Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 16, Number 7, 1 July 1999 — Governor vetoes Hawaiian bills [ARTICLE]

Governor vetoes Hawaiian bills

B y Paula Durbln Governor Ben Cayetano has vetoed two bills directly afTecting Native Hawaiians. Ceded lands One bill, S.B. 1635, vetoed June 10, would have paid the Office of Hawaiian Affairs $16,060,000 in ceded land revenues for fiscal year 2000 and would have required eomplehon of an inventory of ceded lands. A press release issued by the governor's office claimed the purpose of S.B. 1635 was "to fashion a comprehensive, just and lasting or global settlement of all controversies relating to the management and disposition of the puhie land trust and the ineome and proceeds generated from the ceded lands." However, OFLA's trustees saw this legislation differently. "This

bill basically extends Act 329, Session Laws of Hawai'i, 1997, as to its makeup, meeting and reporting to the legislature," Trustee Mililani Trask wrote the governor on behalf of the board after it adopted her Governmental Affairs and Sovereignty Committee's recommendation to ask him for a veto. (Act 329, scheduled to sunset June 30, capped OHA's share of ceded land revenues for two years at $15.1 million annually, or about 50 percent of OHA's yearly entitlement.) "This bill also calls for interim revenue to OHA to be credited toward any sum owed by the state, whieh actually amounts to a loan that OHA will repay through a reduction of settlement claims," Trustee Trask continued. Cayetano cited her letter in his explanation of his veto. "Given OHA's request, the state's pressing need to apply its limited general revenues as productively as possible and the fact that this bill provides no eoncrete means for furthering the effort toward a global resolution of all outstanding issues relating to the puhlie land trust, I am not convinced of the necessity of this bill." In the absence of any subsequent statute specifying another amount, OHA's revenue share is calculated according to Act 304 under whieh the amount would exceed $16,060,000. As a practical matter, OHA may have to seek enforcement. Claims panel On the chopping block a week later was H.B. 1675 whieh would have extended the Hawaiian Home Lands Trust Individual Claims Review Panel by another year. Since 1991, the panel has handled claims filed by individual beneficiaries for breach of the Hawaiian Home Lands trust, most of them involving the notoriously long waits for a homestead. According to panel chair Peter Trask, 40 percent of all such claims have been processed to date and 13 percent of the total were determined to have merit. In 1997, the legislature tried to restrict the panel's authority with Act 382, eliminating damages for waitlist claims to those meeting criteria applied by a working group comprised mainly of appointees to Gov. Cayetano's cabinet. But 68 Hawaiians filed suit alleging a denial of due process. Circuit Court Judge Marie Milks agreed and granted their motion for sum-

mary judgment, holding Act 382 unconstitutional. Unhke the lawmakers who met in 1997, the 1999 legislamre apparently considered the claims process worth continuing. But the governor said the process has not worked. In a news release explaining his veto, he said the continued existence of the panel would mislead Hawaiians to expect compensation for excessive waits for a homestead. In Trask's press release, he expressed disappointment with the veto. "The governor's veto leaves the more than 2,000 beneficiaries whose claims are pending as well as those who have had a decision by the panel, in a state of limho," he said. "Under the law creating the panel, the only recourse these claimants now have is to file suit in circuit court." ■