Rep. Ward calls on Legislators Not to Follow Speaker Souki's and Governor Ige's Lead Against the Hawaiians

News Release from office of Rep Gene Ward (R-Hawaii Kai)

Honolulu ­– Members of the House Finance Committee and Senate Ways and Means listened to the Department of Hawaiian Homes hearing on Thursday, January 14, 2016.  The members learned that the DHHL's budget is written after the DNA of the Nelson case wherein Judge Castingnetti ruled that DHHL operations would by law have to be sufficiently funded to $28 million.

Representative Gene Ward sent an email to his colleagues at the State Capitol in support of the Hawaiian community noting that no one in the Senate or the House was ever consulted by leadership's terse "Notice to Intervene."

"After 96 years of neglect by not providing housing for the Hawaiian community (as mandated by the US Congress in 1920), the Legislature and Governor are behaving in a heartless legalistic manner to avoid funding the Department of Hawaiian Homes the $28 million that Judge Castagnetti ruled that it deserves," said Rep. Ward.

"As long as the Hawaiian community is on the lowest rungs of the socioeconomic ladders of education and income, but on the highest rungs of incarceration, diabetes, homelessness and foster care abuse, our leaders need to get their priorities straight and use their hearts, not just their heads and budget pencils," continued Rep. Ward.

"The time of this issue could not be worse with the TMT protestors and a likely angry and contentious Nai Aupuni Constitutional Convention to be held in a few weeks in Kailua and could be fodder for more hatred of the US and the State of Hawaii by some groups who can plainly see we are still nickel and diming the Department of Hawaiian Homelands after 96 years, and has created a wait list of 27,000 Hawaiians in 2016," Ward concluded.

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Representative Ward addresses funding to DHHL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLsxrv29MI0