Free Republic

It isn’t quite the Akaka Bill sneak attack that many have warned of in recent days, but on page 809-810 of the 2011 Omnibus Appropriations Act, Senator Dan Inouye has slipped in a mandate to the US Department of the Interior: SEC. 125. The Secretary of the Interior shall, with funds appropriated for fiscal year 2011, and in coordination with the State of Hawaii and those offices designated under the Hawaii State Constitution as representative of the Native Hawaiian community, including the Office of Hawaiian Affairs and the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands, and the Attorney General of the United...

A racial spoils precedent that could lead to new 'tribal' demands across the U.S. Last week, the House of Representatives, in a largely party-line vote, passed the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act. Popularly known as "the Akaka bill," this piece of legislation might turn out to be this Congress's single most calamitous decision. The bill creates a complex federal framework under which most of the nation's approximately 400,000 ethnic Hawaiians can organize themselves into one vast Indian tribe. It endows the tribe with the "inherent powers and privileges of self-government," including the privilege of sovereign immunity from lawsuit. It also...

Fascism in a Lei By Edward Hudgins ehudgins@objectivistcenter.org What could be friendlier or more welcoming place than Hawaii, America's 50th state? If S-147, the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act of 2005, introduced by that state's Democratic Sen. Daniel Akaka, is passed by the U.S. Congress, the ugly scourge of racism — the real, honest-to-badness type, not the name calling type that gets flung around too often — will rule those islands which, in the future, might cease to be part of the United States. The proposed legislation would divide Hawaiians into "natives" and all others. Anyone with a drop of...