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Appeal will follow. UPDATE: 5/29/2009: The Ninth Circuit denies Appellants' motion for injunction pending appeal. 5/11/2009: Tax Appeal Court grants State's motion for summary judgment. Real property taxpayers to appeal deprivation of same exemption as counties give to Hawaiian homestead lessees. Legal theory: Special privilege based on race is odious to a free people whose institutions are founded on the doctrine of equality. All real property owners use city and county services and infra-structure and each should pay his or her fair share. Click on Pleadings, then Tax Appeal cases. 4/23/2009: Proposed stipulation of facts circulated. Real property tax appeal cases in all four counties of State of Hawaii seek exemption equivalent to that given to Hawaiian homesteaders. Cases set for trial week of June 22, 2009. Click to view the pleadings. 3/31/2009 U.S. Supreme Court reverses Hawaii Supreme Court: Haw'n claims over ceded lands "inconsistent" with absolute title of State in public trust for citizens of Hawaii granted by Admission Act ; would "cloud" title and raise "grave constitutional doubts." 12/19/2008: In Day v. Apoliona, 9th Cir. No. 08-16704, Wendell Marumoto files his Response Brief presenting this question: Because the Ceded Lands Trust has never, in any year since Statehood, generated net income from which distributions could lawfully be made to beneficiaries, should control of the hundreds of millions in cash and property unlawfully distributed to OHA and still held by OHA, be re-vested in Executive branch to benefit all the people of Hawaii? Read the Day Appellants' Opening Brief (50 pgs) December 11, 2008: Grassroot Institute of Hawaii and Southeastern Legal Foundation file Amicus Curiae brief in U.S. Supreme Court, State of Hawaii v OHA, No. 07-1372. Emphasis on history of Hawaii; calls to Court's attention info not covered by parties' briefs. Main goal: to show Court way and reason to reverse blatant racial discrimination that has become the norm in Hawaii. In life, as in sports, it is best when we all play the game by the same rules. Click here to see the Amicus Brief November 19, 2008: Kuroiwa Plaintiffs file their opening brief in Ninth Circuit in Kuroiwa v. Lingle. State’s distributions of hundreds of millions of Ceded Lands Trust revenues to OHA for 3 decades all illegal: Trust never generated net income from which distributions to beneficiaries could lawfully be made. Click here to see Kuroiwa's brief. October 30, 2008: Wendell Marumoto files opening brief in Ninth Circuit in Day v. Apoliona, asks court “to preserve the just and prosperous society and government of the State of Hawaii to whose development my ancestors and the others contributed after coming to Hawaii from more than 150 years ago.” Click here to see Marumoto's brief. On April 3, 2008 a new suit, Kuroiwa v. Lingle was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Hawaii. The suit is brought by Six Non-Ethnic Hawaiians against State officials and OHA trustees for breach of trust and deprivation of civil rights and to dismantle OHA Click to read the pleadings. On May 17, 2007 Questions about Akaka bill by Senate Committee and Answers by H. William Burgess. Click to read the Q&A. On January 17, 2007, after it had failed to pass in every Congress from 2000 to 2006, the Akaka bill was re-introduced as the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act of 2007, S. 310 in the Senate and H.R. 505 in the House. The next day Peter Kirsanow of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights put it this way, "The worst piece of legislation ever analyzed by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has been brought back from the dead." Click here for A Remonstrance Against the Akaka Bill. Brief Summary - The Akaka bill proposes to: Create a privileged class in America by “finding” a “special political and legal relationship” (between the United States and anyone with at least one ancestor indigenous to lands now part of the U.S.) that “arises out of their status as aboriginal, indigenous, native people of the United States”. §§2(3) & (22) and §§3(1) & (8); Define “Native Hawaiian” essentially as anyone with an ancestor indigenous to Hawaii, §3(10); Declare that Native Hawaiians are indigenous people with an inherent right of self-governance, §§4(a); and “recognize” their right to “reorganize the single Native Hawaiian governing entity”, §7(a); and Fund, aid, abet and establish a process exclusively for Native Hawaiians to create their own new separate sovereign government, §7. Automatic recognition of new government. Once the new government is created, the United States is deemed to have officially recognized it as the “representative governing body of the Native Hawaiian people.” §7(c)(6). Negotiation of breakup and giveaway. The bill would then authorize State and Federal officials to negotiate with the new government for break up of the State of Hawaii and give away of much of its domain and power to the new Native Hawaiian government §8(b). No requirement for prior consent or later ratification. The bill does not require the prior consent to the process by the people of Hawaii; or that any agreement negotiated for the breakup and giveaway shall be subject to their ratification. The bill would settle nothing. Since no release or settlement of claims is provided for, Native Hawaiians, after the partition, would become citizens of the new government and continue to hold their full citizenship in what is left of the State of Hawaii. They would also retain for future resolution or litigation their often-repeated demands for all the ceded lands, and other grievances against the State of Hawaii and the U.S. Please click on Q&A's for more information about this divisive bill.
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