The Obama administration has opened a door to some form of federal recognition of Native Hawaiians but is leaving it up to the people whether to walk through it.
It’s an encouraging advance of an idea that, while opposed by many in the community, is also backed by many as supporting Hawaii’s indigenous people’s interests.
The U.S. Department of the Interior on Tuesday issued the long-anticipated result of the contentious hearings held throughout the islands last year and has tendered what is plainly a compromise offer.
Under a new rulemaking process, Native Hawaiians can decide if they want to organize a government and in what form — and then decide whether to establish a government-to-government relationship with the United States.
Critics of the action question its timing, given that there is now a federal lawsuit challenging plans next year for an ‘aha, essentially a constitutional convention involving the election of delegates by Native Hawaiians.
And even supporters must concede that the Interior Department’s announcement seems pegged to the ‘aha.
But time is, in fact, short: Given the dwindling tenure of Hawaii-born Barack Obama in the White House, a president sympathetic to the cause of Native Hawaiian self-determination would need to act pretty soon.
And it would be beneficial to have federal recognition at the ready as an option for the delegates, and the government they may decide to form, to consider.
Of course, Tuesday’s announcement was only the start of another round of what surely will be a rancorous discussion, though an exchange that will be conducted in written form.
Once the notice is published in the Federal Register, the public will have 90 days to submit comments on the proposal.
Commenters can go through the online portal (www.regulations.gov, using Docket ID DOI-2015-0005); send an email to part50@doi.gov (including the number 1090-AB05 on the subject line; or mail them to: Office of the Secretary, Department of the Interior, Room 7228, 1849 C Street NW, Washington, D.C., 20240.
The rule adapts some of the facets of the so-called Akaka Bill, the long-contested and ultimately failed legislation to enact federal recognition through Congress.
However, it seems less prescriptive, and that suggests that the federal authorities were sensitive to the stiff pushback they felt in the June 2014 hearings here.
For example, it would require some means of enumerating Hawaiian descent but does not require a specific form of roll.
A few other elements of the rulemaking process:
>> A governing document must be ratified in a referendum that is noticed in advance and is “free and fair,” but the form of that referendum is not fixed.
>> Ratification must be by a voter turnout that is “sufficiently large to demonstrate broad-based community support.”
Weighing various population data, the Interior Department “concludes that it is reasonable to expect that a ratification referendum among the Native Hawaiian community in Hawaii would have a turnout somewhere in the range between 60,000 and 100,000, although a figure outside that range is possible.”
>> The governing document must provide for periodic elections, and for the protection of the rights of Hawaiian Homes Commission Act beneficiaries — those of 50 percent Hawaiian ancestry who are eligible for a homestead.
The federal rulemaking process has the full support of the governor and the congressional delegation, who noted the rights of Native Hawaiians to pursue self-determination and control of their own resources.
The Star-Advertiser concurs with this basic concept.
Above all, those who have questions or concerns need to engage in the process.
That is the essence of democracy, and it’s where self-determination begins.
