Blog

AKAKA BILL FALTERS
by Leon Siu
February 5, 2010

The Akaka Bill is in big trouble. Earlier this week, Republican Senator Jim DeMint placed a ‘hold’ on thebill, which in essence freezes the bill from moving forward. This is the newestsetback in a series of catastrophic hits over the past six weeks that took thebill from certainty of passage by Christmas, to certainty of passage byFebruary, to being dead in the water.

How did this happen? Let’s goback about eight weeks…the Akaka Bill was literally days away, closer than it’sever been, to passing…

AKAKA BILL - SNEAK ATTACK PROTEST
Monday, December 14, 2009, independence protesters assembled at the cornerof Beretania and Punchbowl to protest an attempt by Hawaii’s US senators DanielAkaka and Daniel Inouye to sneak the Akaka bill into one of the large US federalappropriations bills while congress and the nation were distracted by the epicbattle over the huge healthcare reform bills.

INOUYE’S DENIAL
Senator Inouye in Washington, D.C. hurriedly issued a strong denial, but itwas way over the top, like that of someone caught with his hand in the cookiejar. No one believed his denial as everyone knows sneaky back-door deals is hisspecialty, his modus operandi.

STATE WITHDRAWS SUPPORT
Our SNEAK ATTACK protest triggered inquiries by Governor Lingle, anduncovered a scheme (brokered by Robin Danner) between Akaka and the White Houseto amend the Akaka bill in two days. State Attorney General, Mark Bennett, senta scathing letter to Akaka and the members of the house and senate committees,strongly objecting to the unexpected changes and withdrawing the state’s supportof the bill. He also suggested that public hearings be held in Hawaii beforeCongress takes further action on the bill. This constituted a major blow to theAkaka bill, as the State of Hawaii is the most vital player in the scheme ofthings.

OBAMA ASKS QUESTIONS
The demand for‘congressional-hearings-in-Hawaii’ grew to a clamor coming from many diverse quarters. Even President Obama caught the hint from protestors at the entranceto his vacation compound while in Hawaii over the holidays. Of course it washard to miss the huge banners and signs for ‘congressional hearings in Hawaii.’Sources tell us that upon returning to DC, the White House asked questions aboutwhy there had not been hearings in Hawaii.

OHA CAUGHT OFF GUARD
Apparently the Office of Hawaiian Affairs was also caught off guard by theamendments. OHA was strangely silent about the crisis for quite some time.Eventually OHA responded with yet another dog-and-pony TV forum. Their purpose?To squelch the growing demands for congressional hearings in Hawaii and assureeveryone that everything was still on track. The OHA show was unbelievablyshameful and pathetic.

[Ironically, the day of OHA’stelevised forum hyping the Akaka Bill, Senator Akaka was on Maui holding a“public hearing” for Maui veterans for a proposed vet complex (as theydeservedly should get). This insult by Senator Akaka (the vets get a hearing,Hawaiians don’t) has not been lost on the people ofHawaii.

CONGRESSIONAL SUPORTERS CAUGHT OFF GUARD
Co-sponsors ofthe bill like Alaskan Senator Lisa Murkowski, were also kept in the dark aboutthe amendments. Murkowski has hedged her support.

INOUYE’S DAMAGECONTROL FALLS FLAT
Trying to regain composure, Inouye arrogantly tells thepress that the governor’s balk was just a matter of miscommunication and that hewould get it straightened out over the holidays, and the bill will pass by midFebruary.

OHA and STATE TEAM UP
On January 20, the State AGand OHA submitted a list of 30(!) changes they would like to see made tothe Akaka Bill, in essence crippling any chances of it being passed any timesoon, certainly not “by mid-February.”

SHIFTS IN SENATE KILLSBILL
The surprise upset by Scott Brown in Massachusetts left Democrats in theUS Senate one short of the 60 needed for a super majority to dislodge a ‘hold’or stop a ‘filibuster.’ Sure enough, Senator Jim DeMint placed a hold on theAkaka bill. For all intents and purposes, the bill is dead.

INOUYE/DANNER PLOT EXPOSED
One of the bonuses of the last sixweeks is that the long, unholy alliance between Inouye and the Danner sistershas been exposed. The last-minute amendments (that caused the eventual collapseof the bill) would have contracted CNHA (the Danner’s non-profit corporation) tobe the interim administrator of the Native Hawaiian tribe, until such time thatnegotiations were ever completed for the creation of a Native Hawaiian GoverningEntity.

In a supreme display of poor judgment, Robin Danner hasbeen sent out into the Hawaiian community to put out the wildfires of growingopposition to the Akaka bill. But Hawaiians are ma’a to what’s going on andRobin’s presence is like pouring gasoline on the flames. The more she tries toextinguish the fires, the larger the conflagration gets.