Ceded Lands Case: Pacific Legal Foundation, Cato Institute, Center for Equal Opportunity Amicus Brief

Today, we filed an amicus brief in the ceded lands case on behalf of Pacific Legal Foundation, the Cato Institute, and the Center for Equal Opportunity, available here.

The core issue of this case is whether a state court, interpreting federal law, may enjoin the State of Hawaii from exercising its sovereign authority to sell,
lease, or rent the "ceded lands" for the benefit of all Hawaiian citizens, pending some resolution, as yet unknowable, of the claims of native Hawaiians to those lands. As this Court recognized in Rice, 528 U.S. at 505, the Republic of Hawaii ceded all of its former Crown, government, and public lands to the United States upon annexation in 1898. Revenues from the public lands were to be "used solely for the benefit of the inhabitants of the Hawaiian Islands for educational and other public purposes." Newlands Resolution, J. Res. 55, 55th Cong., 30 Stat. 750 (1898); Rice, 528 U.S. at 505. This is not an academic issue: the Hawaii Supreme Court’s judgment will have enormous practical impact because it fundamentally restructures the State’s obligations under the Act admitting Hawaii as the 50th State by commanding the State to favor a racially defined class to the exclusion of other beneficiaries of the ceded lands trust.

The decision by the Hawaii Supreme Court represents nothing less than a rewriting of the terms by which Hawaii entered the Union.

Brief at 5-6. Visit our ceded lands case page, with copies of all merits and cert stage briefs, and links to commentary and media reports.