John Cornyn: “yesterday, when I came to the floor and spoke on this legislation--the so-called Native Hawaiian legislation--I…”

“yesterday, when I came to the floor and spoke on this legislation--the so-called Native Hawaiian legislation--I indicated that I had profound concerns about the constitutionality of the bill. I might add that it is not sufficient for Members of Congress to say that the courts will clean up the mess after we pass the bill. Indeed, it is our responsibility to uphold and defend the Constitution as Members of the Senate. Yesterday, we heard a few hours of discussion from both those who support and those who oppose the bill. I have made no secret of my opposition. Simply put, I cannot and I will not support a bill the purpose of which is to divide America and is based upon race, and which is clearly contrary to our fundamental American principle of equal justice under the law. The bill would create a separate race-based government for Native Hawaiians to the exclusion of all other Americans. And because of its very focus on race, the legislation creates particularly troublesome constitutional problems. In fact, it appears to be designed to be an end-run around the U.S. Supreme Court decision in the year 2000, in Rice v. Cayetano, a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision which has struck down the practice of segmenting Hawaiians based upon race. I mentioned the 2000 decision in Rice v. Cayetano. That was a 7-to-2 decision which struck down the ancestry requirements for voting for the Office of Native Hawaiian Affairs trustee elections.…”