Lingle will testify In a week, Gov. Linda Lingle leaves to lobby for a native Hawaiian recognition bill before Congress.
in support of Hawaiian
recognition bill
She will urge passage of
a measure that has been
re-introduced on Capitol HillBy Richard Borreca
rborreca@starbulletin.comShe will be the first governor of Hawaii to testify before a congressional committee in favor of the bill re-introduced yesterday by Hawaii's congressional delegation.
The bill, championed by U.S. Sen. Dan Akaka and identical to his previous bill, would extend the federal policy of self-determination and self-governance to native Hawaiians.
Akaka said yesterday that the bill would establish parity in federal policies toward native Hawaiians, Alaskan natives and American Indians.
"Our bill gives the native Hawaiian community the tools to guide their own destiny," Akaka said.
Lingle said in a news conference yesterday that she was concerned the Hawaii delegation introduced the same bill as last year, which did not pass. She called the strategy "unrealistic," but added that she would still speak in favor of it.
"We are all committed to working together on the bill," Lingle said. "Leaving it the same is not going to gain us any support, but from their point of view, it did pass one of the two houses."
Lingle, Hawaii's top-ranking Republican, will be lobbying a GOP-controlled House, Senate and federal administration, so she is encouraged that she may be able to have some extra influence.
"I am not going to argue legal issues with John Ashcroft (U.S. attorney general) or any other legal scholars. I am going to argue as the governor of Hawaii -- this bill is about Hawaii and the people of Hawaii, and we must have a state that is whole and moves forward together," she said.
"I am a new governor of a state that I want to be healthy and whole and to live well with itself."
Also going to Washington to testify during the hearing will be the nine Office of Hawaiian Affairs trustees. The testimony will be before the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs.
The bill was reintroduced in both the House and Senate.
The House and Senate Indian Affairs committees held five days of testimony on a similar bill in August 2000 in Honolulu. The Akaka bill passed the full House in 2001 but stalled in the Senate.
The bill came after the landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the Rice v. Cayetano lawsuit, which invalidated the state's racial restrictions in Office of Hawaiian Affairs elections because the Hawaiians-only rule violated the 15th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, guaranteeing the right to vote.
Supporters feared that decision would jeopardize more than 150 programs used by the 200,000 people of Hawaiian ancestry.
Lingle will also attend the mid-winter meeting of the National Governors Association in Washington, D.C.
Sen. Daniel Akaka Office of the Governor