Hawaiian rights activist Dennis Pu'uhonua "Bumpy" Kanahele's planned constitutional convention for Native Hawaiians won't take place next month as some had envisioned.

Kanahele said he is still gathering support from Native Hawaiians for the effort, which would be separate from a Hawai'i state ballot issue in November asking voters whether they want a convention that would consider changes to the Hawai'i State Constitution. Kanahele believes a Native Hawaiian convention could work toward unifying the historically fractured Hawaiian independence movement.
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Kanahele last week said [...] he is now focused on getting a minimum of 50,000 signatures supporting a constitutional convention before he wants to move forward.

He would not say how long he thinks that will take. He estimated that he has "over a few thousand right now." About 10,000 forms have been released and those have the potential of becoming 100,000 signatures, he said.

"We're just plugging away and getting more signatures," Kanahele said.

The signatures are considered important because they would form the basis for people who would vote in a constitutional convention and because the signatures would establish credibility with an international tribunal or independent entity.

The leader of the Independent and Sovereign Nation State of Hawaii (Nation of Hawaii), Kanahele has stressed that while he wants to take the lead organizing a gathering, his group's view will be only one of the views that would be presented for participants to consider.

Convention participants may ultimately decide they favor federal recognition for a Native Hawaiian entity through the Akaka bill as advocated by OHA instead of sovereignty, he said.

But that's not likely, given that most sovereignty groups don't think federal recognition will offer enough in compensation for the 1893 overthrow of the Hawaiian government and that a Hawaiian government entity should be negotiating with an international tribunal rather than the U.S. government.