A U.S. appeals court yesterday denied a rehearing request for a group of Hawai'i taxpayers seeking to challenge the revenues received by the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Department of Hawaiian Home Lands and the Hawaiian Homes Commission.

That leaves alive only a small section of the lawsuit filed three years ago by 'Ewa Beach resident Earl Arakaki and about a dozen other taxpayers who challenged the constitutionality of government funding for the three entities on the basis that they benefit only residents of Hawaiian ancestry.

A three-member panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in August overturned a 2002 decision by U.S. District Judge Susan Oki Mollway and ruled that taxpayers can contest the constitutionality of taxpayer funding for OHA, which amounts to about 10 percent of its annual budget. That portion of the lawsuit was remanded back to U.S. District Court in Honolulu.