“ Our traditional understanding of democracy and voting preferences makes it difficult to conceive that the majority of the State's voting population would have enacted a measure that discriminates against, or in any way represents prejudice and hostility toward, that self-same majority. ”

“ Ancestry surely can be a proxy for race, or a pretext for invidious racial discrimination. But it is simply neither proxy nor pretext here. All of the persons who are eligible to vote for the trustees of OHA share two qualifications that no other person old enough to vote possesses: They are beneficiaries
of the public trust created by the State and administered by aHA, and they have at least one ancestor who was a resident of Hawaii in 1778. ”

“ The broader category of eligible voters serves quite practically to ensure that, regardless how "dilute" the race of native Hawaiians becomes-a phenomenon also described in the majority's lavish historical summary, ante, at 506-507-there will remain a voting interest whose ancestors were a part of a political, cultural community, and who have inherited through participation and memory the set of traditions the trust seeks to protect. The putative mismatch only underscores the reality that it cannot be purely a racial interest that either the trust or the election provision seeks to secure ”

“ Whether it is wise to provide recompense for all of the descendants of an injured class after several generations have come and gone is a matter of policy, but the fact that their interests were acquired by inheritance rather than by assignment surely has no constitutional significance. ”

“ It is based on the permissible assumption in this context that families with "any" ancestor who lived in Hawaii in 1778, and whose ancestors thereafter continued to live in Hawaii, have a claim to compensation and selfdetermination that others do not. For the multiracial majority of the citizens of the State of Hawaii to recognize that deep reality is not to demean their own interests but to honor those of others. ”

“ Second, the elections are "elections of the State," not of a tribe, and upholding this law would be "to permit a State, by racial classification, to fence out whole classes of citizens from decisionmaking in critical state affairs." Ante, at 522. In my view, neither of these reasons overcomes the otherwise compelling similarity, fully supported by our precedent, between the once subjugated, indigenous peoples of the continental United States and the peoples of the Hawaiian
Islands whose historical sufferings and status parallel those of the continental Native Americans. ”

“ The ability to vote is a function of the lineal descent of a modern-day resident of Hawaii, not the blood-based characteristics of that resident, or of the blood-based proximity of that resident to the "peoples" from whom that descendant arises. ”

“ Neither the fact that native Hawaiians have a specific, beneficial interest in only 20% of trust revenues, nor the fact that the portion of the trust administered by OHA is supplemented to varying degrees by nontrust moneys, negates the existence of the trust itself. ”

“ In addition to administering the proceeds from these assets, OHA is responsible for programs providing special benefits for native Hawaiians. Established in 1978 by an amendment to the State Constitution, OHA was intended to advance multiple goals: to carry out the duties of the trust relationship between the islands' indigenous peoples and the Government of the United States; to compensate for past wrongs to the ancestors of these peoples; and to help preserve the distinct, indigenous culture that existed for centuries before Cook's arrival. ”

“ Even if one refuses to recognize the beneficiary status of OHA trustee voters entirely,15 it cannot be said that the ancestry-based voting qualification here simply stands in the
medicine, fishing and other forms of subsistence whereby the land and sea were efficiently used without waste or damage. Respect for the environment and for others formed the basis of their culture and tradition. ”

“ Declining to confront the rather simple logic of the foregoing, the majority would seemingly reject the OHA voting scheme for a pair of different reasons. First, Congress' trust-based power is confined to dealings with tribes, not with individuals, and no tribe or indigenous sovereign entity is found among the native Hawaiians. ”

“ In the end, however, one need not even rely on this official apology to discern a well-established federal trust relationship with the native Hawaiians. Among the many and varied laws passed by Congress in carrying out its duty to indigenous peoples, more than 150 today expressly include native Hawaiians as part of the class of Native Americans benefited. ”

“ Beyond even this, the majority's own historical account makes clear that the inhabitants of the Hawaiian Islands whose descendants constitute the instant class are identified and remain significant as much because of culture as because of race. ”

“ It is, after all, the majority notes, the larger class of Hawaiians that enjoys the suffrage right in aHA elections. There is therefore a mismatch in interest alignment between the trust beneficiaries and the trustee electors, the majority contends, and it thus cannot be said that the class of qualified voters here is defined solely by beneficiary status. ”

“ It is only by refusing to face this Court's entire body of Indian law, see ante, at 511-512, that the majority is able to hold that the OHA qualification denies non-"Hawaiians" the right to vote "on account of race."
follows that ancestry is always a proxy for race. Cases in which ancestry served as such a proxy are dramatically different from this one. ”

“ The aHA voting qualificationpart of a statutory scheme put in place by democratic vote of a multiracial majority of all state citizens, including those non-"Hawaiians" who are not entitled to vote in aHA trustee elections-appropriately includes every resident of Hawaii having at least one ancestor who lived in the islands in 1778. ”