OHA lobbyist spending questioned
July 17th, 2008 by David ShapiroOffice of Hawaiian Affairs Trustee Rowena Akana makes sense when she questions whether the nearly $3 million OHA has paid Washington law firms to lobby for the Akaka bill in Congress has been money well spent.
OHA has paid $2.46 million to Patton Boggs LLC and $450,000 to Zell and Cox to seek congressional support for the controversial measure that would grant federal political recognition to native Hawaiians, according to an accounting of OHA's "nation building" efforts posted online.
"I support the Akaka bill, I think we need it because it offers some protections (for Hawaiians-only programs), but what I don't support is continuing to pay lobbyists millions of dollars when they don't produce," Akana said.
The Akaka bill hasn't passed in the half-dozen years it has been under consideration, and there's no sign that the high-priced lobbyists have produced any votes that wouldn't have been delivered by members of Hawai'i's congressional delegation and Gov. Linda Lingle, all of whom support the legislation.
Akana is on the mark when she says the money would be better spent educating local non-Hawaiians about the bill and its potential impact.
She said opponents of the Akaka bill have succeeded in getting some people to "think we want to be separatists and want to secede and that's nonsense."
She's right that Hawai'i's secession from the union is supported by only a minority of Hawaiians and has zero chance of actually happening, but Akaka bill opponents have aggressively planted the fear.
OHA deserves credit for making this discussion possible by posting online a thorough accounting of its $10 million effort to build a unified Hawaiian nation via the Akaka bill, Kau Inoa and the Ho'oulu Lahui Aloha Hawaiian Governance Initiative.
You can see OHA's reports here or read Gordon Pang's excellent summary.
