Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 15, Number 3, 1 March 1998 — OHA'S LEGISLATIVE PACKAGES [ARTICLE]

OHA'S LEGISLATIVE PACKAGES

By Paula Durbln AT ITS Feb. 23 meeting, the Board of Trastees of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs adopted a position, as recommended by the Legislative and Govemmental Affairs (LAGA) committee, on eaeh of more than 800 bills currently before the 1998 legislature. Yet as recently as Feb. 26, LAGA was adapting its recommendations to the fluid situation at the legislature, and it continues to monitor. % Meanwhile, ()HA's own bills. described in detail on the front page of the January Ka Wai Ola j and reported under the board business section of the Febraar\ issue, have not fared as well as the authors had hoped. " The I lou.se of Representatives at least had the courtesy to put eaeh bill on the agenda of the Hawaiian Affairs Committee," said OHA Govemment Affairs Officer Jalna Keala, "but the Senate picked and chose." According to Keala, OHA's proposal to amend the Hawai'i Revised Statutes to include OHA as a party to quiet title to kuleana land when the owner dies without heirs is a measure that stands a good ehanee of becoming law. She is also optimistic that the senate will hear OHA's bill specifying that the chief procurement officer of the Office of Hawaiian Aifairs shall be an individual designee of OHA's BOT. A change in the

state's procurement law last year had named the chairperson to the chief procurement position. But most other bills proposed by OFLA have been. held by the House Hawaiian Affairs Committee with no ehanee of moving forward. These include the proposal that OHA hav,e a seat on the ī.and lJse Commission and on the Board of Land and Natur al Resources. Similarly. OHA's proposal that Hawaiians be exempted from the fees charged by the Department of Heahh for birth cert|ficātes required tb f prove ancestry and secure henefits imd entitlements was held. Most discouragingly. the bill whieh might have had the greatest impact appears to have no future during this legislative session. HB 2918 would have required OHA be a signatory on all state transactions of any description relating to public trust lands. This was also hcld by the House Hawaiian Affairs Committee. The committee did pass HB 3291 . but in amended form. Originally, OHA's draft would have required OHA's written concurrence in all leases of govemment-owned Hawaiian fish ponds. As amended, the bill directs the BLNR to investigate and develop traditional or subsistence management practices for government-owned Hawaiian ponds. Commenting on some of the 800 bills OHA will oppose this

session, Keala pointed to the rapid progress of HB 3130, relating to a constitutional eonvention. "What's scary about this bill is its brevity and seeming simplicity," she said. Testifying before the House Judiciary Committee on Feb. 12, Trastee Haunani Apoliona cited the eoncems regarding a Con-Con #sflSred by such well-respected community organizations as the League of Women Voters. "Given the current hostile elimate of the legislature, state admihistration and state officials toward Native Hawaiian rights, privileges and benefits," she added, "OHA opposes this bill that has the potential of wiping out those meager gains made over the past 20 years in the form of state obligations whieh 8till have ng« been fully met. "We are painfully aware that many Hawaiian rights were created by constitutional amendment. followed by statutory provfctons, and could be abolished or severely limited through another constitutional convention," she continued, after signaling measures currently before the legislature that would, through the creation of special funds and authorities as well as the switching of lands, erode OHA's basis of the ceded land trust. Nonetheless, the committee referred the bill to the senate Judiciary Committee. ■