For years, whenever former U.S. Sen. Daniel K. Inouye was asked about Native Hawaiian sovereignty, Hawaii’s most accomplished politician would deftly parry the query.

"The Hawaiians have to decide what they want and when they do, I will do what I can in Washington to get it," Inouye would answer.

Inouye may be gone, but this year the question of how to answer the question of the relationship among the state of Hawaii, the federal government and Native Hawaiians is growing more complex and more heated.

The furor started last month just as the Office of Hawaiian Affairs was concluding setting the table for a process of nation-building.

If you are organizing a government for, by and of Native Hawaiians, first what was needed is a list of who are the nation’s citizens.

Already there is trouble. First, there are Native Hawaiians according to the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act of 1920, who are "any descendant of not less than one-half part of the blood of the races inhabiting the Hawaiian Islands previous to 1778."

Added to that are Native Hawaiians who had signed up via the Native Hawaiian Roll Commission, which defined Native Hawaiian "as any person who is a lineal descendant of the aboriginal people who resided in the Hawaiian Islands prior to 1778, or, any person who is eligible or is a lineal descendant of a person who is eligible for Hawaiian Home Lands."

Complaints about what would be accomplished with this list of voters were magnified by the objections of groups such as The Grassroot Institute, which said it doubted OHA can call an election that does not allow participation from all voters in Hawaii. Non-Hawaiians telling Hawaiians what’s what is both presumptuous and a prescription for disaster, but the president of the Institute is Kelii Akina, who says he is running for OHA trustee-at-large.

About this time, OHA’s top executive decided it would be good to ask the U.S. Secretary of State if Hawaii was a state or a separate country.

In polite terms, there was a certain amount of pushback to this query.

Last week, OHA held a public hearing on the nation-building process and the OHA executive suggested the process would be best served with a six- to nine-month breather to mull over who would be carrying the bricks in this nation-building and what would be the resulting edifice.

But then, just like the joke, "I’m from the government and I’m here to help," the federal Interior Department heaved into the picture.

Grassroot Institute found several federal notices saying first that the Interior Department was considering a new plan.

"This rule would establish a process for identifying members of the Native Hawaiian community for the purpose of reorganizing that community as four political subdivisions or bands, organizing the bands into a confederation, and then acknowledging a government-to-government relationship with that single confederation as a tribe," read the first notice.

A later notice said: "The Secretary of the Interior is considering whether to propose an administrative rule that would facilitate the re-establishment of a government-to-government relationship with the Native Hawaiian community, to more effectively implement the special political and trust relationship that Congress has established between that community and the United States."

Conservative media like Fox News immediately leapt on their horses and rode off in all directions at once.

"President Barack Obama’s administration has quietly suggested it is willing to create a two-tier, race-based legal system in Hawaii, where one set of taxes, spending and law enforcement will govern one race, and the second set of laws will govern every other race," Fox reported with more bluster than facts.

A spokeswoman for the Interior Department issued a cautionary statement saying nothing has happened, but it is "considering publishing an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to help determine whether the Department should develop a formal, administrative process to re-establish a government-to-government relationship with a future Native Hawaiian governing entity."

And that is why Inouye was wise to wait for orders and not issue his own.

Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Reach him at rborreca@staradvertiser.com.