Akaka Bill - Opposition

Opposition

Opposition to the Akaka Bill includes:

1. Those who believe that the bill is unconstitutionally race-based;
2. Those who believe the 'tribe' created via the Akaka Bill would shield corrupt trustees from prosecution;
3. Those who believe that a school voucher system would allow Kamehameha Schools to serve all interested Hawaiian students and also admit non-Hawaiians thus eliminating the race-discrimination basis of the lawsuits;
4. Those who believe that it could begin the process of secession of a single racial group from the United States;
5. Those who believe that it could thwart the process of secession of Hawaii from the United States and the restoration of an independent Hawaiian nation controlled by native Hawaiians (native Hawaiian sovereignty activists);
6. The United States Commission on Civil Rights;
7. Hawai`i's Attorney General Mark Bennett.
8. The George W. Bush Administration, which issued a letter arguing against the earlier version of the bill;
9. Aloha 4 All, a Hawaii based civil rights group;
10. The Grassroot Institute of Hawaii, a Hawaii-based think-tank
11. Republican Presidential candidate Senator John McCain
12. US Representatives who wrote a letter to the Speaker of the House and Majority Leader asking them to kill the Akaka Bill. The letter entailed three reasons for killing the bill: (1) The Constitution does not allow for a separate, sovereign, race-based government; (2) Practical issues have not been addressed such as how businesses could fairly compete with each other if one must for example pay state taxes and another must not; (3) Historical commitments do not support such a bill. For example when Hawaii became a state there was broad congressional consensus and assurances given by the State of Hawaii that Native Hawaiians would not seek to be treated as a separate racial group and transformed into an "Indian tribe".

Native Hawaiian sovereignty activists who oppose the bill believe that it blocks their attempts to establish their independence from the federal government and disregards 1993 Public Law (103-150), in which Congress apologized "for the overthrow and the deprivation of the rights of Native Hawaiians to self-determination." Washington-based constitutional scholar Bruce Fein has outlined a number of counter-arguments disputing the accuracy of the assertions made in the Apology Resolution, stating "The apology wrongly insinuates that the overthrown 1893 government was for Native Hawaiians alone".

In 2006, the United States Commission on Civil Rights held hearings on the Akaka bill, and published a report recommending strongly against it. The report states in part:

The Commission recommends against passage of the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act of 2005 (S. 147) as reported out of committee on May 16, 2005, or any other legislation that would discriminate on the basis of race or national origin and further subdivide the American people into discrete subgroups accorded varying degrees of privilege.

Some opponents believe that programs maintained exclusively for Native Hawaiians, such as the Office of Hawaiian Affairs and the Kamehameha Schools, are race-based and discriminatory and see the Akaka bill as an attempt to subvert the February 23, 2000 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Rice v. Cayetano, which ruled that limiting participation in OHA elections to Native Hawaiians was an unconstitutional restriction on the basis of race.

Some opponents are also skeptical of the bill’s language disallowing casinos or other gaming in Hawai`i, since although it denies the newly created government "inherent" authority to conduct gaming, it leaves that issue open to future negotiation.

In May 2006, Senator Akaka began a run of fifteen daily speeches on the issue to gain support for a cloture vote on the bill, after the Commission on Civil Rights report recommended against the bill. Opponents of the Akaka bill have responded to his daily speeches, as well as to the arguments in favor made by other politicians.

Regarding the latest version of the bill, S.310, Akaka's website states, "This language has been publicly available since September 2005 and has been widely distributed." However, opponents note, S.147, which failed to get enough votes for cloture on June 8, 2006, did not include the revisions now present in S.310.

In 2007, at a hearing before the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, Principal Deputy Associate Attorney General Gregory Katsas stated:

By dividing government power along racial and ancestral lines, S. 310 (the bill) would represent a significant step backwards in American history and would create far greater problems than those it might purport to solve

FreeHawaii.info is a site that documents many of the misgivings of this bill, the history of changes, and a few voices of the many opponents.