As KITV reports, one impact of the Republicans retaking control of the U.S. House of Representatives in Tuesday’s election is on the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act:
Hawaii’s Akaka bill to bring self governance to native Hawaiians appears dead in its tracks with Republicans taking over control of the U.S. House in January.
Hawaii’s Sen. Dan Inouye (D) said, “the odds of the Akaka bill passing are very bad.”
Here’s an AP article with similar sentiment.
HONOLULU (AP) — A long-sought federal law allowing Native Hawaiians to form their own government stands little chance of passing Congress before the end of the year, and its approval may be even less likely after a Republican House majority takes office in January.
[…]
Democratic Sen. Daniel Akaka, for whom the legislation is named, said he will push to pass the bill during the Senate’s lame-duck session starting Monday, but the chamber also will be busy with tax cut extensions and a stop-gap spending measure to keep the government running.
“The odds are bad,” U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, told KGMB-TV. “I’m being very candid and upfront because I don’t want people to have their hopes unjustifiably raised, because at this stage I would say it’s not one of the so-called priority measures.”
“I think it’s as good as dead,” said outgoing U.S. Rep. Charles Djou, R-Hawaii, who supports the measure. “We had a situation where the president of the United States said he would sign the Akaka bill and the Democrats held overwhelming majorities in both chambers, and Sen. Akaka wasn’t able to get it through.”
[…]
The legislation passed the U.S. House 245-164 in February but stalled in the Senate, where it failed to get consideration in the months before last week’s election.
Don’t believe it.
This is the same kind of disinformation put out by Inouye and all the Hawaii media back in December 2000 lame duck session, and also other years.
There’s nothing to stop Inouye from taking advantage of the huge Democrat majority durinf the remaining 7 weeks of Congress. He might also attach the Akaka bill to some other must-pass bill like raising the national debt limit or setting income tax rates for next year or appropriating money for the wars.
He might also include the Akaka bill “by reference” as a single sentence buried deep in a bill with a thousand pages.
For details about thwt happened in the past and might happen again this year, see
http://tinyurl.com/2avo9kq
and how’d it work out for passing the bill during all those other lame duck sessions? not so much. you could be right, but I’ve seen other reports saying they think it will be very unlikely to pass during the remainder of this session. Despite the Dem’s majority in the Senate they still have to deal with the Repub’s forcing everything remotely controversial to 60 votes, and it only takes one senator to put a hold on a bill and prevent it from being voted on. I think there’s a high likelihood that at least one Repub senator would block any attempt by Inouye to skirt around the procedures like this. We won’t know until the session is over, but if I was laying a wager I’d put my money on the bill being dead.
Scott, all it takes to break the hold or filibuster is 60 votes. The Dems (plus 2 independents who caucus with them) have 59. That has never been true during the decade of the Akaka bill until now. All it takes is one Republican to vote in favor of cloture. Lisa Murkowski is a co-sponsor of the bill. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine, both Republicans, have voted for cloture in 1996. The ONLY thing holding back the bill is lack of time for Harry Reid to bring it to the floor and waste a few hours on doing cloture. That’s why Inouye will use the dirty tricks he has used before; only this time there aren’t enough Republicans to block those tricks.
The lame duck session has always been the most dangerous time of year for the Akaka bill; and this particular lame duck session is the most dangerous one throughout the decade.
I don’t doubt they will try, and it is worth keeping an eye on. I just doubt they will succeed.
In my opinion the NHGRA (Akaka Bill) is a huge distraction. It deflects attention away from investigation into areas of significance that could bolster the award of the International Court of Arbitration in The Hague, which in 2000 supported the continuity of the sovereignty of the Hawaiian Kingdom. Let’s remember also that the law of occupation prevents the U.S. Senate from operating or having any effect in the Islands.
I invite readers of the Hawaiian Kingdom Independence Blog to read the law journal article “A Slippery Path Towards Hawaiian Indigeneity: An Analysis and Comparison between Hawaiian State Sovereignty and Hawaiian Indigeneity and Its Use and Practice in Hawaii today,” by David Keanu Sai, Ph.D. for an incisive analysis of the Akaka Bill.
E Pololei ‘o Keahi! And rightly so NOT to forget the Kingdom of Hawai’i! She is the true govermental heir to the Hawaiian Islands. I can’t help thinking, for the umpteenth time again, that the US is the occupier, the military occupier, the crusher of culture, and the assassin of history, an Empire of low repute. All the mythology that she foisted upon the world about freedom is like speaking, as the American Indians are supposed to have said, “Speaking with forked tongue” And now too, the true engine of America, Wall Street and the Federal Reserve Banking Cartel, are attacking the sovereignty of other Nations…in an antique sort of way the Akaka Bill is an old parlour trick of gambling cards, pea and shell, and whatever else a true carney uses to fleece the mark!