THE OFFICE OF HAWAIIAN AFFAIRS - Another example of How to Pluck a Non-Profit

Following the Trail of Money,
Influence and Arrogance at the
Office of Hawaiian Affairs

In 2005, when Hawaii Reporter questioned the spending habits of the Office of Hawaii Affairs’ elected trustees, we were immediately brushed off. Not deterred, we filed Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests but, in violation of Hawaii’s open government law, we never received a response. Finally with the intervention of the Office of Information Practices, the office that advocates for open government, were told we could get the information for a bargain -- a mere $11,000.

Specifically we asked how much money OHA trustees were spending on travel and what class they traveled in (I knew they traveled in First Class because I was on a flight with several of the trustees to Washington, D.C. and while I went to coach, they went to First Class);

We asked where the trustees stayed while on their trips, for how long and at what cost; and what family members traveled with them and on whose nickel;

We asked how much they spent on advertising for the Kau Inoa campaign to get Hawaiians to sign their blood quantum registry (they sponsor numerous newscasts, most likely to the tune of millions of dollars over the last few years);

We asked how much they spent on parties under the guise of getting signatures for Kau Inoa (we’d heard they spent $60,000 on an elaborate party in Las Vegas and obtained very few signatures in the process);

We also asked how much they spent on lobbying with their D.C. firm and local lawyers, advertising and advocating for the Akaka bill and where the money was going.

In June 2006, Hawaii Reporter was the only news organization to fly to Washington, D.C. to cover the Akaka Bill cloture debate at the U.S. Capitol. Afterward, we were the only Hawaii news organization to attend OHA’s press conference, which followed the press conference by Akaka Bill opponents in the U.S. Senate.

At that press conference, I asked OHA chair Haunani Apoliona why she hadn’t responded to my FOIA requests. In front of other national media and the attorney general, she promised that OHA was working on compiling the information and would get it to me soon. I persisted but she refused to estimate how much OHA was spending on advertising, Kau Inoa and the Akaka bill, and would not answer questions about her personal expenses including her first class travel to D.C. and accommodations.

Funny, Hawaii Reporter never received that information from OHA and the more we pushed, the more OHA began to attack us in their monthly newsletter Ka Wai Ola and in press releases. OHA even sent a photographer to follow me and harass me at an Akaka Bill debate that I covered (but it was no bother -- I felt like a celebrity followed by the paparazzi). Amazing that the money that was supposed to go to Hawaiians was instead being used to pay a photographer to chase me around -- and no one seemed to care. During 2007, we renewed our call for information, but received nothing.

Then in 2008, we published a ZeroShibai.com cartoon -- “Cow Inoa” - poking fun at Apoliona, the Akaka Bill, and the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. Outraged, Apoliona lashed out, issuing a press release that called us “racist” and said Hawaii Reporter is not a real news organization. She, a state elected official -- demanded we pull the cartoon. KGMB TV covered the story, interviewing former Honolulu Star-Bulletin reporter Crystal Kua, who now works for OHA as its media spokesperson, and she echoed the same sentiments.

KGMB Reporter Lisa Kubota also interviewed me and aired four reports -- all very fair and balanced -- and in each I said the cartoon was a response to OHA’s secretive and arrogant attitude and refusal to reveal any financial information since 2005. I called OHA Hawaii’s most powerful and most secretive state agency and said no media investigate the trustees because they sponsor virtually every newscast on every local news station (KGMB’s Kubota disclosed her station takes money from OHA). I also noted that anyone who challenges OHA is deemed a "racist" (if they are non-Hawaiian) or "radical fringe" (if they are Hawaiian).

We received weeks of hate mail from people calling us all kinds of names for publishing the cartoon -- and several of them wrote to our advertisers trying to get them to cancel their ads. Some of our advertisers were threatened. We traced some of those letters back to recipients of OHA money. The national media covered the story and noted how amazing it was that a state agency was ordering us to pull the cartoon and interfering with the First Amendment.

On March 17, 2008, St. Patrick’s Day, something remarkable happened. During a joint Senate hearing at the state Capitol on the proposed $200 million ceded lands settlement, several dozen Hawaiians for more than 5 hours testified to their outrage over OHA’s representation of them. Their anger was so intense, that the very lawmakers who’d just voted to approve the settlement changed their vote and held the bill. Several Hawaiians said they distrusted OHA and did not believe the agency was representing them. Some called for an audit.

State Senators were surprised by the opposition to OHA and agreed to author a resolution calling for a fiscal and management audit of OHA.

Thursday, the Senate Agriculture and Hawaiian Affairs committee heard the measure. OHA trustees came out in strong opposition. State attorney general Mark Bennett, who commonly appears on OHA-sponsored television programs, and testifies for OHA before Congress, came out strongly against the resolution. He accused Senators of calling for the "punitive" audit in retaliation for the piece he authored with OHA trustees in one of the daily papers this Sunday critical of the Senators’ decision to hold this session the ceded lands bill that he negotiated.

But Hawaiians who endorsed the idea of an audit of OHA overwhelmed the moral indignation of OHA trustees and Bennett. Some Hawaiians even asked:

How much has been spent on OHA commercials and television shows promoting the Akaka Bill and Kau Inoa;

And the parties OHA is throwing under the guise of promoting Kau Inoa, how much do those cost;

One Hawaiian told Senators that he'd been told it would cost $11,000 to get the information he requested.

Senators on the committee voted unanimously to pass the audit resolution and in fact plan to strengthen the language detailing the concerns of their Hawaiian constituents.

The resolution will go to the Ways and Means committee, and there will be tremendous pressure on the members to kill it there and delay the audit. But the fact is, the tide is turning against OHA and they are now suspect.

In a Honolulu Star-Bulletin blog entry, a writer compared the current climate at OHA to the corruption at Bishop Estate a decade ago -- something I have done publicly as well. That corruption at the Bishop Estate -- which boiled down to trustees taking millions of dollars for themselves and their political cronies -- is well documented in a book called Broken Trust by University of Hawaii Professor Randall Roth and Judge Samuel King.

If history really repeats itself, OHA trustees may find themselves investigated and then ousted as Bishop Estate’s high paid trustees were a decade ago.

The lesson: Hawaii's media doesn't want to challenge the establishment, because, as with the Bishop Estate, it is more lucrative to get along.

Reform and accountability have to come from within the Hawaiian community -- the call for these is getting louder. It seems the depth of discontent is extremely severe.

Millions More Taxpayer Dollars to the Office of Hawaiian Affairs - When is Enough, Enough?

Unable to get the federal “Akaka Bill” through Congress and the president’s office, so they could secure “federal recognition” and more importantly billions of dollars in land, cash and ultimately casinos, OHA has focused its attention on the more friendly state government and acquired state land and money anyway to form its new nation.

Stating “it’s a good deal for taxpayers,” Gov. Linda Lingle on Friday announced the state settlement for disputed ceded land revenue to OHA of $200 million. The deal includes only $13 million in cash and the rest in vast acreage in some of the most prime real estate in the state at considerably less than market value.

Why would a state agency want so much land while fervently supporting federal recognition that would require the state of Hawaii and the federal government to negotiate the surrendering of 1.2 million acres of ceded lands now owned by all races of citizens in Hawaii to the new Hawaiian Nation?

If the Akaka Bill does not pass Congress or is vetoed by the president as expected, Plan B of OHA will provide a land base for the new Nation of Hawaii. Land is money and power in Hawaii, especially undeveloped prime real estate in Kakaako and Kalaeloa.

Billions of dollars will be made by who ever owns the land and leases it out to commercial development as is all ready being done by the Department of Hawaiian Homelands throughout the state.

As a state taxpayer, I cannot even get a $1 tax rebate from the $700 million surplus of taxes in 2007, and probably not even a penny in 2008, but OHA can get a $200 million.

The governor also wants $100 million for Department of Hawaiian Homelands to build more homes for Hawaiians on top of the $600 million over 20 years all ready being paid by state taxpayers.

This is also in addition to the federal government’s $150 million a year in various programs for Hawaiians. The Federal Communications Commission is providing $400 million in rural fiber optic connections on Hawaiian Homesteads through Sandwich Isle Communications, which has an all Hawaiian Board of Directors including Kamehameha schools trustee Robert K.U. Kihune (VADM, USN, Ret) and Al Hee, Sen. Clayton Hee’s brother.

Mayor Mufi Hannemann paid over $5 million from city taxpayers to buy Waimea Valley and then gave it to the Office of Hawaiian Affairs.

Hawaiians on homestead properties only pay $100 a year in property taxes for the same city services I pay over $3,000 a year for, so that is another benefit not given to the rest of us.

With the billions of dollars already paid out to Hawaiians, the question is why are there still so many Hawaiian homeless on the beaches?

When Gov. Linda Lingle says “it’s a good deal for taxpayers,” I have to ask who negotiated this deal for the average taxpayer? It doesn’t sound like a very good deal to me. How much longer do the taxpayers of the state of Hawaii and the federal government have to pay for racial separatism and when will enough be enough?

HawaiiReporter.com reports the real news, and prints all editorials submitted, even if they do not represent the viewpoint of the editors, as long as they are written clearly. Send editorials to mailto:Malia@HawaiiReporter.com

John Waihee IV is being ordered to appear in court following his arrested in May on DUI charges.

-- Hermann Goering in 1934, when told that
a favorite Munich art dealer was Jewish.

Under legislation that the House of Representatives has voted 261 to 153 to foist on Hawaii, Goering's role would be played by a panel empowered to decide who is a "Native Hawaiian" and entitled to special privileges and immunities.

Because there are perhaps only 7,000 "pure" Native Hawaiians, "Hawaiian blood" will inevitably be the criterion, and the "one-drop rule" probably will prevail. Goering would have approved of this racialist sorting-out.

Those designated Native Hawaiians would be members of a new "tribe" conjured into existence by Congress. But Congress cannot legitimately do that.

In 1959, 94 percent of Hawaiians, including a large majority of Native Hawaiians, voted for statehood. Opposition was strongest among Southern Democrats in Congress, who, with the civil rights revolution simmering, were wary of Hawaii's example of multiracial harmony.

Today, the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act, when accurately described, is opposed by a large majority of Hawaiians and supported by only a bare majority of the approximately 240,000 Native Hawaiians in the state. The legislation, sponsored by Sen. Daniel Akaka, is a genuflection by "progressives," mostly Democrats, to "diversity" and "multiculturalism."

It would foment racial disharmony by creating a permanent caste entitled to its own government -- the Native Hawaiian Governing Entity -- within the United States. The NHGE presumably would be exempt, as Indian tribes are, from the Constitution's First, Fifth and 14th amendments. It would, Akaka says, negotiate with the state of Hawaii and the United States concerning "lands, natural resources, assets, criminal and civil jurisdiction, and historical grievances."

Reparations? We shall see. Independence -- secession? "That could be," Akaka, 83, has said, depending on "my grandchildren and great-grandchildren."

The seeds of this weed were sown in 1993, when Congress passed a tendentious apology for supposed U.S. complicity -- which was neither clear nor essential -- in the peaceful 1893 overthrow of Queen Liliuokalani's monarchy by Hawaiian residents.

The novelty of America apologizing for a monarch's fall was followed in 2000 by a Supreme Court ruling overturning a Hawaiian law that excluded everyone except Native Hawaiians from voting in a statewide election for trustees of a state agency. This, the court said, violated the Constitution's guarantee of equal protection of the laws and proscription of racial discrimination in voting.

This ruling raised doubts about the constitutionality of the racial spoils system administered by that agency, the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. Which is perhaps why Akaka decided the reorganization act was necessary despite what he has called, with weird defensiveness, his state's "perceived harmony."

There are 400,000 Native Hawaiians nationwide who will be eligible to participate in creating the NHGE. Native Hawaiians are 20 percent of Hawaii's population. They are defined as direct lineal descendants of indigenous peoples who lived on the islands before 1893 and who exercised sovereignty then -- an unintelligible provision because the queen monopolized sovereignty. She, however, was more enlightened than Akaka. She did not distinguish between Native Hawaiians and immigrants, who served in her government.

Under President George Washington, the U.S. government's Indian policy was a facet of foreign policy because tribes were considered foreign nations. The Constitution speaks not of native "peoples" but only of "Indian tribes." Akaka's legislation would create a Native Hawaiian "tribe" as a nation within the nation.

Unlike Indians, however, Native Hawaiians' land was not taken by force. They are not a compact community -- they are woven into the fabric of one of America's most polyglot states. They chose to bring themselves under the Constitution by embracing statehood.

Congress does not create tribes; it recognizes them according to settled criteria: Tribes were nations when the Constitution was written and are geographically separate and culturally distinct communities whose governments have long continuous histories. As the state of Hawaii has said, "The tribal concept simply has no place in the context of Hawaiian history."

Virtually all Democrats and a few inexplicable Republicans support this legislation, which will further inflame the ethnic grievance industry. Imagine the lesson that some descendants of Hispanics who lived in the Southwest before 1848 would learn from it. A Republican president would veto it. A Democratic president would sign it -- Sens. Biden, Clinton, Dodd and Obama support it -- but the Supreme Court would shred this plan for different laws for different races. Still, the legislation is an important symptom of Democrats' constitutional flippancy and itch for social engineering.

"One nation, indivisible"? Not for the House majority or the Senate committee that has approved Akaka's mockery of the Pledge of Allegiance.

The Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag: "I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all" ... should be rendered by standing at attention facing the flag with the right hand over the heart. When not in uniform men should remove any non-religious headdress with their right hand and hold it at the left shoulder, the hand being over the heart. Persons in uniform should remain silent, face the flag, and render the military salute.

OHA Trustees Claim Ownership of Underground Water
By Andrew Walden, Hawaii Free Press

Thirsty? Get used to it. The Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA) now claims ownership of most of Hawaii’s fresh water.

After months of hearings, the Kauai Springs bottled water company was ordered shut down in January by the Kauai County Planning Commission. The action was backed by OHA administrator, Clyde Namuo at a Feb. 13 hearing to reconsider.

According to the Feb. 14 The Garden Island in a letter to Commissioner Randal Nishimura Namuo states that “the Hawaii Supreme court has found that where surface water and underground water mix and become part of a single system, (traditional Hawaiian) water rights can be protected.”

Surface water is a state “public trust resource” and according to Namuo, part of the public trust responsibility includes maintaining waters in their natural state and allowing Native Hawaiians to exercise traditional and customary rights such as fishing and gathering.

Well water is the source of drinking water for much of Hawaii. Since all underground water comes from surface water, Namuo’s theory -- which places any claim of real or imagined damage to Hawaiian fishing rights above all other property claims -- would extend OHA control to all wells in Hawaii -- control which might pass to a “sovereign Hawaiian government” if the Akaka Bill should become law. The only water which would evade OHA’s grasp is water which falls out of the sky and directly into a catchment system.

Kauai Springs owner James Satterfield operated the company in a 1600 sq foot building located on agricultural land with permits from the county, state and federal governments. When he built the facility, he was not required to obtain special use permits which would be required if the bottling facility were deemed “industrial” rather than “agricultural.”

Jason Donovan of Sustain Kauai explains that all changed when a competing water bottler complained to the Planning Commission. Hawaiian Isles is a major bottled water supplier on Kauai. According to Satterfield’s attorney, Harvey Cohen, Menehune Water, Hawaiian Springs and other Hawaii water bottlers operate on ag land with special use permits and his client is willing to abide by the same rules now that the Planning Commission chooses to require them -- but apparently that is not good enough.

Satterfield’s company has a lease to draw water from a spring on Knudsen Trust land. The pipe transporting the water is owned by Grove Farm. In a Feb. 24 letter to the editor of The Garden Island, Knudsen Toulon of the Knudsen Trust explains the origin of the water: “The water flows from tunnels that were constructed by Koloa plantation and are located on the Ahupuaa of Koloa, which extends from Kahili Mountain to the sea and from Weliweli to Lawai. This area is not ceded lands. It was purchased from the Hawaiians.

“King Lot Kamehameha sold the Ahupuaa of Koloa on May 1, 1863, to Mr. Robert C Wyllie. After Mr. Wyllie passed away, his estate sold the land in 1867 to Mr. Ira Richardson. My grandmother, Mrs. Anne Knudsen purchased the land from Mr. Richardson on March 1, 1872 ….

“The tunnels were dug back in 1898 by Anton Krupp, a manager of Koloa Plantation, for irrigation …. (In 1920) a pipe was installed and the water supplied to plantation employees, as well as Koloa town and Poipu, until the county had wells of its own.

“Mr. Satterfield’s right to operate his small business should be reinstated.”

Speaking at the Planning Commission hearing sovereignty activist Kaiulani Huff said, “Alert everyone they are on stolen land and borrowed land.”

If Huff and Namuo get their way, land previously sold by a Native Hawaiian would have no resale value. Since all land in Hawaii other than “ceded lands” was once sold by a Native Hawaiian or deeded to a Native Hawaiian and conveyed to his heirs, this would in effect result in the abolition of private real property in Hawaii and the loss of hundreds of billions of dollars in assets held by thousands of Hawaii homeowners and property owners, including the thousands of Native Hawaiian property owners who have profited immensely from the increasing value of their land since the 1848 “Great Mahele” land distribution or have purchased property since then. In essence, Huff and Namuo are arguing for the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom while claiming to uphold Native Hawaiian rights.

But not everyone would suffer. OHA trustees would be in control of all the property and would be free to lease it out to anybody they wish. This would be a very profitable arrangement for them and their Swiss bankers, although non-trustees both Hawaiian and non-Hawaiian may not be thrilled at the prospect of returning to serfdom after 159 years.

Speaking to The Garden Island, Satterfield says, “I am going to court. I don’t need those permits.”

“Ue ka lani, ola ka OHA?” ... is derived from, “Ue ka lani, ola ka honua” which translates as: “The heavens cry, the earth lives.”

Andrew Walden is the publisher and editor of Hawaii Free Press, a Big Island-based newspaper. He can be reached via email at mailto:andrewwalden@email.com

A court rules against taxpayers trying to stop
state funding of pro-Hawaiian activities

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled yesterday against a group of Hawaii taxpayers who say that the state unconstitutionally discriminates against non-Hawaiians by giving money to programs that only benefit Hawaiians.

The federal appeals court stopped short of dismissing the 2002 lawsuit but overturned its own earlier decision by finding the 14 taxpayers lack legal standing to challenge state funding of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. The court sent the case back to U.S. District Court in Honolulu to determine if any of the plaintiffs are eligible "in any other capacity."

State and OHA attorneys said they expect the decision will put an end to the suit.

OHA attorney Sherry Broder said, "I consider this a victory for the Office of Hawaiian Affairs and native Hawaiians. The court found in favor of native Hawaiians."

But H. William Burgess, lawyer for Earl Arakaki and 13 others, said "it's not the end."

Burgess appealed the case to the appellate court after U.S. District Judge Susan Oki Mollway dismissed the lawsuit in 2004. In September 2005 a three-member panel of the 9th Circuit reinstated it, ruling that taxpayers could challenge the state for giving general fund money to OHA.

Last May, a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in a similar case appeared to doom the Hawaii taxpayers' challenge. The high court rejected a lawsuit by a group of Ohio taxpayers who challenged nearly $300 million in state and city tax breaks for DaimlerChrysler AG to build an auto plant in Toledo.

A month later, the Supreme Court instructed the appellate court to reconsider the Hawaii taxpayers' standing.

"Our case is different," Burgess said. "You have to have some specific injury to invoke court jurisdiction. Just because you pay taxes, you can't have a court decide on every state decision. In DaimlerChrysler the plaintiffs didn't suffer injury different from other Ohio taxpayers.

"In our case the plaintiffs have to pay taxes to support racial discrimination against themselves," Burgess said. "They suffer a specific pocketbook injury because not all taxpayers are eligible for the benefits. Taxpayers of Hawaiian ancestry don't suffer any injury because they are eligible for benefits."

"I still think ultimately we will prevail. This is just a bump in the road," he said.

State Attorney General Mark Bennett said, "We hoped the 9th Circuit would end the lawsuit. We're disappointed they continued it for further proceedings. We are pleased that on every substantive issue, the 9th Circuit ruled in our favor.

"We believe it's a short procedural delay. There's no possible basis on which plaintiffs can proceed with this lawsuit."

OHA Chairwoman Haunani Apoliona applauded the ruling but said it underscores the need for federal legislation that provides political recognition for native Hawaiians.

She called for passage of the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act, known as the Akaka Bill after its author, U.S. Sen. Daniel Akaka. "It will benefit not only native Hawaiians, but the entire state of Hawaii," she said in a press release.

OHA receives about 10 percent of its $28.5 million operating budget from the state.

The lawsuit originally also named the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands. Mollway dismissed the agency as a defendant, saying the program was mandated by federal law and that state taxpayers had no standing to challenge federal law.

The Office of Hawaiian Affairs spent $2 million on its congressional lobbying efforts for the Akaka bill — a third of all money spent by Hawai'i companies, private citizens and government agencies on Washington lobbying since 2003, according to an analysis of public records.

The OHA expenditure was the highest on the list of total dollars spent on lobbying efforts in Congress, outpacing the second highest expenditure from the University of Hawai'i, which paid $561,000 in Washington lobbying fees in 2003-04 under former president Evan Dobelle, U.S. Senate records show.

OHA's Akaka bill campaign was led by high-powered lobbyists with strong ties to both the Democratic and Republican power structures in Washington, including connections at the highest levels of the White House and the U.S. Senate.

Despite spending four times as much on lobbying as any other Hawai'i entity and the political clout of its lobbying team, the Akaka bill — which would establish a federally recognized Native Hawaiian government entity — failed to garner enough support for passage from 2003 to 2006.

The $2 million total in OHA fees does not include $900,000 spent by the agency since 2003 to operate and staff a "Washington bureau," said OHA administrator Clyde Namu'o, nor does it include costs incurred by regular visits to Washington by OHA and other state officials, including Gov. Linda Lingle, to seek passage of the Akaka bill.

And it does not include $120,000 spent by Maui-based private developer Everett Dowling's company on pro-Akaka bill Washington lobbying. Dowling, who has been involved in several development deals with the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands on Maui, said he spent the money because, "I think federal recognition is important."

Namu'o said he believes the lobbying effort "was worth it" because the Akaka bill was extensively debated on the floor of the Senate this summer for what's called a "cloture" vote, which would have brought the stalled measure to the full Senate for a formal vote.

Sixty votes were needed for cloture and it failed, 56-41, shelving the bill for the remainder of the congressional term.

"Getting to the cloture vote was a major milestone," Namu'o said. "It's the furthest we've ever gotten."

He said the cloture debate "told us exactly what issues there are for the bill by the senators" and "hearing some of those issues and discussions will help Senator Akaka next year" if the bill or a substitute measure is introduced, Namu'o said. The bill may have a better chance of passage now that Democrats are in the majority of both the U.S. House and U.S. Senate.

OHA has refused to disclose detailed records of its Washington lobbying campaign, claiming that because the work was performed by law firms, the records are protected by the attorney-client privilege.

A protest of OHA's refusal to reveal the billing records — itemized accounts of who was lobbied and what expenses were incurred — has been pending before the state Office of Information Practices for more than a year.

OIP executive director Les Kondo said that a formal opinion on the legal issues involved is still being prepared but should be completed soon.

OHA spent $1.8 million on Akaka bill lobbying by a major Washington, D.C., lobbying firm, Patton Boggs, and $300,000 with another D.C. firm, Zell & Cox, which has no other clients except OHA, according to federal lobbying records.

The chairman of Patton Boggs is Thomas H. "Tommy" Boggs Jr., regarded as one of the most influential lobbyists in Washington, with deep family and professional connections to the Democratic Party. When the lobbying contract was signed in May 2003, Boggs was charging $735 per hour for his services, although he told OHA at the time that billing rates were "adjusted" annually.

The other lead lobbyist for OHA at Patton Boggs is Benjamin Ginsberg, an influential attorney for the Republican Party and personal friend of Karl Rove, the White House deputy chief of staff and President Bush's closest political adviser. Ginsberg's billing rate in May 2003 was $500 per hour.

Another partner in the firm, Robert Luskin, is Rove's personal attorney and represented Rove during the 2003-05 federal grand jury investigation of the leaking of CIA operative Valerie Plame's name to news media.

Newsweek magazine reported a year ago that Rove was involved in White House meetings involving OHA and the Akaka bill. The White House declined comment when the magazine asked if there was any policy requiring Rove to disqualify himself from issues connected to the Patton Boggs firm. A spokeswoman said, "All ethical obligations are being met," Newsweek reported.

Boggs and Ginsberg have led a team of some half-dozen lobbyists working on the OHA account, according to disclosure records filed over the past three years in Congress.

The most recent report, filed with the secretary of the Senate Aug. 8, said Patton Boggs received $340,000 during the first six months of this year for OHA lobbying. The agencies that were lobbied during that period, the report said, were the White House, the U.S. House and Senate and the Departments of Interior and Justice.

It was during that period that a last-ditch effort to bring the Akaka bill forward for a Senate vote failed.

During this year's push for a Senate vote on the Akaka bill, Patton Boggs subcontracted part of its lobbying effort to a firm with close connections to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, lobbying records show.

Namu'o said that the firm was brought on board for the OHA lobbying campaign in part because of its ties to Frist. The Akaka bill proponents needed Frist's cooperation to bring the measure to the floor of the Senate for the cloture vote.

Namu'o said the $50,000 paid to Mehlman Vogel Castagnetti came from from fees already paid to Patton Boggs and was not an additional expense to OHA.

Namu'o said the Patton Boggs lobbying contract was "suspended" this summer but may be reactivated once decisions are made on whether to seek reintroduction of the Akaka bill or a similar measure.

Zell & Cox, the other lobbying firm hired by OHA to assist on the Akaka bill, was hired last year under a two-year contract for $150,000 a year.

Zell retired from federal employment at the end of 2004 and went into business with her husband, Michael Cox, also a lawyer and a longtime Washington lobbyist.

The partnership registered with the Senate as an OHA lobbyist in June 2005 and since then has registered no other clients, according to Senate records.

OHA has had a close working relationship with Zell for years. In August 2004, OHA threw a $37,000 retirement party here that honored Zell for "her steadfast support and work in advancing the well-being of Native Hawaiians" during 23 years of service at the Indian Affairs Committee.

The retirement bash was held at the Hilton Hawaiian Village and included presentation of some $1,000 in gifts, lei and commemorative photographs to Zell, records show. Tickets that OHA sold for the event brought in $9,000.

Namu'o said Zell is still working actively for OHA in Washington on lobbying tasks unrelated to the Akaka bill. A one-year extension to her firm's contract was signed in May at the same cost of $150,000, although the Zell & Cox billing rate was reduced from $400 to $350 per hour.

•

PDF: Lobbying in D.C.
See An analysis of data on the amount spent by local organizations on lobbying efforts in Congress shows OHA leading the list by four times as much as the next highest total. This information was complied from reporting forms that only require precise disclosure of expenditures of more than either $10,000 or more than $20,000. There are two total spending columns, one the minimum possible, the other the maximum.

On this page is the history of the Hawaiian Government Reorganization bill (formerly known as the Hawaiian Recognition bill; always known informally as the Akaka bill) during the 109th Congress (January 2005 to December 2006). In the Senate the bill is S.147 as amended; in the House the original version, dormant since it was introduced, is H.R.309

Items are listed in chronological order; therefore, scroll down to the bottom for the latest news.

For a thorough history of the Native Hawaiian Recognition bill from its birth in February 2000 through the present, exposing the pattern of stealth and deception in creating the bill and trying to pass it, see: http://www.angelfire.com/hi2/hawaiiansovereignty/Akakahistory.html

For the complete history of the Akaka bill in the 108th Congress alone (2003-2004), including all versions of the bill's text, and news coverage of political activity related to it (a total of perhaps 200 pages plus links to additional subpages), see: http://www.angelfire.com/hi2/hawaiiansovereignty/AkakaHist108thCong.html

IN THE SENATE FOR 2005 THE BILL WAS FAST-TRACKED BY SENATORS INOUYE AND AKAKA BECAUSE OF AN AGREEMENT THEY EXTORTED FROM THE REPUBLICAN LEADERSHIP TOWARD THE END OF 2004. REPUBLICAN LEADERS AGREED TO REFRAIN FROM BLOCKING THE BILL DURING 2005 AND TO ALLOW THE BILL TO BE RESOLVED ON THE SENATE FLOOR NOT LATER THAN AUGUST 7, 2005. FOR DETAILS OF THE HISTORY AND CONTENT OF THAT AGREEMENT, SEE THE CLOSING REMARKS AT THE BOTTOM OF http://www.angelfire.com/hi2/hawaiiansovereignty/AkakaHist108thCong.html

During the years 2000 through 2004, Congressional supporters and opponents of the Akaka bill flew below the radar, fighting through use of subtle parliamentary maneuvers rather than open conflict. In the House, Representative Abercrombie was able to pass the bill in 2000 (when nobody knew anything about it) by placing it on the calendar of non-controversial bills to be passed by unanimous consent on a voice vote under suspension of the rules at the dinner hour when only about ten Representatives were present on the floor. For four years thereafter, the bill was routinely pa