“Next week, it is rumored when we’re in recess that the U.S. House of Representatives is going to bring the Akaka bill to the floor of the House. What makes this most interesting is for the past three months after the bill passed out of House Committee and the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, there was talk about redoing the bill, amending the bill, modifying the bill, bringing all parties into discussion on the bill. And yet during that period of time, no one knows exactly what changes have been made, if any, and what the text of the bill actually looks like, and yet people are going to be asked to vote on this bill next week. I’ve made the call in the Legislature before to have people in the State of Hawai‘i vote on the Akaka bill, each county, and we have not done that. We’ve not discussed it. No one knows at this point what the text of that bill looks like.
“One of the members of the House Committee from Washington, Doc Hastings, made this comment: ‘Subdividing Americans into sovereign nations based on race or ethnicity is a serious matter and is something that should be debated openly, not in backrooms with restricted input. Whatever bill comes to the floor next week, I can only hope that the authors took time to address the serious constitutional issues of the underlying legislation.’ I couldn’t agree more. What this bill would do, if in fact it does pass in whatever form, is immediately to transform native Hawaiians into Indian tribes without their having input, discussion, or right to vote. I think that all of us should press for open discussion and the ability for all of our people to vote openly on this issue. Thank you, Madam President.”
