Legislative Hawaiian Caucus, makawalu postcards, more donations, and an amicus brief.

The legislative Hawaiian caucus is holding a hearing next week Wednesday. We'll be sure to keep you updated here when information is made available.

Kupu‘āina organizers, Jocelyn M Doane, Derek Kauanoe, and Davis Kahōkū Price spoke with members of the legislative Hawaiian caucus today about the ceded lands moratorium. Derek spoke about Mark Bennett's comments from the previous caucus discussion about the potential for lawsuits to arise as a result from moratorium legislation. Davis Price spoke about the state's public policy towards the ceded lands and Native Hawaiians, and Jocelyn M Doane spoke about the effects and benefits of moratorium bills.

POSTCARDS

We mailed out another 42 postcards today. No, we're not quite running out yet, but we will be. Since tomorrow is Friday and the start of the weekend, I'm thinking it's probably better for legislators to receive mail earlier in the week instead of right before the weekend starts. It's easy to forget about mail over the weekend, but harder earlier in the week.

STAMP DONATIONS
Mahalo nui to Benton Keali'i Pang who donated a roll of 100 stamps. We'll be using these stamps for the postcards we're sending to legislators. Mahalo nui.

For anyone else interested in contributing, below are the prices for postcard stamps:
- 10 postcard stamps = $ 2.70
- 50 postcard stamps = $13.50
- 100 postcard stamps = $27.00

E-mail us at kupuaina@gmail.com and we'll be sure to let you know where to send the postage stamps.

AMICUS BRIEF
Keith Kamisugi, Director of Communications, for the Equal Justice Society has informed us that, earlier today, the Equal Justice Society and the Japanese American Citizens League (two civil rights organizations) filed a friend-of-the-court (amicus) brief today at the Supreme Court in support of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs.

Read more about this topic by clicking here.

Legislative Hawaiian Caucus, postcards

Today was an awesome day and very inspiring. Prior to the 10am press conference for the Legislative Hawaiian Caucus, there was a meeting with different leaders from various Hawaiian organizations. I donʻt doubt that there will be future meetings.

LEGISLATIVE HAWAIIAN CAUCUS
Anyway, the Legislative Hawaiian Caucus Press Conference today was great! Surprisingly, it was about an hour, or slightly longer and the media stayed for most of it. Included at the bottom of this e-mail will our statement to the press. Representative Mele Carroll, leader of the caucus discussed the 10 bills that caucus members are supporting. Rep. Carroll briefly described each individual bill. The tenth and last bill she discussed was the "ceded" lands moratorium bill. There was a good number of people in attendance. There were not enough chairs for audience members and people crowded near the door standing to hear the statements during the press conference.

Anyway, check out the video below to listen to some of the statements from the Legislative Hawaiian Caucus.


POSTCARDS
Mahalo to Uncle Walter and Aunty Audrey Kawaa for their contribution to our efforts. The Kawaaʻs donated 100 postcard stamps that will support our Makawalu Initiative. The Makawalu initiative is our attempt to give our supporters a voice to their elected legislators through the use of postcards. To date, we have mailed out nearly 600 postcards, signed by Hawaii residents and citizens, to their elected officials. Today we mailed out 74 postcards.

If you know 20 people (family, friends, neighbors and/or co-workers) who want to put their names on postcards to tell their elected officials to protect the ceded lands by passing moratorium laws, let us know by e-mailing us at kupuaina@gmail.com and weʻll make arrangements to get those postcards to you.


KUPUʻAINA PRESS STATEMENT
The Kupuʻaina Coalition, an organization led by current University of Hawaii law students and recent law school graduates, is supportive of the proposed full moratorium on the sale of ceded lands. The Coalition believes that, given the state’s history of public policy towards both the public land trust and its relationship with Native Hawaiians in addition to our State Supreme Court’s January 31, 2008 ruling, the moratorium is appropriate and consistent with Hawaiʻi state law.

A moratorium on the sale of ceded lands is a re-affirmation of the Hawaii Supreme Court’s landmark decision in the Office of Hawaiian Affairs v. Housing and Community Development Corporation of Hawaii. The introduction of a moratorium bill, on the sale of ceded lands, is also consistent with statements made by the Attorney General Mark Bennett, in addition to statements made in the State Supreme Court’s ruling.

- Honolulu Advertiser (11/23/08) the Lingle Administration believed, and continues to believe, that the claims that Native Hawaiians have should be addressed through the legislative process — through the Legislature and the Congress . . . but not in the courts. - Mark Bennett

- January 31, 2008 [T]he OHA plaintiffs admit that the ultimate resolution of the [N]ative Hawaiian claims must be through the political processes, and it is actively engaged in these processes. But this struggle for justice will be futile if the assets in dispute [i.e., the ceded lands] no longer exist when a solution is found. [T]he plaintiffs are not seeking a judicial resolution of the underlying claim for a return of lands, but [are] rather asking the judiciary to protect the trust assets while the dispute is being resolved by the political branches. - The Hawaiʻi Supreme Court

The Kupuʻaina Coalition organizers are also aware that a good number of Hawaiʻi residents have begun to inform their elected legislators (both Senators and Representatives) by mailing in postcards expressing their desire to have the “ceded” lands protected through moratorium laws. It is our hope that our elected legislators will take heed of their constituents' voices and act accordingly.

Additional information regarding the ceded lands case and the effort to protect the ceded lands can be found at www.stopsellingcededlands.com E-mail can be sent to kupuaina@gmail.com.

Press conference on ceded lands moratorium, and we're presenting to the legislative Native Hawaiian Caucus

PRESS CONFERENCE!
Tomorrow (Wednesday) there will be a press conference at 10:00 am. Originally the idea was to have the press conference by the Queen Lili'uokalani statue. The meeting has now been changed to room 423 in the capitol. If you're planning on coming to the press conference, I recommend checking our twitter updates to the left side of our blog or by going to our twitter page to see if there are any last minute room changes. If there are any room changes we'll be sure to post those changes immediately through twitter. We're going to try and live-stream it on our website.

LEGISLATIVE HAWAIIAN CAUCUS


Representative Mele Carroll, the legislator credited with reactivating the legislative Hawaiian caucus, has asked Kupu‘āina Coalition organizers to speak with the members of the Hawaiian caucus. This discussion is currently scheduled to take place this Thursday, January 29, 2009 at 1pm. We've been told that this will take place in room 423 as well. We'll be sure to update twitter if there are any room chages. We will try to live-stream this on our website also.

We encourage supporters to come to both events on Wednesday and Thursday. Visit us here for updates.

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