Arakaki v. Lingle

From dKosopedia

Arakaki v. Lingle (formerly Arakaki v. Cayetano)

On March 4, 2002, attorneys H. William Burgess and Patrick W. Hanifin, on behalf of 16 plaintiffs, filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Hawai`i challenging the constitutionality of Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA) and the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act, claiming the agency and Act violate the equal protection clause of the 14th Constitutional amendment and should be dismantled.

On May 8, 2002, U.S. District Judge Susan Oki Mollway ruled that the plaintiffs have standing as taxpayers to challenge income tax payments by the state Legislature to OHA.

In the wake of the September 2, 2003 opinion by the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Carroll v. Nakatani, Judge Mollway decided to schedule oral arguments on reinstating the federal government as a party in the lawsuit on November 17, 2003, and a hearing on the motions on January 12, 2003.

After hearing oral arguments on November 17, 2003, Judge Mollway issued an opinion on November 21, 2003 that removed the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands, Hawaiian Homes Commission, State Homesteaders’ Association, the federal government and other intervening parties from the suit.

On January 14, 2004, Judge Mollway dismissed the lawsuit against OHA, stating that the issue was a political question that should be decided by the U.S. Congress and not the courts. Attorneys for the plaintiffs plan to appeal the ruling to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

On August 31, 2005, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a group of Hawaii taxpayers may challenge state funding of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs as discriminatory.

On February 9, 2007, according to a Honolulu Star-Bulletin article:

The federal appeals court stopped short of dismissing the 2002 lawsuit but overturned its own earlier decision by finding the 14 taxpayers lack legal standing to challenge state funding of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. The court sent the case back to U.S. District Court in Honolulu to determine if any of the plaintiffs are eligible "in any other capacity." [1]