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Two federal lawsuits challenging the recently completed native Hawaiian vote were pending before a federal judge when this programme brought together attorneys and a plaintiff from each side. John Goemans, lead counsel for non-Hawaiian plaintiff Harold Rice, argued that the state statute restricting participation to native Hawaiians imposed a racial qualification for voting prohibited by the Constitution, and that the Native American tribal election analogy did not apply. Haydon Aluli, representing two members of the Hawaiian Sovereignty Elections Council, countered that the state-run process was consistent with the 1993 federal Apology Resolution and its call for reconciliation. Lela Hubbard, a Hawaiian plaintiff in the separate Kalalea suit, supported sovereignty in principle but argued that the state of Hawaii lacked authority to organise the process; in her view, native Hawaiians should address their claims directly to the federal government. Jon Van Dyke, representing the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, argued that native Hawaiians hold a unique right to self-determination that has been denied to them alone among indigenous peoples in the United States. Whether race-restricted voting in a sovereignty election is constitutionally permissible is the question before the court.
Transcript
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Companion newspaper commentaries
Commentaries by the guests, published in The Honolulu Advertiser around the broadcast.
