Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 23, Number 5, 1 May 2007 — OHA PREVAILS [ARTICLE]

OHA PREVAILS

Cūntinued fram page ŪG resolution by the legislative and executive branches of the governnient. Allowing these plaintiffs to present this type of grievance, the appeals court said, "would interpose the federal courts as virtually continuing monitors of the wisdom and soundness of state fiscal administration, contrary to the more modest role Article III [of the U.S . Constitution] envisions for federal courts." The Arakaki suit was originally filed in 2002 by a group of taxpayers, led by retired Honolulu polieeman Earl Arakaki, who claimed that OHA, the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands and other programs solely benefiting Native Hawaiians violate the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Eventually, the case was narrowed to just a single issue: whether the plaintiffs, as state taxpayers, have the right to challenge the funding OHA receives from state tax revenue, whieh makes up approximately 10 percent of the agency's total annual budget. Based on a unanimous Supreme Court opinion last May that a group of taxpayers in Toledo, Ohio, lacked the right to ehallenge tax breaks that were being offered for a new Jeep plant, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in February that the Arakaki plaintiffs, too, lacked standing to press their elaim. The appeals court then sent the case back to Mollway's courtroom for final resolution. E3