Have you checked out The Hot Seat? It's our opinion-page blog that brings in your elected leaders and people in the news, and lets you ask the questions during a live online chat.

On The Hot Seat last week was H. William Burgess, a newly appointed member of the Hawai'i Advisory Committee of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and vocal opponent of the Akaka bill.

This is an excerpt from that Hot Seat session. To see the full conversation, go to The Hot Seat blog at www.honoluluadvertiser.com/opinion and click on "On the Hot Seat: H. William Burgess of the Hawai'i Advisory Committee of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights."

(Names of questioners are screen names given during our online chat.)

Lily Dorton: You had to know that being appointed to the advisory committee would raise criticism. Why did you not decline and stay simply as an attorney/policy advocate so as to not taint the credibility of the committee?

Setting aside the policy options, do you acknowledge that your strategies and those of your allies have been divisive? Why not be more conciliatory in your approach? Even if you oppose Hawaiian programs, don't you at least recognize the social ills of Hawaiians need to be addressed?

H. William Burgess: Service on the committee is an excellent opportunity to engage in public discourse about this important issue. I disagree that my participation will taint the credibility, unless you consider any opinion differing from yours is a taint.

Lily, I don't think standing up for equal protection is divisive. Rather it is your advocacy of Hawaiian supremacy which is.

Tom terrific: What is the basic purpose of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission? Is it to protect minorities? Or is it to protect the civil rights of all citizens?

Why is there so much controversy over the appointment of seven Republicans to a 17-member committee?

Burgess: The mission is to collect information relating to discrimination or denial of equal protection, evaluate it and submit findings and recommendations to the president and Congress. (See www.usccr.gov/about/mission.htm for a complete mission statement.)

The state advisory committees help the commission feel the local pulse.

To me, the recommendations of the previous Hawai'i committee reflected only the politics of racial separatism, a disturbing agenda to segregate Hawaiians from non-Hawaiians. The newly appointed committee of seven Democrats, seven Republicans and three independents is a triumph for all the people of Hawai'i because it is more diverse and more representative of Hawai'i's diverse population and viewpoints. In my humble opinion, we members of the Hawai'i Advisory Committee should not bow to the bullying tactics of Hawaiian separatist organizations, but rather adhere to the important task before us: helping the USCCR in its mission so that every citizen of Hawai'i has equal protection under the law.

Chelsea: You cite Grassroot Institute polls, which are described as illegitimate "push polls" by professional research companies (see the American Association of Public Opinion Research policy against push polls). Every poll commissioned by The Honolulu Advertiser finds a majority of the people here support the Akaka bill and programs that help Native Hawaiians. As a lawyer, how can you use illegitimate information to build a case against Native Hawaiians?

Burgess: The two surveys by Grassroot Institute, one in 2005 and the other in 2006, are the most comprehensive and accurately worded ever taken. Over 15,000 Hawai'i residents responded and two out of three said "No, they do not want Congress to pass the Akaka bill."

Scott Hovey: You claim the virtues of democracy and hold that you will never let anything prevent you from exercising democracy and the power to vote. Curiously, Hawaiians never were allowed to vote on a provisional government. That was brought about by tyrannical non-Hawaiians. Hawaiians never got to exercise democracy when it came to annexation. Proponents of annexation at the time knew that Hawaiians would not approve of it. Hawaiians never got to vote on becoming a territory. In fact, it wasn't until Hawaiians became a minority group in the 1950s that a vote was taken on statehood.

Why, if you veil your animosity toward Hawaiian programs of healing and education and other social problems behind democracy, do you not want Hawaiians to be allowed to make any democratic choice for their own freedom and association?

Isn't it hypocritical to hide behind the virtues of democracy while denying the political right of a people to decide their own political fate? Why do you have the right to vote in all elections, but Hawaiians don't have the right to vote to decide their own political destiny? Can you see the hypocrisy in claiming democracy while denying it to those you are against?

Burgess: The residents of O'ahu were not allowed to vote when Kamehameha the Great conquered their island, either. But the government of the Republic of Hawai'i proposed annexation, and the U.S. accepted it.

As to the population, Hawaiians were a minority of the population by 1890. Native Hawaiian delegates consistently fought for statehood until it was finally achieved in 1959. Ninety-four percent of the voters said Yes to statehood.

Lee Lopez: Did Paul Sullivan or any other Hawai'i State Advisory Committee member provide paid or pro-bono legal, or other services in support of any of the various litigations filed to end Native Hawaiian programs?

Burgess: Sorry, that's privileged.

L. Leilani Mills: You are the lawyer for Arakaki and others attempting to use the federal courts to unravel Hawaiian programs such as DHHL (Department of Hawaiian Home Lands) and OHA (Office of Hawaiian Affairs). You sue Hawaiians. You have demonstrated a bias against Hawaiians. How can you serve as a credible (committee) member?

Burgess: My legal work in support of equal protection was fully disclosed. To my knowledge, it is not a disqualification for membership. Oz Stender, for example, was a member previously, as were many whose positions in favor of racial discrimination were well known.

Robert Ellis: There are Hawaiian independence activists that join with you in opposing the Akaka bill. Do you support these Native Hawaiians in their position for independence?

Burgess: No.

Bronson Pooalanui: Your arguments against the Akaka bill are full of inflammatory "coulds": It could lead to this, it could lead to that.

At (a recent) advisory committee meeting, the president of the Alaska Federation of Natives said 30 years ago the same kinds of attacks were made against Alaska natives, but none of that happened. Instead, Alaska natives are contributing to the economy. Would you dispute what she's saying?

Burgess: Yes, Alaska is different from Hawai'i and from the lower 48 (states). The treaty with Russia recognized the existence of tribes, and the Organic Act provided that Alaska natives' claims to land would be recognized. Nothing like that is in either the Annexation Act or in Hawai'i's Organic Act, because there were and are no tribes in Hawai'i, and there are no Native Hawaiian land claims.

Ikaika Limahana: You make it sound like passage of the Akaka bill would immediately turn everything in Hawai'i upside down. On the contrary, the proposed plan/timeline for reorganizing and federally recognizing a Native Hawaiian government contains many internal and external checks and balances. It would ultimately require the approval of key state and federal agencies, and it requires the state Legislature and Congress to give final approval. It would take a long time and be subject to the scrutiny and strict regulation every step of the way. I think it's a bit inflammatory to say the passage of the Akaka bill would lead to the "breakup of the United States," as you have previously stated, don't you?

Burgess: Somehow the fact that it will take awhile to bring the Hawaiians-only government to life doesn't give me much comfort. Would taking away your rights be OK if I promise it will take two years?

TB: Why are you doing what you are doing?

Burgess: I do it just because I don't like to see the aloha spirit turned into apartheid. Hawai'i's too special for that.

Steven: What is your main goal while serving on HSAC? Is it to promote civil liberties to all people including Hawaiians? What would you really like to accomplish within two to three years?

Burgess: Yes, I promote equal civil rights for everyone, including Native Hawaiians. I'd like to end government discrimination in Hawai'i within two or three years.

Louise Yee Hoy: How many of the sitting HSAC are members of your organization, "Aloha for All" or the Grassroot Institute of Hawai'i?

Burgess: Sorry, that's privileged.

Bill Prescott: Regarding the return of ceded lands to Hawaiians, Rubellite Johnson, noted authority on Hawaiian history, was quoted saying, in return for Kamehameha III's desire to be annexed as a state of the union, the king's debt of several million dollars to Lloyd's of London had to be paid off first. The U.S. agreed to pay the debt but required the king to cede all public lands. Is this right?

Burgess: Yes, Ruby K. is right that the kingdom under Kamehameha III was not that much in debt in 1854. Kalakaua later incurred the London loan which threatened to bankrupt the kingdom. In the 1898 Annexation Act, the U.S. assumed the debt of the Republic of Hawai'i up to $4 million. That exceeded the value of all the ceded lands at that time, based on Thrum's Annual Reports. The Annexation Act also required that except for the lands used for military or naval purposes or set aside for the local government, all revenues and proceeds of the ceded lands would be used solely for the benefit of the inhabitants of the Hawaiian Islands for educational and other public purposes. This was the beginning of the ceded lands trust.

Accordingly, in the 1900 Organic Act, the U.S. transferred control of most of the ceded lands to the Territory of Hawai'i for the use and benefit of the inhabitants of Hawai'i for educational and other public purposes.

Michael: Your favorite phrase is "race based" and you have managed to get others to use that phrase a lot. But do you acknowledge that America's indigenous native people are recognized as groups that are not defined by reference to race or ethnicity, but by the fact that their ancestors exercised sovereignty over the lands and areas that subsequently became part of the United States? If you agree with that, how can you argue the Akaka bill creates a "race based" government?

Burgess: The sine qua non for federal recognition of a Native American group is continuous existence since 1900 to the present as at least a quasi sovereign polity in a distinctly Indian community separate from the surrounding non-Indian population.

The over 400,000 Native Hawaiians counted in Census 2000 were found in all 50 states and in all the about 50 census tracts of the state of Hawai'i, thoroughly blended in with the rest of Hawai'i's intermarried multiracial population. Such a widely scattered group could never qualify for recognition as a tribe under the mandatory criteria applicable to Native Americans.

The definition of "Native Hawaiian" (anyone with at least one ancestor indigenous to Hawai'i) in the Akaka bill is essentially the same ancestral definition the Supreme Court in Rice v. Cayetano held to be a racial classification because it uses ancestry as a proxy for race. Never before in the history of Hawai'i has there been a government established with the clear intent of preferential treatment of one race over all others.