534
Stevens, J., dissenting
Native, Eskimo, and Aleut communities. " 42 U. S. C. § 11701(19). See also § 11701(17) ("The authority of the Congress under the United States Constitution to legislate in matters affecting the aboriginal or indigenous peoples of the United States includes the authority to legislate in matters affecting the native peoples of . . . Hawaii").
While splendidly acknowledging this history—specifically including the series of agreements and enactments the history reveals—the majority fails to recognize its import. The descendants of the native Hawaiians share with the descendants of the Native Americans on the mainland or in the Aleutian Islands not only a history of subjugation at the hands of colonial forces, but also a purposefully created and specialized "guardian-ward" relationship with the Government of the United States. It follows that legislation targeting the native Hawaiians must be evaluated according to the same understanding of equal protection that this Court has long applied to the Indians on the continental United States: that "special treatment . . . be tied rationally to the fulfillment of Congress' unique obligation" toward the native peoples. 417 U. S., at 555.
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. Ante, at 518-520. 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
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