The Patriot Post® · Judicial Watch Asks Appeals Court to Halt Race-Based, Separatist Election in Hawaii

If you’re an American citizen in Hawaii, but lack the right racial “blood,” you are now excluded from voting in an election that could decide the fate of your state.  That’s why our lawyers worked overtime to file an Urgent Motion for Injunction with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to stop a race-based, state-sponsored, Hawaiians-only election that violates the “fundamental constitutional rights” of American citizens.

The motion asks that the Appeals Court enjoin the counting of ballots, now scheduled for November 30, until the resolution of a Judicial Watch appeal of an earlier district court ruling in the case. Believe it or not, Hawaii uses a “one drop of blood” rule to define voter eligibility in the “Native-Hawaiian”-exclusive vote now under way.

We first went to court to stop this racist election this past August, when our team filed a lawsuit on behalf of the five Hawaiian residents who have joined with a Texas resident of Hawaiian descent to oppose voter registration requirements instituted under Act 195, which became a Hawaiian state law in 2011. Judicial Watch sought a preliminary injunction to stop the vote, scheduled for the month of November 2015, arguing that its clients were being denied the right to vote either because of their race or their political views in direct violation of the U.S. Constitution and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Act 195, a recent Hawaiian law, authorizes the Native Hawaiian Roll Commission (NHRC) to create a list of “Native Hawaiians” who would be eligible to elect delegates to a planned constitutional convention, which would then prepare “governance documents” for a separate Native Hawaiian entity.

The Obama administration supported the race-based election in this litigation despite the fact that the State of Hawaii limits eligible voters in the election to those who have at least one drop of Native Hawaiian blood. JW notes that this “one drop of blood” rule is like other laws last seen in the racist Jim Crow era: “It also has an unfortunate resonance in American history. See, e.g., Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1, 5 n. 4 (1967) (discussing Virginia statute holding that ‘[e]very person in whom there is ascertainable any Negro blood shall be deemed and taken to be a colored person’).”

The lower court declined to issue a preliminary injunction, ruling that the election was being conducted by the Na'i Aupuni foundation (NA), a “private actor holding a private election,” which would allow for race-based qualifications that would be obviously unconstitutional in any government-run election. Judicial Watch argues to the Ninth Circuit that the lower court erred on the facts and the law. Judicial Watch attorneys point out that it is undisputed that the allegedly “private” foundation was organized in late 2014 for the sole purpose of carrying out the election set in motion by Hawaii’s Act 195.

On July 20, 2012, using taxpayer funds from the State’s Office of Hawaiian Affairs, the NHRC launched the Kana'iolowalu campaign, opening a registration process strictly confined to Native Hawaiians — and even then only those who were also willing to “affirm the unrelinquished sovereignty of the Native Hawaiian people” and who desired to vote for a new race-based sovereign government.

As symbols of the Confederacy are removed from public display, the political left is pushing for a racist separatist campaign in Hawaii with the help of Barack Obama’s administration. The federal courts cannot put an end to this constitutional abomination soon enough. This Hawaii race-based election is a comeback for segregation.

The Office of Hawaiian Affairs and the Native Hawaiian Roll Commission are both hiding behind private parties in order to circumvent the U.S. Constitution and get around the civil rights protections afforded every American through the First, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments.

Robert Popper, director of Judicial Watch’s Election Integrity Project, is Judicial Watch’s lead attorney on the lawsuit. Mr. Popper was formerly deputy chief of the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department. Michael Lilly of the Honolulu law firm Ning, Lilly & Jones is serving as Judicial Watch’s local counsel for the plaintiffs.

In separate litigation, Judicial Watch forced the release of the actual enrollment list, which includes the names of Hawaiian residents placed on that list without their permission. The Obama administration took controversial executive action towards “the reestablishment of a government-to-government relationship with the Native Hawaiian community.