Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act of 2005--Motion to Proceed

NATIVE HAWAIIAN GOVERNMENT REORGANIZATION ACT OF 2005--MOTION TO PROCEED

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Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, the history of America has been one of racial inequity, followed by a long but sure path to reconciliation. At the time of this country's founding, a person's race could determine whether he lived in freedom or in slavery.

Fifty years ago, race could still determine where a person could live, what water fountain he could drink from, or what kind of life he could lead.

Today, thankfully, that is no longer true. We have recognized that nearly every time our Government has taken race into account when dealing with its citizens, the effects have been detrimental, if not devastating; and for that reason, as President Kennedy once said, ``Race has no place in American life or law.''

Unfortunately, today, the Senate is considering a bill that would wreck the progress we have made toward a color-blind society.

S. 147, the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act, would not only direct the Government to establish a government based solely on race, it would also seek to confer preferences based on race. It violates the letter and the spirit of the U.S. Constitution, and it must be opposed.

When I say the bill violates the U.S. Constitution, I am referring specifically to the 14th amendment, which was ratified in 1868, after the Civil War, to address unequal treatment based on race.

The 14th amendment reads:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States ..... nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

The 14th amendment was quite clear. The way this bill tries to maneuver around its unconstitutionality is by classifying Native Hawaiians via the Federal Indian law system, and creating a new ``tribe'' of Native Hawaiians.

But this new ``tribe'' is a shell game. Native Hawaiians have never been viewed as an Indian tribe, including when Hawaiians overwhelmingly voted for statehood in 1959.

As recently as 1998, the State of Hawaii itself acknowledged that the tribal concept has no historical basis in Hawaii. Specifically, in Rice v. Cayetano, the State of Hawaii wrote the following in a brief to the U.S. Supreme Court. This is what the State of Hawaii had to say at that time:

For the Indians the formerly independent sovereign entity that governed them was the tribe, but for Native Hawaiians, their formerly independent sovereign nation was the kingdom of Hawaii, not any particular tribe or equivalent political entity. .....The tribal concept simply has no place in the context of Hawaiian history.

That was in the brief of the State of Hawaii itself in a case in 1998.

Mr. President, the Senate should be an institution that brings America together. Let's not tear apart our common identity as Americans. We should not use this fiction of Indian tribe status for Native Hawaiians to divide our country.

By the way, have I mentioned that not even the people of Hawaii support this bill? According to a poll conducted by the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii, 67 percent of Hawaiians oppose it--two-thirds of the State. Hawaiians overwhelmingly oppose this bill, based upon those survey results.

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights conducted public hearings on S. 147. They oppose it and recommend against its passage. They oppose it because they believe it is racially discriminatory and divisive. This is what the Commission on Civil Rights had to say about this measure:

The Commission recommends against the passage of the Native Hawaiians Government Reorganization Act ..... or any other legislation that would discriminate on the basis of race or national origin and further subdivide the American people into discrete subgroups accorded varying degrees of privilege.

And it should be pointed out that it seems that private interests who commented on the bill opposed it, with only institutional interests submitting comments in support of the bill. Only institutional interests have advocated for it. But the people, it seems, do not want it.

That includes even some Native Hawaiians. One person who testified before the commission was a Hawaiian named Kaleihanamau Johnson. She told them:

I am of Hawaiian, Caucasian and Chinese descent ..... and do not support the Akaka bill.

Ms. Johnson went on to say that if this bill passes:

I will be forced to choose on which side of the fence to stand. I will choose the Anglo-American tradition of the right to life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness. This will prevent me from recognizing all that is Hawaiian in me. I consider the Akaka bill to be a proposal to violate my rights.

Let me share some of the testimony of advocates of Hawaiian statehood from half a century ago. These comments show that Hawaiians entered the Union with the expectation of being equal to any other of our States. Overwhelmingly, Hawaiians were eager to be Americans. Senator Wallace Bennett of Utah, the father of our good friend, the current Senator from Utah, said in 1954:

Hawaii is literally an American outpost in the Pacific, completely reflecting the American scene, with its religious variations, its cultural, business and agricultural customs, and its politics.

And former Interior Secretary Fred Seaton wrote to a Senate committee in 1959:

Hawaii is truly American in every aspect of its life.

I sure hope that is true, in the sense that being American means we do not define and divide people by race, but we transcend that. Every American, regardless of race, has equal freedom to excel. That is why we attract people of all races, from all over the world, who leave behind what they have known and start new lives here.

Because we are a multiracial, multicultural society, and because of the misfortunes that have transpired when this country has looked at its citizens through the prism of race, we must not turn racial preferences into law, as this bill would have us do.

I believe the way forward for our country is for the Government to focus less and less on race, not more and more. To treat people differently based on race implies that, on some fundamental level, race defines who we are.

I believe history has shown that idea to be bankrupt. And I believe that America has led the way in proving it so.

Let's do our best to get this country to a point where race truly has no place, not when it comes to our Government, or to our promise of equal justice under the law.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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