Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 27, Number 12, 1 December 2010 — Does our Constitution have any meaning to our elected officials? [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Does our Constitution have any meaning to our elected officials?

This eoīumn was written by Dickie Nelson, a plaintiffin the case Nelson, et. al, v. Hawaiian Homes Commission, et. al.

OHA Trustee Bob Lindsey's October eolumn in Ka Wai Ola concedes that the State of Hawai'i acknowledges that the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands program has not and is not receiving sufficient funding for its four purposes: 1) the development of home, agriculture, farm and

ranch lots; 2) making loans available for the above; 3) rehabilitation projects to include but not be limited to, educational, eeonomie, political and cultural processes by whieh the general welfare and conditions of Hawaiians are thereby improved; 4) the administration and operating budget of the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands; in furtherance of ( 1), (2), (3), (4) herein by appropriating the same in the manner provided by law." In 1978, the people of the State of Hawai'i passed an amendment, Article XII Section I to the Hawai'i State Constitution requiring the Legislature to provide "sufficient sums" to pay for all of the above. The Committee Report of the Convention further stated, "...to no longer allow the legislature discretion in this area." This very important decision was passed by our voters 32 years ago! Currently, few know of its existence. Under the Lingle administration, the State, with Hawaiian Homes Commission approval. now provides DHHL no general funds for its operations as mandated by our Hawai'i State Constitution - for the first time in the past 20 years. No other state department has suffered such a cut. Lormer DHHL Chair Mieah Kane's leadership has initiated the general leasing of trust lands, contrary to the very intention of the 1978 Constitutional Convention delegates who

passed the amendment. Since then, DHHL's waitlist beneficiaries has quadrupled (23,000+), attesting to the growing unaddressed

needs of the program! We are suing to enforce the Constitution and for no other reason! We asked Hawaiian Homes Commission members to join the lawsuit; they declined. One of our plaintiffs said, "This inaction appears to portray a conspiracy by those in power to ignore the highest law ofour land, thus denying the Department of Hawaiian Homes to successfiilly achieve its

four purposes expressed above." The lower court ruled it could not consider the issue based on what is called the political question doctrine, the same one that stopped OHA from suing for ceded lands revenues from Honolulu Airport operations. We believe this case is different and have asked the Intermediate Court of Appeals to tell the judge he is wrong. On Sept. 8, 2010, our attomeys at the Native Hawaiian Legal Corp. argued in support of us. That decision is pending. As plaintiffs, we are asking, "Where do we Hawaiians go for support beyond the legal system if those puhlie officiaIs responsible don 't follow the Constitution tliey are under oath to support and defend? Doesn't the oath of office all of them took require them to support and defend the Constitution, including this clear mandate to fund homesteading programs and operations? The deputy attorneys general defending the State and DHHL inaction tried to spin their defense by urging the court that the words have only moral, not legally enforceable, force. In other words, no court should judge us, no matter how badly we implement this program. What has heeome of our constitutional democracy? If we don't mean what we say in the Supreme Law of this State, has our political eonscience run dry? ■

Rūbert K. Lindsey, Jr. TrustEE, Hawai'i