Pajamas Media

Price of Apology: Clinton, Obama, and the Hawaiian Quid Pro Quo

The bill to create a Hawaiian Indian reservation is a financial boondoggle. But state bigwigs hope contributions will persuade Obama or Clinton to sign it if elected.

March 22, 2008 - by Andrew Walden

Support Pajamas Media; Visit Our Advertisers

With Tony Rezko on trial, the national media is beginning to skim the surface of the dirty deals paving the rapid ascent of Democratic presidential frontrunner Barack Obama. But Chicago, Syria, and Iraq are not the only places to look. There is also a $9-billion story in Hawaii and in spite of Obama’s recent 3-1 victory in the Hawaii Democratic caucuses, both Obama and Clinton are still clawing for the prize.

Obama’s Hawaii supporters sought to leverage the limited contribution pool of their small state by latching on early. Calling Obama “Hawaii’s third senator”, they began raising early money for a presidential bid as soon as Obama won his Illinois Senate seat in 2004. But of course they want something in return. At the top of their agenda in discussions with Obama in December 2004 was the multi-billion-dollar tropical land and money grab which would be made possible by passage of the so-called Akaka Bill.

Congress is now considering another “Apology Resolution” — for American Indians. The degree to which the Hawaiian Apology Resolution and the fight for the Akaka Bill have distorted the presidential race should be a sharp warning against passage. The Indian Apology Resolution is amended to S 1200 by Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS). The House version is contained in House Joint Resolution 68 being pushed by Rep. Dan Boren (D-OK).

The Akaka Bill (Senate Bill 310 and House Bill 505) would create a Hawaiian Indian reservation. Its backers claim they are righting historical wrongs done to Hawaiians. Its opponents claim the Akaka Bill is racially discriminatory. Both groups miss the point. A more accurate assessment comes from the Akaka Bill’s chief proponent in the House of Representatives, Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-Honolulu). Abercrombie explained to the House Committee on Natural Resources on May 2, 2007, “The bottom line here is that this is a bill about the control of assets. This is about land, this is about money, and this is about who has the administrative authority and responsibility over it.”

The bill in different forms has passed the House several times since 2000 — most recently on October 24, 2007. It is now again before the Senate after coming up four votes short in 2006.

Contrary to popular opinion, Indian reservations have a history in Hawaii. An Oct. 12, 1999, article in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin describes the 1995 efforts by corrupt trustees controlling America’s largest charitable trust — Kamehameha Schools/Bishop Estate (KSBE) — to evade state and federal oversight. And not without reason: trustees’ salaries were over $1 million per year. KSBE money, along with trustees’ personal funds, had been invested in a pornographic website. Spending on the Kamehameha School was being cut. One trustee was running rampant in the school, micromanaging teachers and administrators. The trustees’ self-dealing and their investments with Goldman Sachs — at the time headed by current New Jersey Democratic Governor John Corzine — had brought losses of $264 million in 1994 alone. Investigators were starting to ask questions. Hawaiians were beginning to protest. The trustees’ plan? Get the IRS and the state attorney general off their backs by moving KSBE’s legal domicile to an Indian reservation.

The Star-Bulletin on October 12, 1999, explains:

Verner Liipfert, whose local office was at the time headed by former Gov. John Waihee, identified the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation as the top relocation prospect.

[…]

Gregg Bourland, chairman of the Cheyenne River Sioux tribal council … said there is good reason for an entity like the Bishop Estate to make inquiries about changing its domicile to the South Dakota reservation.

Pages: 123Next »

4 Comments

Ken Conklin:

For a large website providing in-depth analysis of all issues related to race-based political sovereignty for ethnic Hawaiians, see

“Hawaiian Sovereignty: Thinking Carefully About It”

http://tinyurl.com/6gkzk

See also this book:

“Hawaiian Apartheid: Racial Separatism and Ethnic Nationalism in the Aloha State”

A webpage provides cover, entire Chapter 1, detailed Table of Contents, and how to get the book:

http://tinyurl.com/2a9fqa

Mar 22, 2008 - 9:58 am Light:

I’m a resident of Hawaii and have long heard about the exorbitant sums of money spent on the mostly undeveloped Hawaiian Homelands. Miles and miles of dark fiber run around the island. Many many many acres of valuable, usable land sit idle with utility connections while Kanaka has his tent set up with the Hawaiian flag upside down. And that’s just the big island.

Something else to note is that today’s Hawaiians aren’t yesterday’s Hawaiians. And that not even Big Island Hawaiians see eye to eye as Oahu Hawaiians. The Hawaiians in the Southern part of the Big Islands resent Kamehameha because he himself was a conqueror of these lands.

The big fallacy is that Hawaii was a stable government of kingdom that was overthrown by the US. In fact, the US was more or less a side player in all this. Before the HIs were discovered Hawaii was split into at least two separate governments. After Captian Cook lent Kamehameha his cannons and guns, he proceeded to “unite” the rest of the islands.

After the “unification”, the missionaries came, whose descendants became the largest landholders in the islands. They also intermarried with Hawaiians and thus had “rightful” claim to the land as well. These large landholding families decided it would be in their best interest to allow the US to annex them. So, with their huge numbers of 2nd generation plantation workers, they voted to have that changed.

Akaka doesn’t even begin to right wrongs from the times of Kamehameha, the Missionaries (read the book Hawaii by Mitchner), and the hordes of “old boys club” politicians who rule the state from a single point and let the outer islands go largely unheard for their corporate or special interests.

Hawaii’s government and politicians have failed it.

Hawaii is also the largest employer in the state. Interesting huh? What a welfare state. Bleagh.

Mar 22, 2008 - 11:42 am H. William Burgess:

Congratulations to Andrew Walden for connecting the quid pro quo “dots” behind the 1993 Clinton Apology resolution and the looming Akaka bill. Land, power, political payback and an “indebted” president, either Clinton or Obama.

Vote for John McCain. He has the good sense and balls to veto the Akaka bill and unequivocally says he will do so.

Mar 22, 2008 - 1:49 pm Mike:

I have visited Hawaii dozens of times in the last 15 yrs for its natural beauty. Unfortunately, it has been degenerating into a racially privileged, aparteid state. Hawaii has the most blatant racial descrimination imaginable against whites. A 4th generation Hawaiin caucasian is called Kama’aina, while the newest immigrant from the Philipines for example, or really any Asian, is called a “Local”. Whites are regularly singled out and beaten on the basis of race alone. Hawaii has turned into a dangerous hellhole, ruined by “Locals”. They despise everything about the mainland USA, except the welfare checks. The state should be disenfranchised, and turned back to the natives. All this in 15 short yrs. Sad!!!

Mar 22, 2008 - 6:56 pm