The "Ceded" Lands Dispute: What does blood quantum have to do with it?

Itʻs been a while since there has been any public movement on the "ceded" lands issue. Many of you have been very supportive of Kupuʻainaʻs efforts earlier this year and last year. We wanted to share with you an update regarding a recently scheduled event that we think you might be interested in.

Most of the plaintiffs (Office of Hawaiian Affairs and four individuals) in the case that sought to stop the sale of so-called "ceded" lands have settled their claims with the State of Hawaiʻi. There is one sole plaintiff who is determined to have this case go all the way through, Dr. Jonathan Osorio.

On Thursday, October 1, 2009, Dr. Osorio will be joined by attorneys Naiwi Wurdeman and Yuklin Aluli in a panel discussion hosted by Ka Huli Ao Center for Excellence in Native Hawaiian Law at 12:45 at the William S. Richardson School of Law. This discussion panel will also be live-streamed at www.KaHuliAo.com.

Because seating is limited, Ka Huli Ao requires RSVPs by 9/27/2009 to nhlawctr@hawaii.edu

For more information on Ka Huli Ao Center for Excellence in Native Hawaiian Law, you can visit its blog at www.KaHuliAo.com or its law school website at www.law.hawaii.edu/kahuliao

Proceed with caution when reading/hearing some local media reports

You may have heard by now that the United States Supreme Court has ruled on the "ceded" lands case. Unfortunately, several local media outlets do not explain the Supreme Court ruling adequately and, in my opinion, may inadvertently mis-lead the public.

Upon first glance, anyone might come to the conclusion that the State of Hawai'i can sell ceded lands. But, Kupu‘āina reads the opinion differently. When the Hawai'i Supreme Court made its landmark ruling last year placing a moratorium on the sale of "ceded" lands, it did so using both the 1993 Apology Resolution AND relevant state law. When the U.S. Supreme Court came out with its ruling this morning, it only ruled on the 1993 Apology Resolution and not state law. In fact, at the end of its decision, the U.S. Supreme Court made it clear that it has no authority to decide questions of Hawai'i state law or to provide redress for past wrongs except as provided for by federal law. The U.S. Supreme Court sent the case back down to the Hawai'i Supreme Court to proceed in a manner that is consistent with the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling.

The Attorney General Mark Bennett, sought to take this "ceded" lands case out of the Hawai'i Supreme Court. Now, however, the U.S. Supreme Court has put the case back into the hands of the State Supreme Court.

This morning there are two good interviews on the KGMB website that is helpful to people who want to understand today's ruling.
There is an interview with

• Clyde Namuo (OHA Administrator) http://tr.im/Namuo090331 and


• Colleen Hanabusa (Hawaii Senate President http://tr.im/Hanabusa090331.

Clyde Namuo explains how this ruling is exactly what the Office of Hawaiian Affairs hoped for once the Supreme Court decided to take up the case. Generally, the reason is because the ruling puts the case back into State court. Senator Hanabusa also explains why, the State, still can't sell "ceded" lands at this time. Hanabusa's statements are contrary to today's Honolulu Advertiser headline which reads, "US Supreme Court says state can sell ceded lands." This headline was later changed to read, "U.S. Supreme Court rules state has authority to sell ceded lands."

Kupu‘āina encourages the public to read the U.S. Supreme Court's short opinion on this issue rather than rely only on media reports. You can access the opinion at www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/08slipopinion.html

Support for SB 1085 from two Senators.

As we wait for the Senate vote on SB 1085, I thought I would share some of the e-mails coming from Senators that made its way to us. We expect there is much more support than from the two Senators we got e-mails from.

---

Date: Mon, 9 Mar 2009 21:13:27 -1000
From: "Sen. Suzanne Chun Oakland"
Reply-To: "Sen. Suzanne Chun Oakland"
Subject: RE: Support SB1085 moratorium on sale of "ceded" lands
To:

Hi Eileen:

Mahalo a nui loa for your support. I am very supportive.

Aloha,

Senator Susie Chun Oakland

---

On Mon, Mar 9, 2009 at 4:12 PM, Sen. Donna Mercado Kim wrote:

Aloha,

Thank you for your e-mail regarding SB 1085. This measure will be on the Senate floor for final reading tomorrow and I will be supporting it as it goes over to the House for further consideration.


Mahalo,


Senator Donna Mercado Kim
Chair of Ways & Means Committee
State Capitol, Room 210
Honolulu, HI 96813
Phone: 808-587-7200 Fax: 808-587-7205

---

We Need You To Send E-mails!

Now that SB 1085 passed out of the Senate Judiciary and Government Operations committee, the full senate will need to vote on it. We're asking you to send our senators e-mails urging them to pass SB 1085.

E-mails should be sent to sens@capitol.hawaii.gov if you can include us on the cc (or better yet the BCC) by putting kupuaina@gmail.com in that e-mail, we'd greatly appreciate it.

We have templates for you to use if you don't know what to write in an e-mail. Please pick one template only:

• Template 1


• Template 2


• Template 3

We also have a special template for our supporters who do not live in Hawai‘i. CLICK HERE for the special out-of-Hawai‘i template.

SENATE BILL 1085 passes

Senator Sam Slom was the only state lawmaker in the Judiciary and Government Operations (JGO) committee to vote NO on Senate Bill 1085 yesterday morning shortly before 10 am. The Committee chair, Brian Taniguchi and Vice-Chair, Dwight Takamine in addition to committee members Robert Bunda and Clarence Nishihara voted to pass SB 1085. Senator Mike Gabbard was not present for the vote.

When the vote was made, Senator Taniguchi noted that the bill would be passed with only technical amendments. We assume this means that non-substantive changes will be made.

The next step for Senate Bill 1085 is to be heard by the full senate. In a previous phone conversation with Senate President Colleen Hanabusa, it was suggested that SB 1085 will pass the Senate and be sent to the state House of Representatives.

Moments after the senate committee passed SB 1085, Kupu‘āina organizers met with the Speaker of the House of Representatives Calvin Say. Calvin Say suggested that SB 1085 will be scheduled for hearings with different committees. He did express concern however about the senate passing two different bills addressing the same issue. The House can not do likewise. The other bill being SB 1677. The House will need to pass just one of those bills.

Speaker Say said that he would like to see both SB 1677 and SB 1085 heard together in committee so that the House can determine which of those two bills it will support and proceed forward with.

Between the two bills, coalition organizers prefer to see SB 1085 pass out of the legislature. SB 1085, in the coalition's opinion, is more of a re-affirmation of the Hawai‘i Supreme Court's January 31, 2008 landmark decision in OHA v. HCDCH.

Coalition organizers hope SB 1085 will be heard on the Senate floor by Tuesday, March 10. We will keep you updated. PAU.

SB 1085 is FINALLY scheduled for a hearing!!!

We have two different testimony/commentary templates for you to use by cutting and pasting. It is important that you submit this testimony/commentary no later than 9:30am March 4, 2009.

You can submit this by sending it via e-mail to JGOTestimony@capitol.hawaii.gov

It is also very important that you “cc” (carbon copy) this e-mail to the following e-mail addresses: sentaniguchi@capitol.hawaii.gov, sentakamine@capitol.hawaii.gov, senbunda@capitol.hawaii.gov, sengabbard@capitol.hawaii.gov, sennishihara@capitol.hawaii.gov, and senslom@capitol.hawaii.gov

We also encourage you to “cc” us on the e-mail by sending it to kupuaina@gmail.com

Please choose ONLY ONE of these templates only, copy and past the text in an e-mail and send it to the e-mail addresses listed above. You can choose a template by clicking on one below.

TEMPLATE 1 or TEMPLATE 2

---

Senate Bill 1085 has finally been scheduled for hearing.

WHEN: March 5, 2009 at 9:45am
WHERE: State Capitol in Room 211
WHO: Senate Committee on Judiciary and Government Operations (JGO) and YOU!
WHY: To protect the so-called "ceded" lands from being sold.

SB 1085 is the only surviving piece of legislation that provides a moratorium on the sale of ceded lands. If the bill is going to move forward, it needs to be out of the JGO committee by 3/5/09.

For more information on the status of SB 1085 go to tinyurl.com/SB1085update3-3

Legislative efforts to protect ceded lands get slimmer.

Don't forget to watch our weekly live-streaming webcast today at 5:30pm Hawaii Standard Time.

WE NEED YOU TO SUBMIT TESTIMONY!
Senate Bill 1085 (which, with its amendments, provides a 5-year moratorium on the sale of ceded lands and then requires a two-thirds majority vote for sales) still has not been scheduled for a hearing by Senator Brian Taniguchi. If Senate Bill 1085 is not passed out of Taniguchi's Judiciary and Government Operations committee by March 5, it will die.

Currently, Senate Bill 1677 has passed out of the Senate and is currently in the House. It is scheduled for a hearing with the House Hawaiian Affairs committee this Wednesday. Senate Bill 1677, is not the preferred bill, but it is currently the only bill alive right now, that has also passed one chamber of the legislature, and would restrict the sale of ceded lands and make sales virtually impossible. Senate Bill 1677 requires a two-thirds majority vote in both the House and the Senate for a sale of ceded lands.

Sample testimony is provided at the end of this posting. You can cut and paste it, and submit via e-mail to HAWtestimony@capitol.hawaii.gov We also encourage you to write your own testimony if you have additional thoughts or perspectives you would like to express to the House Committee.


JUST FIVE MINUTES A DAY
We still need just five minutes a day from people like you, your family and friends. Please go to our Just Five Minutes Calendar to see what you can do. You may also go to http://tinyurl.com/Just5Minutes. You can join our fight to protect Hawaiian lands by dedicating just five minutes a day.

We're receiving positive feedback from people about this Just 5 Minutes effort. We're hearing that we've made advocating for "ceded"/seized/stolen lands protection easy. We hope so and we're confident too that, you too can accomplish a lot in just 5 minutes. Please be sure to participate. Depending on what happens in the next week, we may be revising the calendar.


THE SUPREME COURT CASE
Last Wednesday, as you may know, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments from attorneys representing the Lingle Administration and the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. A few commentaries have been floated around online about it. We read the transcripts last week Wednesday. The transcripts should be understood within the context of domestic U.S. law. If we were to make an assessment based only on the questions asked (which is not a complete assessment) it might be easy to assume that this case will find its way back to the Hawaii state court system. This is a state issue and is more properly addressed here rather than in Washington D.C. The Supreme Court justices asked very challenging questions of both attorneys, Attorney General Mark Bennett and OHA attorney Kannon Shanmugam.

Justice Samuel Alito surprised us though. A question he asked suggested that he was familiar with proposed moratorium legislation introduced in our legislature. His question was about legislation of a 5-year moratorium on "ceded" lands and wanting to promote a reconciliation process. This refers to Senate Bill 1085. Some commentators like to emphasize that OHA attorney admitted that "if the Hawaii Supreme Court based their ruling on the Apology Resolution, then that would be wrong." However, emphasizing this so-called admission as somehow being weak or "giving-up" on the case is incorrect and mis-placed. OHA's strategy was to emphasize that 1.) this is a state issue, and 2.) the Hawaii Supreme Court's decision was based primarily on State law. In reality folks, you can't argue that the State Supreme Court's decision was based on state law, that this is a state issue, AND ask the Supreme Court to not review the case while also saying the State Supreme Court's decision was based on federal law.

Questions asked by the Court suggested that it may hold that the Apology Resolution did not prevent the State from selling ceded lands, and that the Court might send it back to State court. The Court did express concerns however, that even if the Apology Resolution doesn't prevent the state from selling ceded lands, that state law may prevent such sales. However, they did raise the question that, if those state laws were inconsistent with federal law, then there may still be a federal issue. However, when Mark Bennett asked the Supreme Court to review the Hawaii Supreme Court's decision, he only asked the Court about the Apology Resolution. He didn't include in his question, inquiries about the Newlands Resolution (1898), the Organic Act (1900) or the Admission Act (1959). Justices served Bennett a bunch of questions and expressed concern that those other federal laws were not adequately raised before the Court.

We can expect a decision to come out before the end of June. We suspect an opinion may come out some time in May.


VIGIL AT CAPITOL
Mahalo nui loa to everyone who came out to the capitol. While it was a very political experience, it was also a very spiritual and cultural experience. Being in the presence of our brothers and sisters in solidarity, chanting and praying to ke Akua, and for others na akua and na aumakua was indeed spiritual. Mahalo to everyone across the United States who joined in on Kukulu Kumuhana and who generally support our struggle. Mahalo for the halau hula and kumu hulu who were present as well.


STOP SELLING CEDED LANDS STICKERS
More people are buying stickers. Sticker sales help to pay for printing our materials, website hosting, etc., costs associated with this effort. Although this is a 100% volunteer effort, postage, photocopies, papers, website hosting, website domain hosting all have costs. Mahalo to those who donated postage stamps, it helped tremendously.

Anyway, you can read more about our stickers by going to http://tinyurl.com/stick-um.


Testimony. We're providing the testimony for SB 1677 below. You can cut and paste it into your own e-mail and send it to HAWtestimony@capitol.hawaii.gov Testimony should be submitted by 9:30am tomorrow (Tuesday) March 3, 2009.

Name: (enter name here)
Committee: House Hawaiian Affairs Committee
Date/Time of hearing: March 4, 2009 at 9:30am
Re: Senate Bill 1677 - TESTIMONY IN SUPPORT

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Madam Chair Carroll and Madam Vice-Chair Shimabukuro, and members of the House Committee on Hawaiian Affairs:

My name is (enter name here). I submit written testimony in strong support of Senate Bill 1677. Unfortunately, Senate Bill 1085, at the time of this writing, has not yet been passed out of all its Senate committees. Senate Bill 1085, apparently, is stalled at the Judiciary and Government Operations committee, chaired by Senator Brian Taniguchi.

Senate Bill 1677 may be our only hope this legislative session to protect the so-called ceded lands from being sold. It is important that the “ceded” lands be protected from sales so that the unrelinquished claims of Native Hawaiians can be resolved.

Senate Bill 1677 does not explicitly provide a moratorium, but its two-thirds requirement to sell ceded lands provides a mechanism for restricting the sale of such lands. We must support legislation that protects the “ceded” lands.

Recently, our legislature passed a resolution that urged Governor Lingle to withdraw the “ceded” lands case from U.S. Supreme Court. Perhaps more importantly, the resolution provided that “the Legislature declares the public policy of the State of Hawaii is to honor the decision of the Hawaii Supreme Court” in its January 31, 2008, landmark ruling. Although Senate Bill 1677 falls short of re-affirming our highest state court’s decision, Senate Bill 1677 in effect provides some protection of these lands.

Please pass Senate Bill 1677. Thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony.

Sincerely,


(enter name here)

State House of Representatives Adopts Resolution

We were somewhat surprised when we found out earlier today that the Hawaii State House of Representatives adopted Senate Concurrent Resolution 40. This adoption can be interpreted as meaning the state legislature has taken a position on the ceded lands case.

Although this resolution is not binding, the Legislature

1. urges the Governor "to withdraw the appeal to the United States Supreme Court of the Hawai'i State Supreme Court decision" of the ceded lands case, and


2. "that the Legislature declares the public policy of the State of Hawai'i is to honor the decision of the Hawai'i Supreme Court.

In the resolution, the Legislature also expressed its belief that, pursuing the appeal "is detrimental to the interests of all of the people of Hawai'i and to the ongoing reconciliation process between the State and the Native Hawaiian people."

Kupu‘āina Coalition organizers spent a lot of time in January researching and drafting the resolution. Again, although it is not binding, the Legislature has adopted a specific policy on how it views the Hawai'i Supreme Court's landmark January 31, 2008, decision.

Lawmakers to visit during vigil at capitol

There are a few specific lawmakers supporters should visit while at the capitol on Wednesday. These lawmakers are:

• Rep. Calvin Say; room #431


• Sen. Brian Taniguchi; room #219


• Rep. Ken Ito; room #420


• Rep. Sharon Har; room #438


• Rep. Jon Riki Karamatsu; room #302


• Rep. Marcus Oshiro; room #306

Stickers are in! Senate Bill 1085 has been decked

Aloha mai kakahiaka kakou,

The stickers are in and people have already begun to e-mail us their orders. (See http://tinyurl.com/stick-um. Senate Bill 1085 has been decked. Click here for details.

In other news, Senator Hee made arrangements yesterday to have two proposed resolutions heard in his Senate Committee. Senate Resolution 25 and Senate Concurrent Resolution 40.

These proposed resolutions accomplish two goals:

1. urges Governor Lingle to withdraw the "ceded" lands case now pending at the U.S. Supreme Court, and


2. declares "the public policy of the State of Hawai'i is to honor the decision of the Hawai'i State Supreme Court."

These resolutions have been moved out of committee and will proceed to the Senate floor.

Although the resolutions are not binding, these resolutions will be expressions of our legislature that re-affirm the State Supreme Court's January 31, 2008, landmark decision.

Federalist Society Debate on "Ceded"Lands

Aloha mai kākou,

Today, the law school had a packed room for a debate between Ilya Shapiro and Prof. Carl Christensen. Ilya Shapiro appears to be in town because he is touring California and Hawaii giving presentations. Anyway, the law school classroom was crowded with law school students, faculty, and a good number of visitors not affiliated with the law school in anyway. For example Aunty Leona Kalima was present. For those of you who don't know, Aunty Leona Kalima was a plaintiff in a lawsuit that sought to protect land claims for Native Hawaiians. Click here to read a Star-Bulletin article on the suit when the Hawaii Supreme Court found in favor of Native Hawaiian claimants. Video is available below.

Also in attendance were people who oppose Native Hawaiian programs, claims, and rights such as:

1. Bill Burgess


2. David Rosen


3. Grassroot Institute

A few hours after speaking with some law students, it seems as though the consensus is that Prof. Carl Christensen won the debate. Others have commented that Ilya Shapiro appeared condescending and as a result, it was difficult to want to agree with him. You'll notice in the video above that there are times when Ilya looks up into the air while he's talking and some seem to have interpreted this behavior as though Shapiro thought this was a topic not worth real discussion. Shapiro may have lost some credibility with the audience when he was talking about Hawaiian history and the Hawaiian Kingdom, but couldn't remember the name of Hawai'i's last Queen. Some members of the audience afterwards thought that someone who professes to be familiar with these local issues should at least be familiar with the history that give rise to these issues.

Ilya expressed the idea that to be Native Hawaiian, one must be 50% or more Native Hawaiian by blood or have a Hawaiian last name. A number of audience members had very little, if any at all, appreciation for this definition of Native Hawaiian. What may have been puzzling to many in attendance is that, a person, who does not appear to have ever lived in Hawaii and who does not currently live in Hawaii somehow feels he is in a position to define what a Native Hawaiian is or is not.

Professor Carl Christensen, immediately upon arriving at the lectern, clarified that the issues raised by Ilya have no place in this debate specifically because those 14th amendment issues have not been raised by the Lingle Administration nor the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. As such, the U.S. Supreme Court is not being asked whether or not programs benefitting Native Hawaiians discriminate on the basis of race. The only question that the Lingle Administration has asked the United States Supreme Court is basically, did the 1993 Apology Resolution, passed by the 103rd Congress, prevent the State of Hawai’i from selling ceded lands?” Somehow, Ilya seems to think it was appropriate to raise issues in this debate that the Supreme Court has not been asked by any of the disputing parties (Lingle Administration or OHA).

Unfortunately, we had some issues with one of our video cameras. You may have been able to tell from our video-stream that the camera on the left, at times, had better (louder) audio, but sometimes had some “weird” imagery like: shaking camera, cartoon-type curtains, words like “STAMINA” across the middle of the screen. We were not sure exactly what was happening with that video camera. We later realized that it was on “DEMO” mode. As we review the video now, we remember that there were times when the left video camera kept turning off unexpectedly. When we were recording-livestreaming and we noticed that the left-side video camera unexpectedly turned off, we immediately had to transfer to the right side video camera and unfortunately, there were times when Ilya’s comments were inadvertently interrupted. You can tell all the time on the video, but when this happened in real time, the screen went black. This pre-recording that you’re watching now however, doesn’t show that, instead it just skips to the next footage, and gives the appearance of blending one camera to another. Around 39:55 minutes or so, I realize now, (hours after the live-stream) that audio may not be heard. If there is a way to fix this, we will work towards doing that. Interestingly enough, we didn’t get any complaints via e-mail about internet viewers not being able to hear the audio.

We’ll be sure to work on these “bugs” for next time. For the most part, we'll let you develop your own opinion and hope you find the video useful. Thank you for visiting.

"Ceded" Lands Case Debate at Law School hosted by Federalist Society

We couldn't resist letting you know about an event that is happening today. An organization (often recognized as a conservative organization) at the law school known as the Federalist Society is hosting a debate on the "ceded" lands case at 12:45pm. The Federalist Society, despite being a law student organization, is not affiliated with the Kupu‘āina Coalition or ‘Ahahui o Hawai‘i (the Hawaiian law student organization). Attached is the flyer distributed by the Federalist Society. Participating in the debate is Ilya Shapiro and Honolulu attorney and law professor Carl Christensen.

The Kupu‘āina Coalition supports the Hawai'i Supreme Court's landmark January 31, 2008 ruling that placed a moratorium on the sale of ceded lands until the unrelinquished claims of Native Hawaiians are resolved. Our organization has also been active in the effort to have a moratorium passed by the Hawai'i legislature that would protect Hawaiian claims. We believe it is important for the Hawaiian community, and the general Hawaii community to witness for themselves what institutions exist that fiercely oppose Native Hawaiian programs and seek the demise of those programs and Native Hawaiian rights and claims.

We are up against more than just the "Grassroot Institute of Hawaii" or the "Pacific Legal Foundation." In our effort to show our supporters who some of the people and institutions are that seek to actively work against us, we will be live-streaming today's event from our website, www.stopsellingcededlands.com. However, we want you to know, that we are in complete disagreement with Ilya Shapiro and we want everyone to know that despite the fact that a law student (or two) have organized tomorrow's event, their views on the issue neither reflects the views of Kupu‘āina nor do their views (if any) discourage Kupu‘āina from proceeding with our efforts to protect the ceded lands. It may also be important for people to know that Kupu‘āina and Ahahui o Hawai'i were not consulted in anyway before this event was scheduled. We had no input for the decision making or determining who would be speaking/debating today.

While our views are in disagreement with Illya Shapiro, we are confident that this debate will show our community and our supporters what we are up against. We are streaming this event not because we agree with it, (we DO NOT AGREE with the anti-Hawaiian views that will be expressed in it) but we consider it useful just for the simple purpose of knowing our opponents. The event is scheduled to start at 12:45 pm today.

Hearings, updates,

LESS THAN 24 HOURS ARE LEFT.

There is less than 24 hours left for us to submit testimony to the State House Committee on Hawaiian Affairs. As we mentioned in our blog, the State House Committee on Hawaiian Affairs and the Senate Committee on Water, Land, Agriculture, and Hawaiian Affairs, will be holding hearings on "ceded" lands moratorium bills THIS WEDNESDAY.
House Committee hearing is at 9 am in conference room 329; House Bills 1667 and 1805.
Senate Committee hearing is at 2:45 pm Conference Room 229; Senate Bill 1085.
It is important that our elected legislators hear from you in written form. Testimony can be submitted online by going to http://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/emailtestimony/ or clicking here.
- Written testimony for House Bills 1667 and 1805 must be submitted by 9 am TUESDAY, February 3, 2009.
- Written testimony for Senate Bill 1085 must be submitted by 2:45 pm TUESDAY, February 3, 2009.
Testimony should be written in a civil tone and with a respectful manner.

PRESENCE AT THE HEARINGS IS IMPORTANT!

We need your presence at the hearings. If you're unable to submit testimony by the deadline(s), your presence at the hearings are still important. Your Support is greatly appreciated and will be felt by the generations yet to come.

KUPU‘ĀINA COALITION IN ACTION

Coalition organizers presented information and statements to members of the Legislative Hawaiian Caucus regarding the "ceded" lands issue and the moratorium laws being introduced this session. Representative Mele Carroll's office also sent out a News Release.

This past Saturday, Coalition organizers went to Windward Mall in Kane‘ohe to help concerned residents express to their elected legislators their wish to have their own lawmakers support a moratorium on the sale of "ceded" lands until the unrelinquished claims of Native Hawaiians are resolved. We're continuing to get more postcards signed.

WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP PROTECT CEDED LANDS
Submit testimony online on regarding House Bills 1667 and 1805 in addition to Senate Bill 1085.
Identify 10-15 family members, friends, neighbors and/or co-workers who support protecting the ceded lands and let us know by e-mail (kupuaina@gmail.com). We will happily send you postcards to have them fill out.
Stay updated by following or subscribing to our blog and visiting our website stopsellingcededlands.com often
Spread the word by forwarding our e-mails to family, friends, neighbors, etc., so that they can learn more too.

IMPORTANT UPDATES TO OUR WEBSITE

We have updated the "background page" of our website. You can now read what legal arguments of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs and the individual plaintiffs are. In addition, you can read the several "friend-of-the-court" briefs (amicus briefs) that have been submitted in support of protecting the "ceded" lands.

Don't forget to watch our live-streaming webcast today at 5:30 pm on our website, www.stopsellingcededlands.com. If you have a question you would like to have answered, send your question to kupuaina@gmail.com.

Hearings for Ceded Lands

Aloha mai kākou,

We previously mentioned that there would be A hearing on Wednesday, February 4 with the House Committee on Hawaiian Affairs for the "ceded" lands bill. There is one hearing for the state House and another hearing for the state Senate.


HOUSE HEARING
Information sent to us from Representative Mele Carroll's office yesterday indicates that the hearing will be at 9 am, on Wednesday February 4, in Conference Room 329 at the Capitol.

The House Bill related to the "ceded" lands moratorium is HB 1667. Click here to read House Bill 1667.

HB 1667 seems to be the second item on the committee's agenda. After this bill passes the House Hawaiian Affairs Committee, it will then go to the House Water, Land and Ocean Resources Committee, the Judiciary Committee, and then to Finance.

Another House Bill also introduced by Mele Carroll is HB 1805, which has been described as "prohibiting the disposition in fee simple of ceded lands." It has been referred to the same committees as HB 1667.


SENATE HEARING
If you click here, you can watch the January 28, 2009, legislative Hawaiian Caucus press conference. At that press conference, Senator Clayton Hee mentioned that he and four of the Native Hawaiian senators in the caucus proposed a full-moratorium bill. This Senate Bill (SB 1085) will also be discussed in a Senate Committee hearing (the Senate Committee on Water, Land, Agriculture, and Hawaiian Affairs)

The Senate Committee Hearing is also scheduled for Wednesday at 2:45 PM in Conference Room 229. This Bill will then go to the Senate Judiciary and Government Operations Committee.

Supporters of these bills can (AND SHOULD) submit testimony online by CLICKING HERE.

Hawaiian Caucus and chatting?

Immediately after I finished this week's live webcast, I checked my e-mail and found out that we will be presenting to the Hawaiian caucus at 1pm on Thursday, January 29. The room is yet to be determined and may even change the day of.

We'll see if we can live-stream the event. Be sure to check out our twitter updates so that you know whether or not we'll be live-streaming and to also find out which room we'll be in.

Although I knew we had the capability to do so, I never realized until it was too late, that people were chatting online during our live-streaming webcast. I thought I'd paste here part of that chat conversation between two of our viewers.

Welcome to the 'kupuaina' room
18:16 Kanani : "are you in agreement with the Gov and AG regarding the upcoming US supreme court etc he just went to town and spoke very forcefully, but at the end I repeated
18:17 Glen V in PuertoRico : I would say, IMHO, that his political career, at least in terms of Kanaka Maoli voters, is all downhill because of his association with Linda Lingle
18:17 Kanani : myself and said you did not answer my question and repeated and he said YES he supports the GOV
18:18 Glen V in PuertoRico : wow
18:18 Glen V in PuertoRico : of course he supports the governor
18:18 Glen V in PuertoRico : what a shame
18:19 Kanani : but I wanted everyone to hear him because he skirted a yes or no answer they made me wait a long time to speak to him and he was made aware of my question ahead
18:19 Glen V in PuertoRico : that was good that you called in to ask
18:20 Glen V in PuertoRico : i have seen many people post messages in different forums asking to know his poosition or saying, please ask him what he things
18:20 Glen V in PuertoRico : thinks
18:20 Glen V in PuertoRico : but it is no surprise that he 100 percent backs the opinion of Linda Lingle
18:20 Glen V in PuertoRico : for any matter
18:21 Glen V in PuertoRico : he can join her sinking ship i guess
18:21 Glen V in PuertoRico : in terms of these issues
18:21 Glen V in PuertoRico : the only people who are happy about what they are doing seems to be people who think like the Grassroots Institute

Opening Day at the Legislature

Today was a busy day at the legislature for the Kupu'aina coalition organizers. The place was crowded with a lot of different people trying to talk with every legislator and eating lunch.

I want to highlight some language from Colleen Hanabusa's speech. "As well, we know we must address the sense of betrayal that many in our Native Hawaiian community feel on the issue of ceded lands, and in particular the case now pending before the United States Supreme Court. We will not turn a deaf ear to these questions, as difficult as they may be. We have heard the call of the people and we must respond."

Colleen Hanabusa, if you didn't know, is the State Senate President. The text of her entire speech is available at http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/20090121/BREAKING01/90121051

It is encouraging to know that Colleen Hanabusa wants to address the ceded lands issue. Now, we have to focus on the State House of Representatives. It may be necessary to organize something at the capitol to let the House of Representatives know that this is a serious issue and that we want them to protect the ceded lands.

We just found out today that there is an important Hawaiian Caucus meeting happening tomorrow at the State Capitol in Room 423 at 4pm. The Hawaiian Caucus will explore the "ceded" lands issue by listening to three panelists, the Attorney General Mark Bennett, Attorney Sherry Broder, and Attorney Bill Meheula.

All three panelists are involved in the "ceded" lands litigation. Sherry Broder is the lead attorney representing the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Bill Meheula represents the four individual plaintiffs and Mark Bennett represents the State of Hawai'i as the attorney general.

This caucus meeting is open to the public. The importance of this meeting is to provide information to the caucus members who are also legislators working at the capitol.

We encourage people to attend the caucus meeting which is scheduled to last 90 minutes.

The Hawai'i legislature and postcard counting

Tomorrow is the opening day of the legislature. We're going down there and we'll be sure to talk with some state representatives and senators tomorrow. It'll definitely be a full and busy day, but it will be great. I'm sensing a general feeling from people that after today's American presidential inauguration ceremony, that there is high hopes for the future with Barack Obama as a world leader. It's definitely inspiring.

I finally got around to counting the postcards. I want to thank everyone who participated with us and signed/filled-out postcards. Without giving out a specific number, I'm happy to announce that we collected well over 1,000 postcards.


There are however, some senatorial districts where we could use more signed postcards.
- Senatorial District 2 which encompasses: Waiakea Uka, Kalapana, Volcano, Kahuku (Big Island). For Senatorial District 2, we had no filled-out postcards.
- Senatorial District 16 which encompasses: Pacific Palisades, Pearl City, Waimalu, Upper 'Aiea, 'Aiea Heights.

Anyway, we began mailing out some postcards. A very generous person donated two books of stamps to our efforts on Saturday. Unfortunately, we don't know the name of the person, but we're extremely thankful. In lieu of stamps, many other people donated their loose change and then some, which will definitely be a tremendous help in covering our postage costs. Mahalo nui to all our supporters. We'll continue to mail out cards each day as part of our strategy to remind our legislators that this is an issue that we want them to deal with quickly.

As a reminder, on Saturday (1/17/09) the Kupu'aina Coalition conducted a drive to help elevate the voice of people who want the ceded lands protected. Below is a picture of Jocelyn Doane talking with a supporter and having her filling out two of our cards. One to her state representative and the other to her state senator.


Jocelyn, among with a number of other volunteers, canvassed Kapi'olani Park to get signatures of supporters.

Below is a picture of the Kupu'aina Coalition booth at Kapi'olani Park. Here, we had five people using laptops at a stationary place for supporters to go to and sign postcards.

Last night's webcast, t-shirts, and Postcards to Politicians

Aloha mai kakou,

Kupu‘āina Live!
Last night we did our fifth live-streaming webcast. Our viewers may have noticed that the last several webcasts, we've had a delayed start. We haven't quite nailed down yet what the issue is, but now we're leaning towards pre-recording those webcasts by about an hour and then playing them "live" over ustream and mogulus. We don't like having to start the webcasts late, even if it is only by a few minutes, because that's a good way to start losing viewers.

We got an e-mail from Keahi on the big island who let us know that she experienced a brief pause where there was no sound or video. My parents e-mailed me personally and said they experienced a five minute period of no sound or actual video. We'll continue to work on it.

Kū I Ka Pono T-SHIRTS!
Since Saturday's rally, we've been getting e-mails from people asking about t-shirts.

The best thing to do, is probably to go to https://paifoundation.ejoinme.org/MyPages/ProtectHawaiianRights/tabid/123495/Default.aspx

Kupu‘āina wasn't selling the shirts from our website, but we did provide a link that connected people to a site that was selling the shirts. You can also call Kaho'onei Panoke at 224-8068.

POSTCARDS TO POLITICIANS
Mahalo nui to all those who signed our postcards. We're continuing to sort through the post cards we received. We still haven't finished counting, but in my conservative estimate, I believe we have well over 1,000 signed postcards. We will start to mail these out soon and we're going to continue to get more signed. If you didn't know already, the purpose of the postcards is to convey a message to the politicians at the capitol building. That message basically is, that "as your constituents, we want you to protect the "ceded" lands by supporting and passing laws that protect the ceded lands and that may also re-affirm the Hawai'i Supreme Court's landmark January 31, 2008 ruling.

For any of you out there who would like to help out with this effort, please let us know by e-mailing us at kupuaina@gmail.com

Webcast 3 2009-01-05

You can watch our third webcast below by clicking on the arrow on the video feed.
Unfortunately, it looks like the recordings of our live-stream webcast do not have the text overlays on the video, so you can't see the text on the video screen while we're talking, like we intended.

"State court correct in protecting ceded lands"

Two UH law professors wrote a commentary in their individual capacities as attorneys for the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. Professors Jon Van Dyke and Melody Kapilialoha MacKenzie have a commentary in today's Honolulu Advertiser.

The commentary does a great job of discussing the Hawai'i Supreme Court's decision while also countering statements from the Lingle Administration. The commentary, in part, provides, "The administration has also incorrectly asserted that the Hawai'i Supreme Court found that the state does not have good title to the ceded lands. In fact, the opinion expressly stayed away from that issue and explained that "the issue of Native Hawaiian title to the ceded lands will be addressed through the political process."