Hawaii vote restriction struck down

At Issue: US Supreme Court Wednesday (Feb. 23) struck down Hawaii’s voting restriction by vote of 7-2.

Our View: Such decision nullifies restricting voting on land alienation approved in the last midterm election.

The long awaited US Supreme Court decision on Hawaii’s practice of letting only people with Hawaiian blood vote for leaders of a program that benefits descendants of the islands’ original residents was struck down. The court said the voting restriction allows unlawful racial discrimination.

“A state may not deny the right to vote on account of race, and this law does so”, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the court as it invalidated a provision of Hawaii’s constitution.

A white rancher had challenged the state’s limits on who can vote for trustees of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, which administers state funds and proceeds of public land to aid people descended from original Hawaiian. The office, crated in 1978, administers a $300 million trust that provides economic, social, health and education aid for about 200,000 residents of Hawaiian blood.

Harold Rice, the Big Island rancher who challenged the voting limit, has no Hawaiian blood but his family has lived in the islands since the mid-1800s. His attorney argued that the voting restriction was racially discriminatory. He didn’t challenge the state’s right to create a trust to benefit people with Hawaiian blood.

What does this decision mean to a recent approval of limiting voting on the fate of the “land alienation” provision under the Covenant Agreement strictly to NMI’s indigenous descendants approved last November? We are of the belief that the recent Supreme Court decision nullifies such measure and opens up voting on land alienation to ALL US Citizens living here.

About the only way for the indigenous people of these isles to keep its land alienation provision is if in fact the entire Marianas Archipelago is reservation land upon which we live in much the same way that land has a sacred relationship with Native Americans. Here in the islands such isn’t the case. We don’t have reservations nor do we live in one. Therefore, the measure approved last November limiting voting on land to NMI descend is discriminatory based on the recent US Supreme Court decision.

The fate of the Land Alienation provision is due for disposition in about three year’s time. When it is put on the ballot for determination, ALL US Citizens here will have the opportunity to say their piece by voting whether to keep or scrap it altogether. It’s universal principle that we can’t discriminate based on race nor should we even dare entertain such notion anywhere in these isles. It only weakens the pillars and foundations of our democratic institutions. Si Yuus Maase`!