Explaining Hawaii to mainland colleagues almost always results in a great puzzlement.

Saying that, “We just do things different in Hawaii” doesn’t work, because folks do things different in Montpelier, Vt., or Pascagoula Parish in Louisiana.

But, explaining how the Na‘i Aupuni election, which is so important to Native Hawaiian self-determination, is not really a state election just causes confusion.

The issue is of enough concern that today it is before the U.S. Supreme Court because last week Justice Anthony Kennedy ordered local officials not to count the ballots in the election to select delegates to a convention to come up with a plan for self-governance to be submitted to the U.S. Department of Interior.

The election was sponsored by the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, a state agency. It tried to meet the challenge of the 2000 Rice v. Cayetano Supreme Court decision, also written by Kennedy.

That ruling struck down the part of Hawaii’s Constitution limiting the right to vote in OHA elections to those who were Native Hawaiian.

“A state may not deny or abridge the right to vote on account of race, and this law does so,” wrote Kennedy, who said, “There is no room under the (15th) Amendment for the concept that the right to vote in a particular election can be allocated based on race.”

The 15th Amendment came to be after the Civil War to preserve the right to vote, but now it comes back into play as Kennedy used it to toss the OHA exclusions.

“It is quite sufficient to invalidate a scheme which did not mention race but instead used ancestry in an attempt to confine and restrict the voting franchise,” Kennedy said.

Add to that the question that if Na‘i Aupuni is rebuilding a nation, precisely which nation is being rebuilt. Where do these bricks come from?

Hawaii as a nation before the 1893 overthrow was not a country ruled exclusively by Native Hawaiians; the courts and the legislature had people of different ancestries, so going back to a period before Western contact may define a population, but not the nation’s citizens.

Hawaii may be unique, but it is not about being exclusively for a separate group.

Kennedy concluded his 2000 Rice v. Cayetano decision by first stressing the complexity of Hawaii.

“When the culture and way of life of a people are all but engulfed by a history beyond their control, their sense of loss may extend down through generations; and their dismay may be shared by many members of the larger community,” he warned.

Then Justice Kennedy gave some advice that today should be considered as we struggle to figure out how form this new union.

“As the State of Hawaii attempts to address these realities, it must, as always, seek the political consensus that begins with a sense of shared purpose. One of the necessary beginning points is this principle: The Constitution of the United States, too, has become the heritage of all the citizens of Hawaii.”

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