A Hawai'i advisory committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights will hold several public briefings on a Native Hawaiian federal recognition bill, which may lead the committee to decide whether to continue to endorse the bill.

The commission's staff in Washington, D.C., directed the advisory committee to hold the briefings because it wanted local input on the bill, which would recognize Native Hawaiians as an indigenous people with the right to self-government. Members of the advisory committee voted yesterday at its first meeting — a conference call with Washington — to schedule the briefings.

The commission has opposed the bill, arguing it would discriminate based on race, but the advisory committee — the commission's local "eyes and ears" — has supported it in the past. The makeup of the 17-member advisory committee shifted with the appointment of 14 new members in July, including several conservatives who oppose the measure, known as the Akaka bill for its sponsor, U.S. Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawai'i.

Michael Lilly, a former state attorney general and the committee's chairman, said it would be up to the committee whether to take a new vote on the Akaka bill but said he would prefer waiting until at least October, after members have had a chance to digest what they have heard in the briefings.

"This is going to be the committee's ultimate decision what it wants to do — if anything," Lilly said. "It may choose to do nothing."

H. William Burgess, an attorney on the advisory committee who has opposed the Akaka bill, said the committee should eventually take a new vote. The Akaka bill has been pending in Congress since 2000 and could come up again before the U.S. Senate by the end of the year.

"I would think the committee should take a position on the Akaka bill one way or another," Burgess said. "My feeling is it's the most important civil rights issue now facing Hawai'i."

Some members of the advisory committee said the briefing schedule was rushed and question why the commission's staff in Washington wants immediate local input on the Akaka bill when the commission has already publicly opposed the bill. Some believe the commission is trying to engineer a local vote against the bill before it comes back before Congress.

Two committee members who support the Akaka bill, Robbie Alm, senior vice president of public affairs for Hawaiian Electric Co., and Amy Agbayani, director of the Student Equity, Excellence and Diversity program at the University of Hawai'i-Manoa, wrote a letter to Lilly this month saying they were disappointed the committee's agenda had apparently been set without a full discussion among its members.

"We do not understand why this process is being rushed," Alm and Agbayani wrote.

Lilly said yesterday's agenda item on the Akaka bill was directed by the commission's staff in Washington but said the advisory committee, now that it has had its first meeting, would decide how to proceed in the future. He noted the committee voted overwhelmingly yesterday to adopt the briefing schedule.

"They wanted input, for the commission, on the Akaka bill," Lilly said of the Washington staff. He said he wanted to assure committee members "that we were not going to rush any final decision, at all."

The briefings start Monday afternoon at the state Capitol with a presentation by state Attorney General Mark Bennett, an Akaka bill supporter, and Roger Clegg, president and general counsel for the Center for Equal Opportunity in Virginia, who has lobbied against the bill. Other briefings are planned for Maui on Wednesday, Kaua'i on Sept. 7 and the Big Island on Sept. 10. The advisory committee and some commissioners and Washington staff also have scheduled an orientation meeting and Akaka bill briefing for Sept. 5 at the Hilton Hawaiian Village.

Reach Derrick DePledge at ddepledge@honoluluadvertiser.com.