Rice v. Cayetano

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Rice v. Cayetano

Argued October 6, 1999
Decided February 23, 2000


Full case name:	Harold F. Rice, Petitioner v. Benjamin J. Cayetano, Governor of Hawaii

Citations:	528 U.S. 495; 120 S. Ct. 1044; 145 L. Ed. 2d 1007; 2000 U.S. LEXIS 1538; 68 U.S.L.W. 4138; 2000 Cal. Daily Op. Service 1341; 2000 Daily Journal DAR 1881; 2000 Colo. J. C.A.R. 898; 13 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. S 105

Prior history:	On writ of certiorari from the United States Court of Appeal for the Ninth Circuit

Subsequent history:	146 F. 3d 1075, reversed

Holding

Hawaii's denial of the right to vote in OHA trustee elections based on ancestry violates the Fifteenth Amendment.

Court membership

Chief Justice: William Rehnquist
Associate Justices: John Paul Stevens, Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, David Souter, Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer

Case opinions

Majority by: Kennedy
Joined by: Rehnquist, O'Connor, Scalia, Thomas
Concurrence by: Breyer (in the judgement of the court only)
Joined by: Souter
Dissent by: Stevens
Joined by: Ginsburg (part II only)
Dissent by: Ginsburg

Laws applied

U.S. Const. amend. XV

Rice v. Cayetano, 528 U.S. 495 (2000)^[1], was a case filed in 1996 by Big Island rancher Harold "Freddy" Rice against the state of Hawaii and argued before the United States Supreme Court. In 2000 the court ruled that the state could not restrict eligibility to vote in elections for the Board of Trustees of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs to persons of Native Hawaiian descent.

Rice was represented by attorney John Goemans, an active opponent of programs, public or private, that benefit Native Hawaiians preferentially. John Roberts, current Chief Justice of the United States, argued for Benjamin J. Cayetano, the governor of Hawai‘i at the time.

The February 2000 court ruling in Rice v. Cayetano encouraged Hawaiian sovereignty opponents to file a similar lawsuit, Arakaki v. State of Hawai‘i, months later. As the Rice case resulted in non-Hawaiians being allowed to vote in OHA elections, the Arakaki case resulted in non-Hawaiians being allowed to stand as candidates in OHA elections.