The future of land covering nearly a third of the Hawaiian Islands will be at stake when the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday hears oral arguments about state authority over 1.2 million acres once held by the Hawaiian monarchy.
But lurking in the background are at least two other elements that may help determine how much political and economic power Native Hawaii-ans will enjoy in coming years.
Across the street from the court, U.S. Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, is pressing a measure aimed at creating a governing entity for Native Hawaiians. That body would negotiate with federal and state officials over compensation for the illegal 1893 overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy.
Akaka and his allies believe the bill's time has finally come, what with a larger Democratic majority in Congress and a Hawaii-born president who has committed to sign it.
At the same time, state legislators are advancing bills that would clamp down on any notions by Gov. Linda Lingle or her successors of selling large portions of the former monarchy lands, also known as ceded lands, prior to negotiations with whatever Native Hawaiian government results from the Akaka Bill.
Taken together, the court case, which is expected to be decided in mid-June, and the Akaka Bill and the state legislation will shape future debates about Native Hawaiians and the land they claim is theirs.
''You're really talking about the future and destiny of the Hawaiian people,'' said Kali Watson of the Sovereign Councils of Hawaii Homelands Assembly, which represents 30,000 Hawaiians enrolled in a federal homestead program.
''Any settlement without land would be meaningless and empty. Without land, there's not much we can do.''
The controversy over ceded lands has stewed in the background of a multiethnic island culture that revels in its Hawaiian heritage. Yet, many Native Hawaiians remain frustrated over how their islands were taken, their lands divvied up by outsiders and their culture commercialized.
Those feelings bubbled up at a Native Hawaiian rally last month when participants threw shoes at an effigy of Lingle with hands enscribed: ''I want your land.''
But little of that emotion will be on display at the Supreme Court on Wednesday, when the justices focus on the question of whether the state must resolve the claims of Native Hawaiians before it can sell, exchange or otherwise ''alienate'' ceded lands.
Those lands, which could be worth billions of dollars, are not trifling; they include all or portions of Honolulu International Airport, a shoreside commercial area on the Big Island, the state's harbors, the University of Hawaii and major parklands. But they also hold spiritual significance.
Native Hawaiians ''don't view land as a commodity,'' said Jon Van Dyke, a University of Hawaii law professor and attorney for the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, a state agency whose focus is by law on Native Hawaiian interests. ''They view land as family in a literal sense.''
The Office of Hawaiian Affairs contends that what it believes are the legal claims of Native Hawaiians must be resolved before the state can sell or transfer the lands. Its lawsuit, filed in 1995, sought to enshrine that concept into law.
After years of legal wrangling, the Hawaii Supreme Court in 2008 unanimously agreed, halting land sales or transfers until the Native Hawaiian claims are put to rest. It put off, however, the question of whether Native Hawaiians, in fact, hold valid legal claims to the lands.
But in their appeal of the Hawaii court's ruling, Lingle and Attorney General Mark Bennett argue that Native Hawaiians have no legal claims to the land. Thus, they contend, the state should have the unfettered authority to alienate the lands for the purposes outlined in the 1959 law that admitted Hawaii into the United States, only one of which is tied to the benefit of Native Hawaiians.
Lingle and Bennett have repeatedly said the state has no plans to sell or transfer anything but tiny parcels of the lands. They also agree with Akaka that a governing entity should be set up for Native Hawaiians.
And they concede that Native Hawaiians have a ''moral claim'' to compensation stemming from the 1893 overthrow of Queen Lili'uokalani - an event that a 1993 resolution, passed by Congress and signed by then-President Clinton, deemed illegal. It also apologized for the U.S. government's role in the overthrow.
Native Hawaiians ''in our view have the right to say . . . there ought to be recompense,'' Bennett, who will argue the state's side before the justices on Wednesday, said in a recent interview. ''But the lawsuit asserted that the state doesn't own the lands, and that's not right.''
Others go further. They argue that establishing a governing entity for Native Hawaiians would be discriminatory to other Hawaii residents. Besides, they add, those events occurred too long ago to obligate those living now.
''We've got a bunch of people that are saying you need to drive down the highway at 60 miles an hour and you need to be looking in the rearview mirror . . . and in the rearview mirror, it's labeled '1893,' '' said Richard O. Rowland, president emeritus of the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii, a free-market think tank that supports the state's position.
''I don't have to tell you we're going to crash,'' he added. ''The big, big problem is to how to get them to look through the windshield, towards the future.''
But Native Hawaiian advocates contend they are looking ahead to a time in which a viable governing entity, not unlike those representing Native American tribes and Alaskan natives, tries to improve the lives of a people that has long lagged in social, educational and economic terms.
To do so effectively, that entity must have an economic base, and that base starts with the ceded lands, they contend. That brings them back to the question of just who has authority over and claims to the lands.
''Obviously, the ceded lands are the gorilla in the room because they are quite valuable,'' said Akaka's spokesman, Jesse Broder Van Dyke, who is Jon Van Dyke's son.
Only acknowledging Native Hawaiians' moral claims to compensation for the 1893 overthrow, as Lingle does, won't help the governing entity much during future hardball negotiations with state and federal governments, Native Hawaiian advocates argue.
Legal claims to the land, on the other hand, can be enforced in court, offering the governing entity much more sway.
''You have more leverage,'' said Clyde Namuo, administrator of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs and a Native Hawaiian. ''Obviously, you're not simply relying on the good will of all parties at that point.''
