by Andrew Walden
S.675, the 2011 version of the Akaka Bill, passed a voice vote of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee today. The next stop for the bill would be the floor of the US Senate No version of the Akaka Bill has ever passed the Senate.
Senator Dan Akaka has been trying to create an artificial Indian Tribe in Hawaii ever since the IRS in 1999 forced corrupt Bishop Estate trustees to resign. The effort is a variant of the Broken Trustees’ 1995 plan to relocate KSBE HQ to the Cheyenne River Sioux Indian Reservation in South Dakota.
Native Hawaiians have never been a tribal group, the Hawaiian ethnicity was created by King Kamehameha in the wars of conquest which formed the Hawaiian Kingdom, a national state which was not ethnically exclusive. Polynesians living in these islands have not lived as tribes since they were conquered by Tahitian invaders about 1500AD. The Tahitians imposed themselves as a ruling class (ali’i) with a bloodline separate from that of maka’ainana (commoners). This marked their society as feudal, not tribal.
The House version of the Akaka Bill would have to get past the GOP majority in that chamber to succeed. House Natural Resources Committee Chair Doc Hastings (R-WA) is opposed to the new form of the Akaka Bill.
The 2011 Akaka Bill creates instant tribal jurisdiction and excludes about 73% of Native Hawaiians—it is almost identical to the 2010 version of the Akaka Bill which was opposed by Hawaii Governor Linda Lingle and Attorney General Mark Bennett.
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Senate Indian Affairs Committee: Akaka Bill Page
Announcement: Senate Indian Affairs Committee
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