Jerry Burris at the Honolulu Advertiser has a blog where he comments on the issues of the day and from time to time has some interesting observations. One such case was in a recent blog on November 27, 2006. After a few homey after-Thanksgiving comments he wrote about a recent article in the Advertiser that noted that OHA (Office of Hawaiian Affairs) spent over $2 million lobbying for the passage of the Akaka bill.

This does not include travel expenses (which is typically first class), or the $900,000 maintaining a full time office in Washington or other peripheral expenses, so the total amount spent by OHA was, in the final analysis, much greater. He then goes on to make a curious but interesting observation:

“In the newspaper game, we always say follow the money. And that amount of money tells you there are big big stakes at play in the Akaka bill, stakes which we may not yet fully understand.”

In one sense one has to wonder what rock he has been living under for the last several years if he didn’t already understand that there were “big big stakes at play” in the push to pass the Akaka bill. And in a certain sense it is impossible to “fully understand” what those stakes are because the Akaka bill is such a poorly written open-ended piece of legislation there is no way to know. But it is possible to accurately surmise some of the stakes.

First is land, a little more than 40 percent of the land on the islands is ceded lands. This will be the first stake. If those lands are negotiated away to the new reorganized Native Hawaiian government then they will leave Hawaii state’s possession, along with any tax revenues those lands now generate for the state.

If, as is the case with Native American Tribal lands on the mainland, the Hawaiian government decides to charge lower taxes on items like cigarettes or beer then the state will lose that revenue as buyers flock to Native Hawaiian stores to purchase cheaper, tax discounted products. The revenue loss on cigarettes alone runs from tens of millions to hundreds of millions of dollars in some states.

There are businesses around the islands that are currently on ceded lands. They currently pay taxes to the state but that revenue could become the sole jurisdiction of the Native Hawaiian government.

The loss of revenue for the state of Hawaii will mean taxes will have to be raised on the remaining state residents to continue to provide the services the people have become accustomed to. Tribal members on Native American tribes that work on the reservation pay no federal income tax. They, with rare exceptions, pay no state taxes either since this would result in double taxation, once for the tribe, once for the state.

Since the Native Hawaiian government would be a sovereign government state zoning rules, building codes and other regulations on its lands would no longer apply. The same could be said for business regulations. The Native Hawaiian government would be determining these, not the state government.

There is the issue of mineral rights. Currently all mineral rights are owned by the state, the only state to do so. Presumably these rights would become the property of the Native Hawaiian government land it controlled as well. Geothermal production is considered a mineral right and the state of Hawaii currently gets considerable revenue from the geothermal plant on the big island and state law only allows geothermal on that island. There would be no such restriction on a sovereign Native Hawaiian government.

Then there is the issue of marine and fishing rights. Submerged lands are considered ceded lands and could become the exclusive property of the Native Hawaiian government. These areas could then be designated as “off limits” to all who are not part of the new nation or have to pay exorbitant fees for the privilege of using them.

Another aspect of the Akaka bill is that it changes the definition of who is Native Hawaiian in such a way that a person who is 1.5 percent Hawaiian ancestry or less can still be certified as Native Hawaiian. That would make that person eligible to be part of the new nation and the privileges that come with it. It guarantees an ever growing pool of potential Native Hawaiian subjects.

This is just a beginning list of what’s at stake if the Akaka bill passes. There could be much more because the Akaka bill only creates a legal entity, the Native Hawaiian government, and leaves nearly everything else to “negotiation” between the federal, state and the Native Hawaiian governments. Even the anti-gaming provision that was added to the bill because of objections by the Bush administration could be “negotiated” away or changed by Congress at a later date.

Considering the lobbying effort by OHA noted at the beginning of this article it’s easy to foresee the lobbying effort by the Native Hawaiian government to change the gaming law. With the revenue sources mentioned above the Native Hawaiian government would have plenty of resources with which to lobby.

OHA nominally gets 20 percent of the revenue from ceded lands although the actual amount is in dispute. In 1993 OHA received $130 million in back payments for its share of ceded lands revenue, from 1980 to 1991. It recently agreed to settle for $15 million in annual payments and a lump sum $17.5 million for disputed revenues so it is easy to see the amount of revenue from ceded lands is considerable. Thus $2 million in lobbying money is small potatoes considering what’s at stake.

So Burris is right, there are “big big” stakes in whether the Akaka bill passes or not. And the problem is that most residents of this state don’t understand at all just how high those stakes really are. If passed the Akaka bill will forever change Hawaii and it isn’t likely to be for the better. Hawaii will become a divided place, with different rights and privileges for some and not for others, all depending upon a proverbial “drop of blood.”

References:

http://tinyurl.com/yz5jja

http://tinyurl.com/ykp2ss

Don Newman, senior policy analyst for the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii can be reached at: mailto:don@grassrootinstitute.org