Jeff Flake: “Nothing in the act shall relieve the Native Hawaiian governing authority from complying with the equal protection clause…”

“Nothing in the act shall relieve the Native Hawaiian governing authority from complying with the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment to the United States Constitution. I'm not trying to play a game of 'gotcha' here at all. I have the utmost respect, and that respect has grown over the years, for the gentleman from Hawaii. No Member of Congress works harder for his constituents and is more thoughtful in legislating than Mr. Abercrombie. But for those of us who have some concerns that this goes beyond land disposition or other smaller issues, this is not an idle concern that we have. The U.S. Civil Rights Commission noted recently that this legislation 'would discriminate on the basis of race or national origin and further subdivide the American people into discrete subgroups according to varying degrees of privilege.'”