Daniel Inouye: “before proceeding I would like to thank my leader, the Senator from Nevada, for his very generous remarks. I appreciate…”

“before proceeding I would like to thank my leader, the Senator from Nevada, for his very generous remarks. I appreciate that very much. I rise today in support of S. 147, the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act and to address the outrageous mischaracterizations that some of my colleagues made yesterday about this measure. The law does not support their attempts to discriminate against Native Hawaiians so my colleagues had to resort to trying to confuse the issue. This measure does not result in race discrimination. But discrimination will occur if this measure is not passed. It is undisputed that Native Hawaiians are the aboriginal, indigenous people of Hawaii. Yet some of my colleagues want to discriminate against them and treat them differently from other Native Americans--the American Indian and the Alaska Native. They seek to impose a new requirement for Congressional legislation to authorize the reorganization of a Native Hawaiian government even though many of these opponents have been in Congress for years and did not impose this requirement on the other aboriginal indigenous people recognized by Congress since 1978. Do not participate in these discriminatory activities. Congress has plenary authority over the aboriginal, indigenous people of America. The Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld this.…”