Randy Rustick's Story: Part Six

This is the continuation of Randy Rustick's story:

Then, a big guard (don’t remember what he looked like) opens my cell and has me follow a line on the ground and we go through some doors that we had to be buzzed into. Along the path I pass through two more walk-through metal detectors. We get to an elevator and enter it, and I am made to face the back wall of the elevator while we go up. The elevator stopped on the fifth floor. I again follow the line and walk through a metal detector.

I am made to stand next to a wall while the guard does some kind of check-in with a very large, round, windowed room that has 4 or 5 guards in it. After he signs in, we walk towards the unit that I am going to be housed in. As we walk, he asks me about what happened. Again, I tell him that I am innocent (he’s heard it all before, a million times, I’m sure). He asks me what I was thinking and why I would try to smuggle a blade on the plane. I give up trying to explain and just remain silent.

We then approach the doors of the unit I am going to be housed in. We are buzzed in. As the doors open, I am finally given my full dose of reality. Welcome to the general population. THIS…. is not where I want to be…

We enter a very large, two story cell block. There are many cell doors bordering the edges of the block, both upstairs and down. In the middle of the area is a staircase that leads up to the second floor. Right in front of me I see about 15 circular tables, with 4 or 5 chairs around each. At the far end of this block I see another set of stairs.

The first thing that I noticed, and still think about is all the blue shirts I saw. I mean… this is coming right out of a movie. There were about 40-50 inmates in the cell block. ALL of there attention was turned on me when I walked in; many of them seemed to be eyeing me up or trying to make eye contact with me. A couple of them gave me a “whats-up” head nod. I just looked down at my feet and ignored everybody. I didn’t feel like talking to anybody. I didn’t feel like anything.

Next to the entrance was a small room. In this room sat the guy that was responsible for the inmates. Surprisingly, there were no other guards around. In this small room was a desk and also some supplies like soap and towels. Behind the desk, the sergeant was busy filling out paperwork. His face was the kind of face that always looked happy. He seemed to be a very nice person.

He can tell that I am extremely nervous. He tells me that things are going to be fine. He goes over the rules and protocols. I listen with a blank stare on my face. A couple of times he is interrupted by some inmate that needs something. He seems to have a very good rapport with them. They seem to respect him very much.

He tells me that he is going to put me in a cell with Rad. He tells me that Rad is a very nice person, and he often sends new people to stay in his cell. Of course, my mind races here. I think I should go get testimonials from all those “new” people on how there stay was at hotel Rad. That way, I can make an informed decision on whether or not I want to stay in that cell.

Oh wait. I am not given a choice. Sigh…

To be continued

Copyright by Randy Rustick.
All rights reserved.

Randy Rustick's Story: Part Five

They drove me over the FPC (I think that is the acronym). I believe it is a 10 story building somewhere between the airport and Pearl City. Gary told me that he knew what I was feeling. Before he joined the FBI, he had gotten a DUI. I would have preferred to have gotten the DUI. I told him about the Mexico and Vegas trips I took while in college.

They didn’t stop to give me the lunch that I was promised. I think they just forgot. We pull up to the federal jail, and enter what looks like a very high security area. The car stops in front of these massive metal doors. Joe makes a call and then both of them remove their guns and lock it in the trunk of the car. We wait a few more minutes, until an office comes out to talk to the Joe. I stare at the big doors, wondering what is on the inside of them. I ask Gary if maybe it would be possible to just chain me to his couch or something. No luck.

The officer goes to a box, and dials a phone located on the inside. The massive doors then start to open… very slowly. As they open, I feel as if it was the gates of hell opening just for me. I was kind of in a dramatic mood, apparently. Inside was just a very large garage. Joe pulls the car in. There is a basketball hoop at the far end, a door, and not much else. A lot of empty space. We pull to a stop, and the agents have me get out of the car. The door on the side opens up, and we all go through.

We enter a processing area. This is a large area with a very long desk counter on the left hand side of the room. Behind this desk are a couple of offices. Bordering the whole room are cells. To the right is a large walk-through metal detector, and behind that looks to be a big storage room.

I am placed into one of the corner cells, my cuffs are taken off. The agents fill out some kind of paperwork. There are more officers in the processing area now. They all exchange pleasantries. Its just another day at the office for them. I don’t feel like exchanging pleasantries with
anyone.

Gary comes over to tell me that they will try to setup the lie detector test soon. I ask him what is going to happen next. He is not sure. This is one of his first busts. Great… I’ve been busted. The agents leave. When they do, I feel as if I am now completely alone. I am in a foreign world, with no support.

Once again, the order of things get hazy here. I have three interviews with three people, I just do not remember how it all went down. I will list them here, but there is no particular order.

1. I am asked to strip down of all my clothes. I am standing in front of a young Hawaiian male. I am completely naked, my hands are out to the side. My mouth is open and tongue is up. Good…no blade under the tongue. Now this part sucks. For the first of many times, I am asked to turn around, pull up my testicles, squat and cough. The term used was not “testicles”. I believe it was… “hold up your sacks”. It was pretty fricken cold in there and my “sacks” were pretty high already. However, the whole experience of being in that position in front of complete stranger was to say the least… not fun

2. I met in an office with a Japanese guy, a bit older than me. He calls out to one of the female guards about being the one to interview me. He says, too bad for her. I don’t EVEN want to know what that is about. He explains the rules. I will be allowed to have so many phone calls per month, I can order stuff from the inmate store once a week, etc. Mail is sent/received at these intervals. WAIT!!!!! Why are you talking like I am going to be here a long time? My heart rate starts to jump at that moment. Reality is starting to set in.

3. I have a meeting with an older Japanese lady. She is a doctor or nurse. She takes some readings from me and asks me allergy/drug questions. Again, she explains the medicine policy, and how to get them once a week. This will not due. I eat Tylenol like they were candy. If I got one of my headaches and had to wait a week for medicine, I would die. I have migraines that end me up in the emergency room a couple times a year. I have had them since I was a kid. I believe the lady took some blood.

4. I meet with the young Hawaiian male again. He takes my picture using one of those DMV picture taking devices. My picture appears on the computer screen, to be filed away on disk. It isn’t one of my best pictures. The thing I remember about this was that this guy could see that I was really down. He told me that everything will be ok, I just have to have faith. He said I had to be strong for my wife and kids, and for my family. He said that I could not appear weak. His words made sense. Even though I was where I wasn’t supposed to be, his words made sense. This guy reminded me of a preacher.

After all the processing, I was placed in a cell for another hour.

To be continued

Copyright by Randy Rustick
All rights reserved.

Randy Rustick's Story: Part Four by Randy Rustick

Part Four

For the next hour and a half I sit in the cell quietly. There is much activity going on in the little station. I can hear them talking about me; mostly, just new people getting a recollection of events. People walk back and forth past my cell.

Finally, they open the doors and cuff me again. I am taken to a small room across the cell and told that I will be talking to the FBI. They sit me down in a chair and leave me alone for a couple of minutes. I appear to be in somebody’s office. There is a “U” shaped desk with a computer and a lot of papers. The cuffs are too tight.

The door opens and two FBI agents walk in. They are young guys. One is very tall and the other is of average height. Both are Caucasians.

The tall one was named Joe. He introduced both of them (the other was named Gary). He proceeded to take my handcuffs off. He was trying to establish some kind of trust. He asked me how I was doing. I told him that I was looking forward to the day when I could look back on this and laugh.

They gave me a paper that had my rights on it, and read it to me. They asked me if I wouldn’t mind talking to them without my attorney present. I didn’t mind. I had nothing to hide.

Joe showed me the shoe. For the first time, I got a really good look at it. Once again, under a few layers of material was the blade. It appeared rusted to me. Also, one end looked like it was “stuck” or glued even deeper into the shoe. He asked me if I new anything about it. I once again denied all knowledge.

He asked me if there was any way it could have gotten into it accidentally. I told them that about a year ago I believe I had a pack of (possibly) similar razors in my home-office that my wife bought. I use the closet in my home-office to keep my suits and shoes because my wife has taken over our bedroom closet completely. Unfortunately, my shoes share a top shelf with many office supplies. I told them it is possible that maybe a blade fell in. I didn’t know. When something unexpected happens, your mind tries to find any possible explanation.

At this point, I didn’t know that my wife had taken these shoes in to get resoled. Apparently she did it a couple months prior. I am not a big shopper, and have not actually purchased clothes for myself in the almost 10 years of my marriage. I believe that I have a magic set of drawers, because every so often new shirts, shorts, underwear, etc. appear in them.

Unfortunately, my wife has a magic closet, as new things appear in there VERY often. Sigh…

They proceeded to tell me that this was a very serious situation. They kept asking me if I put the blade there, or if I knew how it got there. They asked me if I possibly had any enemies. They asked me how my marriage was, and how my relationship with the children was. They explained the statute, which states that I could go to jail even if I had no knowledge. Things weren’t looking good.

However, at this point they said that this type of thing happens a lot a airports. Most of the time, it is usually the result of some mistake. Someone having a knife in a carry-on, etc. They say usually the person caught takes a polygraph test and is cleared. They ask if I would be willing to take one. I say yes. I want to take one immediately.
Apparently, these things take time to setup.

They spend another ½ hour asking me questions. I don’t think they think I’m a bad guy. I am actually really starting to relax now. I was very impressed with their professionalism. I could tell they really wanted to
find out the truth. They were being nice to me, but I had no illusions that if they thought I were dangerous, the situation would be different.

Unfortunately, they told me that I was going to spend the night in the federal penitentiary. I started to get nauseous again. They were going to take me to get something to eat, and then take me over. I asked if there was nothing that I could do. They said “no”.


To be continued

Copyright by Randy Rustick.
All rights reserved.

Randy Rustick's Story: Part Three by Randy Rustick

We drive off. I try to look back at my wife, but it’s very hard to twist around while you are sitting down, with your hands cuffed behind your back. I look forward to the two officers in the front seat. I am still waiting for one of them to turn around and say… “I’m Ashton Kutcher, and you’ve been punked.” No luck. They are both locals. I feel like the punk then.

We drive around to the back side of the airport, via an access road, and enter a gate. Apparently there is a holding facility for airport arrests. It’s sort of like a mini-police station. The two officers are talking about
something that happened over the weekend at home. Some kind of pipe leak. To these guys, its business as usual. To me, it’s the start of a nightmare.

I cannot seem to remember the next few minutes. All I remember next is me standing in a very small cell in my bare feet. I vaguely remember hearing people say “Is this the guy?” They also seem to be talking about my laptop
bag. My belt had been taken off. The floor was very cold. There was a wooden bench on the far side, attached to the wall. This is where things started to hit me.

The officer slid the doors shut. I saw it in slow motion then, and I see it in slow motion now, most nights. When the brown painted doors shut, I heard the distinctive “clang” that you hear in most movies. It seemed to be the loudest noise in the world to me then. This was no movie. This was real life. I was in trouble.

As I said before, I see and hear the door most nights
in my dreams. Usually the dreams consists of me watching the doors close in slow motion, with a thundering “clang” when they finally shut. I then look up and see my daughter Kamalani standing there, holding her arms out to me.
Recently, the image has changed a bit. A hand has been reaching through the bars and grabbing my neck, as if to choke me. What the hell is going on with me? I feel like I am crazy or something. Lately, large quantities on
Gin seem to help me not dream, but I usually end up waking up at about 2-3am with a headache, and staying up till morning. This is not how I want to live the rest of my life.

Copyright by Randy Rustick
All rights reserved.

Randy Rustick's Story: Part Two

* This is the second part of Randy Rustick's Story. He has allowed us to post it here:


Photo from www.kgmb9.com/kgmb/display.cfm?storyID=2928


Part Two

The officer again walks over to me and tells me that they have found a blade in my shoe. Now I’m really confused. He asks me if I know anything about it, and wants to know how it got there. I ask to see the shoe. Behind me, I can feel my wife’s eyes watching.

He lets me walk over the where 4 people have hunched over the shoe. They move aside to let me look. They have a pair of pliers or something and are lifting up 3 or 4 layers of material in the shoe. Inside, I see the edge of a blade. I look up and tell him that I have NO clue how it got there.

He asks me to go sit down again.

At this point some of the details are hazy. I can tell you that there were many people from the airport around. Most are clueless as to what to do.

Mr. Aiau was on his cell phone, dialing different people. Apparently he couldn’t get in touch with the people he was trying to. I was asked repeatedly to show my ID to different individuals.

I try to get the attention of the different personnel there, to ask them what is happening. They all ignore me. Aiau is now questioning my wife. She starts to get loud and animated. He gets back on his cell phone. I hear him tell a small Japanese gentleman that he cannot get a hold of the
agencies he wants. He also says that no matter what, I’m going to get arrested. He just has to find someone to do it.

During the next hour, I give a statement to 6 different people about who I am, where I am from, where I am going, etc. I can see my wife talking to different people, giving information too. She tells me later that she gives
Mr. Aiau all of our information, as well as the phone numbers of my mother in Kauai. She begs him to call her, to confirm that we are actually headed there. Apparently he doesn’t.

He finally gets in touch with the FBI. By now just about every official in the airport is standing around me. Passengers are walking by looking at me sitting there. The criminal. Aiau walks over to me and tells me that I
will be arrested. I feel like puking at that moment. An officer next to me asks me to stand up and then I am hand-cuffed. My wife takes my kids away to the terminal. My youngest daughter sees me being put in cuffs. She
still comes to me crying at night, telling them that she doesn’t ever want the “men” to take me away again. My wife comes back and sees me in handcuffs. She starts to get hysterical. I hear her arguing with some of
the officials, while holding my cell phone in her hand, with my mother on the line. She also makes calls to my office and gets my boss on the line.

My company sends out a representative right away. Out of instinct, I just sit quietly. I begin to realize that this is a VERY serious situation.

I sit handcuffed on the chair for another ½ hour, until some arresting officers show up. When I stand up to get frisked, I can hear my wife starting to scream at someone.

They walk me through the airport doors to a car waiting on the curb. My wife is trailing us, telling me that she loves me and that everything will be ok. One of the officers ask me how I am doing. I look at him and tell him “I am having a bad day…” As they put me into the back seat of the car, I can hear the police radio, passing cars, and my wife screaming. At this point I realize that I am not going to get that Corona.

To be continued

Copyright by Randy Rustick
All rights reserved.

Randy Rustick's Story: Randy Rustick Speaks

Randy Rustick 
Randy Rustick, courtesy of the Honolulu Advertiser


The following is the start of Randy Rustick's story. Who is Randy Rustick? See this story to give an idea to you:

the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2005/Jan/11/ln/ln12p.html

He's Hawaiian with a Haole name and a Haole appearance. Though he has rejected offers from the media to tell his story, he has given permission to us to post his story here. Do not reprint this story without the express written consent of Randy Rustick. (It's HIS story.)

Here is Randy Rustick's Story:

Part 1

The following is the series of events (written as best I can remember surrounding the day of the "incident"):

Background

I am currently a 33 year old husband and father of 4 that lives in Fairfax, Virginia.

I was born in Orange County, California.

My mother is ½ Hawaiian, ½ German and my father is 100% Polish. When I was 18 months old, my mother left me with my father to go to work. About an hour later, he died suddenly of a brain aneurism. I am told that I stayed with his dead body for the rest of the day, until my mother arrived. I only remember it in my dreams.

At the age of 7, I was sent to Hawaii to live with my Grand Aunt and Grand Uncle. They both also raised me, as well as my mother before me.

My "uncle"” was pure Hawaiian and I named my youngest daughter after him (His name was Herman Halemano. Her name is Courtney Kekamalani A Halemano Rustick). At the age of 15, my mother re-married and I moved to California to live with my new parents. I attended Canoga Park High School. At age 16, I took my GED and then applied and was accepted to California State University Northridge (CSUN). My parents paid for 1 semester of college.

After that, I had to take 2-3 jobs at a time to pay for books, tuition, and rent. At 21 a personal tragedy occurred and I flew to Hawaii to stay with my brother for a “few” weeks. I was 1 semester shy of graduating from college. I never finished. As if not boring enough, my life becomes even more boring after this. There is no need to elaborate beyond here, except to say that I got married and eventually was responsible for four children.

I guess you could say that it was four very good bottles of wine.

Early Morning

I was dropped off by Mary (wife) to office at 5:30am. It was supposed to be the first day of our vacation, but I had an early morning con-call with a customer. I promised to make it up to her later. It looks like another call to 1-800-Flowers. Mary went home to finish packing the clothes and get the children ready for the flight.

Mid Morning

Mary and the kids pick me up from the office with the rental car. I drop them (with the luggage) off at the terminal and return the rental car to the rental car place. I was too impatient to wait for the shuttle, so I walked back to the terminal. The terminal looked closer than it was…. should have waited for the shuttle.

We got our tickets and checked in our baggage. Everybody had 1 carry-on.

Mary had a purse. Chelsea (15 year old daughter) also had purse and backpack. Summer (9 year old daughter), Kamalani (7 year old daughter), and RJ (5 year old son) all had backpacks. I had laptop computer and leather folder.

Calm-before the storm

Because of my early morning visit to the office, I had my business clothes on (well, business clothes for Hawaii, not the East Coast), including one of my black dress shoes. We waited in line at security. My thoughts were on the fish that I would catch off the pier by my mom’s house (a-holehole), the cases of Corona I was going to drink, and the customer call that I just had (curse my inability to get away from work).

Mary and the kids all placed their items on the conveyor and went through. I unpacked my laptop and put it in a bin. Next, I added the laptop bag, leather folder, wallet, cell phone (over-sized, two year, antiquated technology) and those cursed shoes to other bins. I walked through the metal detector. Six steps closer to my Corona.

On the other side, I collected my laptop and put it in the laptop bag. I collected the rest of my personal belongings, except my shoes. They did not complete the journey through the x-ray machine. I figured maybe they were impressed by my $30 shoe buckles….and wanted to gaze upon it for a while.

I heard the screener call over somebody else. I watched as they both stared at their screen, pointing to something on it. I thought about my Corona some more. Man… that first one was going to be soooooo good. More commotion at the x-ray screen. There were now 4 people peering into it. Hmmmmmm. Maybe some poor sap who placed his carry-on behind my shoes had forgotten about the weed in his bag. It sucks for him…

I was starting to get annoyed. I thought… "“Can you just pass my shoes through so I can get to the terminal?" I could tell my kids were getting antsy. They were starting to get noisy. Chaos would follow. My teenager was staring at some skate-boarder kid walking by. I growled at him. She growled at me. Oh well, the trials and tribulations of being a father.

There was now an officer staring at the screen. After much discussion, the officer walks over to the x-ray conveyor belt entrance and pulls the bin with MY shoes out. He takes one and they all crowd around it. Hmmmmm . "What the hell is going on?" I realize that they are looking at my shoe. Interesting… Mary doesn’t notice yet…. Probably a good thing.

He looks up and walks over to me. "Sir, are these your shoes?" Now I’m starting to get a little worried. "Yes, is there a problem officer?"

“Well, we found something.”

I look up to see my wife’s eyes (beautiful almond shapes) staring into mine. A quizzical, scared look on her face. That is one of the many images that I still dream about at night. She has an expression that clearly states...

"What’s going on?"

I address the officer. "What do you mean?"

He asks me to sit down in a plastic chair. He starts to talk on his walkie-talkie. He is a big Hawaiian man that resembles a younger version of my late uncle Mo Keali, the entertainer. He is very cold with me while he talks on his radio. He ignores me. I will never forget the name on his tag... "Aiau."

My wife pleads, "Randy, what is going on?" I look into her scared eyes. I have no clue. I mouth to her, "I don’t know,", while softly shaking my head. Her fear starts to transfer into me.

Fifteen minutes pass. More people start to arrive, including uniformed officers. All I can see is my wife and kids, sitting across from me in their own plastic chairs.


To be continued

Propeller sliced humpback whale calf's back off of Maui

Tourism can be very dangerous to Hawai'i: It creates alot of damage to people, places, and things like this humpback whale calf:


Propeller sliced humpback whale calf's back off of Maui 

Source:



http://starbulletin.com/2005/03/03/news/story14.html

Racism against Hawaiians should NOT be tolerated!

In this letter, Amy Stringer of Mililani shows her racism against Hawaiians and if someone were to single out Jewish people like how she has singled out Hawaiians then many people would be protesting the newspaper for printing such hate. Unfortunately, the Honolulu Advertiser was owned by Mr. Anti-Hawaiian, Thurston Twigg-Smith, which may be why they continue to print letters singling out and targeting Hawaiians which is a hate crime which is a federal crime.

Secondly, she needs to learn and other people like her need to learn that they cannot dictate to indigenous people how to act, what to do, what to think, and/or how to deal with things. It's not up to her nor to anyone else to decide. Instead, it's up to these indigenous people just as it is up to African Americans, Jewish, Japanese who were interned, etc to deal with injustices committed against THEM on their own terms.

Here is her racist letter against Hawaiians:


Hawai'i was annexed; it's time to move on

Many Hawaiians are still angry about their loss of independence 107 years after the annexation of Hawai'i to the United States. Yet they still fight for sovereignty even though they have no idea what a sovereign Hawai'i would be like.

The annexation happened such a long time ago, so why haven't the Hawaiian people let it go? America has apologized, even if that was only relatively recently. There isn't much the Hawaiians can do now, but certain strong-willed individuals are still fighting. All they know is that their ancestors were mad. They don't know if they would have been mad themselves, and they probably don't clearly understand the circumstances and times under which Hawai'i was annexed.

By now, the issue of our annexation should not be debated. I can see that the Hawaiians are unsettled and that they want to make things right again. But honestly, what's done is done. Nothing will ever change the fact that we were annexed, and so, instead of wasting time and energy fighting for independence that we'll never gain, we should enjoy the benefits of America and look toward the future.

Amy Stringer
Mililani

Source:
http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/current/op/letters

On Governor Lingle (Hawai'i) admitting that other senators are ignorant of the Akaka Bill

* In this article Governor Lingle admits that other senators are ignorant about the Akaka Bill. They are set to vote on it this Tuesday. How can they when they seem ignorant about it? They should NOT be voting on it if they do not know what the Akaka Bill is.

More importantly she is blaming two senators (Inouye and Akaka) for not educating other senators. They shouldn't be so lazy and look it up and read it. Or they can ask one of their aides to research it. Or better yet they can ask Hawaiians not just Haunani Apoliona at the Office of Hawaiians Affairs since she doesn't speak for all Hawaiians no ho'i. Or they can easily find it online on one of the government's websites. By the way I am against the Akaka Bill because it forces Hawaiians to use the American way as their paradigm when Hawaiians have their own paradigm (i.e. the Kingdom of Hawai'i.) Anyway here she is admitting that other senators are ignorant of the Akaka Bill:


Gov pans Akaka bill effort: Inouye and Akaka are criticized
for not educating colleagues on Hawaiian issues

By Mary Vorsino

Gov. Linda Lingle says Hawaii's senators have failed to adequately educate their congressional colleagues on the Akaka bill, which would grant federal recognition to native Hawaiians and is scheduled to go before a Senate committee on Tuesday.

"I think they need to make their colleagues aware of the bill. ... I think they need to redouble their efforts," Lingle said in a telephone interview yesterday from Washington, D.C., where she is attending a meeting of the National Governors Association.

"I have been a little frustrated that it hasn't gone further on the congressional side."

Lingle plans to testify at next week's Senate Indian Affairs Committee hearing, the first for the bill this year.

Both Hawaii senators and several Office of Hawaiian Affairs trustees also are scheduled to make comments.

But the Republican governor said yesterday that during her time in Washington, D.C., she has stepped up efforts to talk to senators about the Akaka bill after being disappointed at how ill-informed some lawmakers are on the measure.

"I kept running across people who had never heard of it," she said, though she declined to say who she has talked to about the bill.

Lingle added she was "under the impression" that Hawaii's two senators had been charged with persuading members of Congress to back the bill, while she was to convince the Bush administration to support it.

"I find I'm splitting my time" between the two efforts, Lingle said. "I just feel the delegation ... they just weren't talking to enough people."

Democratic Sen. Daniel Inouye said Lingle's criticism is unfounded, given that members of Congress consider thousands of bills annually and "no one expects any member to know everything that happens," especially when it does not pertain to their state.

"At this stage, I think the most important step would be the president," said Inouye. "My relationship with the president is not as good as Gov. Lingle's relationship. ... That's where she can do the most good."

President Bush has not voiced his position on the bill, but Lingle and others -- including Inouye -- are confident that he will back it if it passes.

The Akaka bill was introduced to Congress in 2000 and would establish an office in the U.S. Department of Interior to address native Hawaiian issues and create an interagency to administer programs for native Hawaiians.

Under the bill, which has been revised several times since its introduction, the federal government would formally recognize Hawaiians -- as it does American Indians and native Alaskans -- as a native population.

Democratic Sen. Daniel Akaka has said he has received assurances that the bill will pass out of committee and onto the Senate floor for a vote from Senate Republicans who had prevented a vote on the measure last year. He hopes the bill will come to a full Senate vote by August.

Akaka's spokeswoman, Donalyn Dela Cruz, said yesterday that the senator is confident that this will be the year that the Akaka bill is passed.

"I think Sen. Akaka is definitely hopeful," she said. "He's worked very hard in reintroducing it this year ... but Sen. Akaka definitely has a fight ahead of him."

Inouye's chief concern about the Akaka bill this session is that the measure will get buried under other massive issues facing Congress, including the funding of the Iraq war and Social Security reform.

"This year may be a difficult year," he said. "The agenda is an overwhelming one. We're at war. The president has his sights set on revisions of the Social Security laws. He has a plan to make permanent certain tax cuts.

"There's a full platter. A measure like this, it's important to Hawaii, but it's not on the top" of Bush's agenda.

Dela Cruz said that Akaka has met with all members of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee and has talked extensively to other senators about the bill.

Inouye also said that he has briefed members of the committee, including its chairman, Sen. John McCain.

McCain has voiced opposition to the bill, saying he would prefer to increase funding for existing native Hawaiian programs rather than pass the measure.

"When Hawaii became a state," the Arizona Republican said in January, "there was an implicit agreement at that time that native Hawaiians would not receive the same status as native Americans."

But Inouye said yesterday that McCain has assured him that he will vote to report the bill out of the Indian Affairs Committee so that it can get a full Senate vote.

"I can't ask for anything more," Inouye said.

Lingle said the bill has languished for too long, and she intends to "stay very focused this year" on its passage.

"We're ready to move forward on this," she said, adding that she is not thinking about how to proceed if the bill fails for a fifth year.

Seen at



http://starbulletin.com/2005/02/26/news/index3.html