Hawaiian sovereignty, one sentence at a time

With a knowing smile, Hawaii’s Sen. Daniel K. Inouye leans back in his chair and says: "As has been said since the time of Adam, there are many different ways to skin a cat."

The feline under consideration is the Native Hawaiian sovereignty recognition bill, which in various forms has been slogging its way through Congress since 2000.

As chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Inouye had a single sentence inserted into the Interior Department budget bill. It allows the federal government to recognize Native Hawaiians in the same way that American Indians and Native Alaskans are recognized, but without immediate benefits for federal programs.

In an interview last week, I asked Inouye how something like this could pass without a vote, Inouye noted that the insertion still has to make it through the Senate and then go to the House.

"It is not over yet because the House bill doesn’t have the same language.It would be subject to conference," Inouye said.

Why would House Republicans, already not a group that sees life the same ways as Senate Democrats do, want to go along with this?

Inouye, relying on Republican support in the Senate, says that "in conference, we are able to tell our House counterparts, ‘This measure is bipartisan, unless you consider the Republicans in the Senate to be something less than Republican.’"

The bill has more history than support and there have been fears that it will pass through the back room without a vote.

In 2009, Native Hawaiians who opposed the Akaka Bill claimed that Inouye was readying a plan to insert the bill into a defense spending bill. At that time, Inouye denied that, calling it "nonsensical."

In Inouye’s mind, however, the idea of federal recognition of a sovereign entity for Native Hawaiians, whose ancestors saw their nation disappear with the help of the U.S., has had enough discussion.

Inouye said the bill had hours of hearings, multiple revisions and amendments.

"We have had hearings in Washington and Hawaii. It is not a measure that has been shepherded in the dark of night," Inouye said in 2009.

Today, Inouye insists this new effort is "not a new concept."

"This gives you an opportunity; it authorizes you to begin the process," Inouye said last week. Specifically, how that process would work is still unclear. Congress has a set of 12 appropriations bills needed to keep the federal government running, including the Interior Department spending bill. So for the Inouye insertion to survive, it must first clear the Senate and then be taken up by the House.

Inouye is betting that in a conference committee, he will be able to trade off other appropriation items for the single sentence. The fall-back reasoning could be that this just starts a long process and nothing is really changed.

Back in 2005, during another more straightforward attempt to push the bill, conservative commentator Michelle Malkin called the Akaka Bill "the worst bill you’ve never heard of."

Then, the Akaka Bill had the strong support of the state Legislature and Republican Gov. Linda Lingle. Even with special visits by Lingle, the bill failed to move in the Senate, as one Republican senator after another put a choke hold on the bill.

Second-guessing Inouye’s strategic thinking is probably a losing proposition, but this attempt appears to be more a Hail Mary pass than a methodical strategy.

It speaks to the issue that Sen. Daniel K. Akaka retires in 2013 and there is neither time nor support for a controversial bill, mostly important just to Hawaii.

Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Reach him at rborreca@staradvertiser.com.