Na‘i Aupuni convention challenged
The Native Hawaiian self-governance campaign run by Na‘i Aupuni came under attack once again Tuesday as foes formally asked the U.S. Supreme Court to block its election end run.
The plaintiffs in the lawsuit against Na‘i Aupuni filed a motion against the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, the Native Hawaiian Roll Commission, Na‘i Aupuni and other defendants in the case, urging the high court to hold them in civil contempt.
The motion argues that the cancellation of Na‘i Aupuni’s election violates the letter and spirit of the court’s Dec. 2 temporary injunction, which blocked the counting of votes and certification of winners while the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals considers the lawsuit filed in the case.
But Na‘i Aupuni said it was confident it could fight off the latest challenge. In a statement, the nonprofit said nothing in the Supreme Court order prohibits Na‘i Aupuni from terminating its election and offering all candidates an opportunity to gather and discuss a path to self-governance.
“Civil contempt is only appropriate where the court order clearly and unambiguously prohibits the proposed action,” the Na‘i Aupuni board said. “(The) motion is without merit and we will oppose the motion to ensure that the February gathering will go forward.”
Office of Hawaiian Affairs attorney Robert Klein agreed, saying Na‘i Aupuni complied with the court’s order and therefore cannot be held in contempt.
“As far as my client OHA is concerned, OHA has done nothing to offend the court’s order. OHA neither counts ballots, seats elected delegates nor conducts the election,” he said.
Tuesday, meanwhile, was the last day for candidates to declare their intention to join the aha, or constitutional convention, scheduled for February.
The four-week convention was scheduled last week after the Na‘i Aupuni board ended the election to avoid a potentially lengthy delay while defending its constitutionality in court. The board said it would seat all 196 candidates who sought election as delegates to the convention.
On Monday, Na‘i Aupuni said nearly 100 candidates had agreed to attend the convention, and urged more to sign up before the Tuesday night deadline. The final field of delegates is expected to be announced today.
But the event could be doomed for now if the court agrees with Tuesday’s motion.
The plaintiffs, who include Keli‘i Akina, president of the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii, asked the court to take all steps necessary to enforce the temporary injunction.
“It’s outrageous that Na‘i Aupuni and state agencies such as OHA and the Native Hawaiian Roll Commission have ignored and defied the Supreme Court of the United States,” Akina said in a statement.
“All citizens of Hawaii, including native Hawaiians, should be appalled at the contempt our own state government is showing to the U.S. Constitution. The majority of Native Hawaiians, in particular, have made it clear that they do not support and are not represented by those trying to push through a state-sponsored, racially discriminatory government-creation process,” he said.
The case against Na‘i Aupuni is being argued by Washington, D.C.-based Judicial Watch. The conservative foundation, which describes itself as a government watchdog, is being assisted by Grassroot Institute, which had enlisted the plaintiffs — four Native Hawaiians and two non-Native Hawaiians.
In their lawsuit the challengers contend that a Hawaiians-only election violates voter equity guaranteed by the 15th Amendment. Na‘i Aupuni has countered that the entire matter is a private affair, affecting only Native Hawaiians, and is not an official state project.
U.S. District Court Judge J. Michael Seabright agreed with Na‘i Aupuni, but the case was appealed to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
The 9th Circuit, meanwhile, refused to temporarily halt the election. The request was moved up to the U.S. Supreme Court, where a court majority agreed, issuing a temporary injunction against the election three weeks ago.
In their motion Tuesday the challengers charge election sponsors with using “gamesmanship” to accomplish a “willful circumvention” of the purpose of the court’s order.
The motion asks the court to order the defendants to withdraw the Dec. 15 certification of delegates and prevent any further effort to send delegates to the convention. It asks that the order be enforced with monetary sanctions strong enough to ensure compliance before the convention begins in February.
In addition, the motion asks the court to require Na‘i Aupuni to “preclear” any other steps it might take with regard to selection of delegates or holding of a convention while the injunction remains in force.
It also asks for attorney’s fees and costs.
Robert Popper of Judicial Watch, lead attorney in the case, said the election was based on “a trick” using a nonprofit that was really a state agent to accomplish what the state could not.
“It was all an attempt to get around prior Supreme Court precedent. This latest move of certifying all the candidates as winners is simply another trick. This time it’s an attempt to get around the Supreme Court’s Dec. 2 injunction,” Popper said in a news release.
Michael Lilly, former Hawaii attorney general and an attorney for the plaintiffs, said Na‘i Aupuni erred when it canceled its election and certified delegates without first asking the Supreme Court whether it was in violation of its temporary injunction.
22 responses to “Na‘i Aupuni convention challenged”
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Na‘i Aupuni should not only be sanctioned but should immediately have their “non-profit” status be pulled for being racially exclusive.
Do you even know the parameters for sancations by the US Supreme Court? Go ahead and dazzle us with your astute legal acumen…..not.
Boo La’ia’s allegedly astute legal acumen has proved to be totally not astute on this topic. He predicted the opposite of what has happened at every step along the way.
Thus avoiding the very question. Wrong evey step of the way-huh? Federal district court-check, Ninth Circuit-check, Supremes–basically deferred back to the ninth. Tubby, go check your blood presurre and and your ever growing LDH. Funny news from the racist enuch…
A trick indeed. Let’s take it even further back in time and not only back to the ruling in Rice, which the prolonged Akaka bill saga was designed to circumvent. The first trick happened at the time of the Admission Act in law when the present day Hawaiians, those of Rice, first showed their hand in legislation. The story has it all, above. native Hawaiians, Native Hawaiians and Hawaiians. native Hawaiians 1921. Native Hawaiians PL 93-644. Hawaiians of Rice and earlier, 1778 and later 1893. And Today. Each definition has law associated with it. But only one definition is kosher when it comes to the law of the land as encoded in Title 25 USC, which in spite of the misrepresentations about it, is already here.
Mythman, and all humans from 1778 forward have been visitors to this very special place called the Hawaiian Islands. As you posted, native Hawaiians, Native Hawaiians, and Hawaiians all have a stake in the United States Supreme Court decision on the most current challenge by Akina v. OHA/Nai Aupuni on Nai Aupuni’s decision to end the election and name all who (Registered) wish to become delegates to the Aha. Contempt? And, which Individual(s) or Organization(s)? The high courts decision could be sore.
You were doing so well Myth until you threw in there “encoded in Title 25 USC”. Polynesians-Hawaiians are not “Indians” and that is their problem. It is hard to get around the Hawaiian Kingdom, and then claim they were tribal “Indians” in 1893. Apples and Taro, not even close.
When peeling back the layers of time and history, back to the origins of this mess, what you find is a willful conflating of two distinct groups, in law. The public and the native Hawaiian. This was done under the thumb of the so called royal trusts because in their view of Hawaii, they were conflated in terms of who affords their rationale for tax exemption, even though the amount of “charity” they afford to the two is negligible in comparison to how much they take in and how much they distribute to their cadre. The device they used is the overthrow meme. While federal dollars intended by congress for native Hawaiians was obstructed by those doing the manipulating using state law and the state constitution, it was irresistible that so much more money they could take was available through congress from the federal treasury. The sums they reaped are into the billions and billions while the native Hawaiian, upon whose back the whole thing is based, got, well you know the rest of the story as it was related to us by the SA in is series of exposes of the DHHL and the commission, etc. The Supreme Court and some US Solicitors are on to it but it is still not clear that the massive PR is not continuing to delude others.
Last I heard “citizens” were guaranteed freedom of association. But then again the DLNR failed to afford due process in the TMT permitting. Sounds like a lot of Trump Speak.
This is not a club getting together with their own money to have a meeting, hukihei. This is being conducted with public funds and racially excluding all “others”. Nothing more than an Polynesian-Hawaiian KKK meeting that the tax payer is paying for. Your attempt to link it to the DNLR(they will re-do and eventually build the TMT)or of all things Mr. Trump is simply silly, just like the sovereignty secessionist movement.
Seems like a person that is 5% Hawaiian, 95% Japanese is really not Hawaiian except for pretense. They didn’t loose their land or anything else. They don’t belong to a tribe and they don’t have rights to their own government. Saying anyone that has 1%, or even less, Hawaiian blood, has been detrimentally impacted and belongs to some Hawaiian government body is baloney. How can anyone not see that?
The motion for contempt includes the following: “Court should instruct Respondents to withdraw the December 15, 2015 certification of the delegates and cease and desist in any effort to send delegates to the convention. The Court should enforce this command through monetary sanctions. … The Court should impose sanctions strong enough to ensure compliance in advance of February 1, 2016 — the date on which the convention is scheduled to begin.”
I believe the logical amount of the fine for contempt of court in this case should be equal to the amount OHA gave to Na’i Aupuni — isn’t that about $4 Million? Na’i Aupuni would have to pay it and would go bankrupt; and the balance of the fine would be paid by OHA.
Correct Dr. Conklin, By certifying all delegates as winners, Na’i Aupuni effectively completed the election against the Supreme Court Ruling not to count the votes, as their racially exclusive election using public funds is on its face blatantly unconstitutional. By declaring everyone a winner they snubbed their noses at the Court’s ruling to stop the election and certification of any “winners”. They are clearly in violation, and Na’i Aupuni will surely be spanked for it. These people are just stuck on stupid.
http://www.infowars.com/coming-to-america-china-introduces-credit-score-for-obedient-citizens/
2 issues: A NPO is not regulated by the IRS whey they go astray. The states are tasked with that but they never do anything to any NPO. The sanction is the NPO association names a nominated NPO to its sanction list and this tells donors not to make donations to that NPO.
Title 25 is the way this is going to end, like it or not. It’s the law and it is constitutional. You cannot like the Constitution and disdain Title 25. However, this will not mean the public, posing as “Hawaiians” become a tribe regulated by it. It’s a fine distinction but a real one. BTW, the clowns running this show are like a really crummy stage illusionist, whose tricks are so badly done that no one in the audience are fooled. The only ones applauding are the performer’s family and friends. Dr C is right – it’s time to start making them pay for their wrongs.
From the IRS website on “non-profits”: “The Internal Revenue Service will not tolerate discrimination against anyone because of race, color, national origin (including limited English proficiency), reprisal, disability, age or sex (in education programs or activities) by its employees or anyone who volunteers or works with taxpayers at one of these community partners”.
You would like Title 25 to be the ruling but again it has to do with Indian Law and they are not, never been, nor do the want to be declared “Indians” in any fashion or form. NO CASINOS IN PARADISE, Mythman!
Take a shot at having the IRS do as you say and then get back to us instead of relying on a web site.
Why do you think Kamehameha Schools always settle out of court before they are found to be illegal? Last time they were sued they coughed up $8 million bucks to a white kid they accepted and then turned away because he was the wrong color. This whole race based thing that is allowed to continue against Federal Law has just a matter of time before it will all be found unconstitutional. They know it. Thus, this whole “we are kind of like Indians” thing they are attempting to become out of thin air. That is their problem, they don’t know what fraudulent angle will best work for them, in order to hang onto all their race based for Polynesian-Hawaiian only free stuff, and tax exempt status.
ps check out what prof roth has to say about bishop and irs pursuant to broken trust….
To me, the most interesting point in this article is the fact that an OHA lawyer felt compelled to declare that his agency had not violated any court orders. If, as Na’i Aupuni claims, this whole process was independent of state agencies, why is OHA now declaring innocence so loudly? This is yet another reason the whole race-based process is doomed and a waste of money. The legal concept of “fruit of the poisoned tree” and common sense will eventually prevail, and the whole mess will be thrown out. Shuffling the money through another party to get around the law is a hallmark of criminal organizations, by the way.
Trying to do an end around the court by proclaiming all the candidates winners is even more asinine than what I have come to expect from this group. If they want to hold a racially exclusive “election” and get themselves declared a fake Indian tribe, they should do some fund raisers and do it on their own dime. It will probably fail even then, but at least it won’t be done with my tax dollars.
AMEN WANKINE!
Thanks Wankine. You said it better than most of us could. Great comment.