Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 16, Number 1, 1 January 1999 — Hawaiians and the '99 Legislature [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Hawaiians and the '99 Legislature

By Paula Durbln ĪHE 1999 legislative session opens Jan. 20 with a few new faces at the Capitol, lots of new committee chairs and a somewhat changed structure. For Hawaiians, the biggest surprise is the elimination of the House Committee on Hawaiian Affairs. Several controversial bills, uniformly negative in their impact on Hawaiians, originated in this commit-

tee m tyy / ana iwo wnen Manoa representative Ed Case was chair. Some were derailed because of effective pressure from the Hawaiian eommunity whieh ralhed around the 'Iho'ulaokalani Coafition. The laek

of a Hawaiian Affairs Committee could make tracking and opposing such bills difficult. "We need to anticipate a big fight to protect traditional and cultural rights," Trustee-at-Large Mililani Trask, chair of OHA's Committee on Governmental Affairs and Sovereignty, assessed the 1999 session. Trustee Trask also expects the legislature to attempt to extend Act 329

whieh has capped OHA's ceded lands revenue share at $15.1 million. She advises Hawaiians to watch for such anti-Hawaiian bills in the House Judiciary Committee, chaired by Rep. Paul Oshiro; the House Finance Committee, chaired by Rep. Dwight Takamine; the Senate Ways and Means Committee, chaired by Sen. Carol Fukunaga; and the Senate Committee on Water, Land and Hawaiian Afifairs, chaired by Sen. Colleen Hanabusa. "People should stand by to get the eall," said Trustee Trask, suggesting Hawaiians be ready for another show of force in 1999.

On Dec. 8, OHA's Board of Trustees approved a package of 13 bills it hopes will be passed this legislative session. Many relate to an expanded role for OHA in decisions involving land. Three would require, respectively, that OHA be represented on the Board of Land and Natural Resources, the Land Use Commission, and the Commission on Water Resources. Another would make OHA a party to all land use agree-

ments executed by the Department of Land and Natural Resources, the Department of Agriculture and the Agribusiness Development Corporation. OHA also wants the Chairperson of the Office of

nawanan /\nairs 10 sign off on any lease of govern-ment-owned Hawaiian fishponds. Finally, OHA seeks to be a party to all quiet title actions conceming kuleana land in escheat cases, where there appears to be no heir. OHA is also introducing legislation that would exempt Hawaiians from fees charged by the Department of Health for documents required to

verify Hawaiian ancestry; provide bus transportation for public school immersion students; allow certain homesteaders to purchase their leases for $1; appropriate $2.4 million for infrastructure at Kikala-Keokea; appropriate $2 million for infrastructure improvements in Maunalaha Heights; provide for OHA to be represented on the Hawai'i Tourism Authority; and allow OHA trustees to participate in the state retirement program. Several of the bills had been submitted to the legislature during previous sessions. ■

'We need to anticipate a big fignt to protect traditional and en ltnral riglits. — Mililani Trask

[?]

• s PHOTO: JAYSON HARPER