Ezra dismisses U.S. Chief District Judge David Alan Ezra today dismissed a lawsuit that would have stopped ceded land payments to the Office of Hawaiian Affairs.
Carroll lawsuit
against OHA
The plaintiff lacks standing;
can't stop ceded land paymentsBy Pat Omandam
pomandam@starbulletin.comThe lawsuit was filed by John Carroll, who is running for Hawaii governor as a Republican and who in 2000 lost a race for the U.S. Senate against Hawaii Sen. Daniel Akaka, a Democrat.
Ezra said Carroll lacked standing or did not suffer any injury and so is not qualified to file the lawsuit.
It was the same reason Ezra used to dismiss the Patrick Barrett case, in which Barrett claimed discrimination because he was denied access to a OHA loan program.
Ezra said today Carroll has a generalized political complaint that must be addressed in the U.S. Congress or the state Legislature, but not in federal court. "It means that at this point in time ... he does not have the standing to bring the challenge he is bringing," Ezra said today.
The judge stressed his ruling is not based on the merits of the case, an issue that likely will be taken up eventually by him or some other federal judge.
Carroll said his lawsuit against the state sought a permanent injunction to stop state ceded-land revenue payments to OHA, which ranged from $15.7 million in 1995 to $8.2 million in 2000. But, he said in an interview yesterday, the lawsuit was also intended to stop OHA from using its $300 million trust for what he termed discriminatory practices, such as lobbying for the Akaka bill in Washington. That bill would allow federal recognition of native Hawaiians.
"So what I had wanted to do was get the court to say that, to the extent a person was otherwise qualified, they would be eligible regardless of race to receive funds through OHA," said Carroll, a lawyer and former state legislator.
Carroll said he had standing because he has done pro bono work with Hawaiians on the Big Island and wants to open a law practice to continue helping them.
"There is a very definite situation in Hawaii where the people of native Hawaiian ancestry just simply ... they've been left in the dregs in many cases," he said.
But OHA board attorney Sherry Broder said yesterday that not only had Carroll not applied for anything from OHA, but that he had not identified anything that he wants from the agency.
The case is the latest of several addressing native Hawaiian issues. In the Rice vs. Cayetano decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Feb. 23, 2000 that the state's Hawaiians-only OHA election was unconstitutional.
In August 2000, a U.S. district judge opened OHA elections to candidates of any ethnicity, a decision that prompted the Barrett and Carroll lawsuits two months later.
And a Sept. 12 ruling by the Hawaii Supreme Court invalidated ceded-land revenue payments to OHA because the state law requiring it conflicted with a federal law.
The Hawaii justices, who agreed the state should pay OHA its pro rata share of revenue from additional sources of ceded lands, said it was up to the state Legislature to devise another OHA revenue formula that passes legal muster.
One bill introduced this session gives OHA $17 million in interim revenue payments, while another would abolish OHA in favor of a Hawaiian autonomy trust.
