 23 U.S. Supreme Court decision in the Rice vs. Cayetano case that states Hawaiians are a racial classification. Carroll believes money paid to OHA as ceded land income should have been used for the education of all the children of the state, as was done before OHA was created in 1978.

OHA Special

Rice vs. Cayetano arguments

Rice vs. Cayetano decision

Holo I Mua: Sovereignty Roundtable