Rep Bishop: Hawaiian Tribe Process Unconstitutional
WT: …On the Hawaii decision, (House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Rob Bishop, R-Utah,) was more blunt: "This rule is unconstitutional and the executive branch is making up the rules as they go."
"It's another example of this administration exerting power they were never given in the first place," Bishop scolded. "Congress needs to put an end to this executive abuse by establishing a consistent and transparent framework for the recognition of native groups."
Jewell said the administration heard from "thousands of voices from the Native Hawaiian community," while "the public testified passionately about the proposal" during the two-year decision-making process….
read … Unconstitutional
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“This change is intended to circumvent legal, congressional processes, and Hawaiian community input”
KHON: Healani Sonoda-Pale of Protest Na’i Aupuni said that “this change is intended to circumvent legal, congressional processes, and Hawaiian community input. … Without any congressional oversight or congressional vetting, President Obama and his successor will confer immense power on a pseudo native government.”
LINK: Video of News Conference
read … Pseudo-Tribal
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Hawaiians are not an Indian tribe
CB: “Today, President Obama spat in the face of every Hawaiian, from Queen Liliuokalani down to us Hawaiians here standing now,” she told several dozen supporters in front of Iolani Palace.
While the DOI described its rule-making process to set up government-to-government relations with an indigenous entity as “an opportunity” for Hawaiians, protesters like Sonoda-Pale said the action was “sad” and “painful.” Hawaiians, she and others insisted, are not an Indian tribe.
Sonoda-Pale said 95 percent of the people who turned out to testify at public hearings in the islands two years ago opposed the DOI’s proposals….
LINK: Video of News Conference
read … Obama ‘Spat’ On Hawaiians
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Grassroot Institute Criticizes DOI Rule for Subverting Will of Native Hawaiians
Watchdog group cites overwhelming Native Hawaiian opposition to federal recognition
News Release from Grassroot Institute
HONOLULU, HAWAII -- (Sept. 23, 2016) -- Today, the Grassroot Institute criticized the Department of the Interior for subverting the will of Native Hawaiians on the issue of federal recognition. With the announcement of the DOI's rule to facilitate the reestablishment of a formal government-to-government relationship with the Native Hawaiian community, the President has reignited a controversy that had begun to wane in the wake of Na'i Aupuni's dissolution.
"Native Hawaiians are on record as overwhelmingly opposed to efforts by the Department of Interior to recognize or establish a Hawaiian tribe or government," stated Keli'i Akina, Ph.D., President of the Grassroot Institute. "Every survey by the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, from 1978 to the present, shows that Native Hawaiians want OHA to stop wasting money on federal recognition and, instead, to spend those millions on meeting the real needs of Hawaiians for housing, jobs, education, and healthcare. OHA and the DOI are on a crash course in their rejection of the will of the Hawaiian people."
The DOI proposed the rule in 2015, and the Grassroot Institute was among the many who submitted comments in opposition to the creation of a federal Native Hawaiian tribe. Grassroot's comments cited problems with the rule's Constitutionality, its attempt to usurp Congressional authority, and its divisive nature as only a few of the many reasons the rule should have been set aside.
Most of all, Grassroot cited the continual Native Hawaiian opposition to federal recognition, pointing out that by pushing for the creation of a Native Hawaiian polity, the rule would precipitate a legal challenge and fracture any sense of cultural unity among Native Hawaiian groups.
Dr. Akina continued: "With today's announcement, the bureaucrats in Washington have proved that they aren't listening to the Native Hawaiian people. We are still fresh from the disaster that was the Native Hawaiian Roll and the Na'i Aupuni constitutional convention. This rule only encourages OHA and the state to waste more time and resources on a problematic and unconstitutional nation-building effort."
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Hawaiians Openly Reject President Obama’s new rule—a DOI invented process to create a Native Hawaiian Tribe
News Release from Protest Na‘i Aupuni, September 22, 2016
Press Conference 12 noon Sept 23, 2016 @ ‘Iolani Palace
As President Obama announces his plans to federalize Hawaiians as a tribe, Hawaiian community leaders and groups who have for many years protested attempts to turn Hawaiians into Native Americans (the Akaka Bill), will hold a press conference Friday, September 23rd at 12 noon in front of‘Iolani Palace. They will restate their opposition to the Obama Administration’s Department of Interior (DOI) rule change.
“This change is intended to circumvent legal, congressional processes, and Hawaiian community input,” said Healani-Sonoda Pale, founding member of the group, Protest Na‘i Aupuni and one of the organizers of the press conference. “President Obama tasked his DOI to come up with a process that will allow him to use his Executive Order privilege and designate federally chosen groups of Hawaiians as recognized. Without any congressional oversight or congressional vetting, President Obama and his successor will confer immense power on a pseudo native government,” Sonoda-Pale said. “And this will allow the DOI to move forward with a process of creating land and resource settlements that typically follow legitimate, congressionally conferred federal recognition.”
Two years in the making, the Obama/DOI rule change was created in response to Office of Hawaiian Affairs CEO Kamana’opono Crabbe’s May 5, 2014 letter to Secretary of State John Kerry. In it, he essentially questioned the legitimacy of US jurisdiction in Hawaii by requesting proof of how the Hawaiian Kingdom was legally annexed to the United States.
However, rather than answer the question, President Obama instructed the DOI to hold public hearings in Hawaii to discuss federal recognition. During the summer of 2014, hearings were held for 2 weeks on 5 of the Hawaiian Islands. Thousands of Hawaiians lined up, but only hundreds were able to testify. The overwhelming majority (over 95%) rejected the idea of a DOI Rule change and spoke powerfully in opposition to any Federal or State controlled process for sovereignty.
“It feels like the overthrow all over again,” says Kahalu’u Kupuna and Protest Na’i Aupuni member Kapu Lambert. “The finalization of the DOI Rule forebodes more hardship Hawaiians. Many of our people are homeless and are at the bottom of every socioeconomic statistic in Hawaii. We cannot trust the State and Federal governments and their collaborators to do the right thing on our behalf especially when it comes to Hawaiian sovereignty and lands. I refuse to accept this Rule.”
“After tens of millions of dollars were spent by the state agency Office of Hawaiian Affairs to lobby for federal recognition, after 15 years of resistance to being federalized, we are now going to be saddled with being a fake tribe and federally designated so-called leaders,” said Sonoda-Pale.
Asked why the US would want to federalize Hawaiians when, in fact, hundreds of tribes on the continent have been trying to get federally recognized for many decades, Sonoda-Pale said, “Why? Because they want our land. They want to create a so-called universal land claims settlement of our Crown and Government lands, aka ‘Ceded Lands.’ And further,” she said, the United States of America, who has never been respectful of indigenous peoples—as we are seeing in North Dakota, is trying to dissolve our rights as a people to self-determination as defined by international law, and our human rights as indigenous people that have also been codified by the United Nations.
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