How to save the CHamoru Land trust and can Guam pull a win from the clutches of a federal suit alleging the land trust violates the federal fair housing act - that's what talks centered on today before Legislative land Chair senator Therese Terlaje's committee.

Present - Attorney General Leevin Camacho and Attorney Mike Phillips.
AG Camacho said part of the problem is that the federal government is comparing the land trust to the fair housing act, which given Guam's unique history may be apples to oranges.

"On one hand we have our history of land takings and colonialism and everything we've endured and they're working off the fair housing act," he said. "So what you're seeing is like a square peg in round holes we're trying to fit our history into the legal concepts or legal constructs and their laws and they're trying and I think attorney Phillips has accurately said the judge and the attorneys are trying to work with us but they're not willing to go too far where they would violate what they believe is the spirit of the fair housing act."

The CLTC has until February 2020 to go into settlement agreement talks. If a settlement is not reached, trial has been set for August of next year. One of the trains of thought about resolving the suit involves getting from Congress the same approval given to Hawaii's land restoration program.

"If they just said we don't find any problem with this, we're going to do it just like Hawaii," he said. "Hawaii uses a blood test, I mean, how do you get more racial than that?"

The federal government had earlier sent what was considered by stakeholders a favorable settlement agreement, but when the Dave Davis decision came down, the feds then said that what they consider the race-based term of "native CHamoru" in the CLTC's enabling act should be changed to something else.

"It's way above my pay grade to make that kind of decision that would actually change "native CHamoru" to "Guamanian" but I wonder if it's something that together as a community we can talk about maybe look at the act again and say 'ok maybe Guamanian' is a more accurate term," Board Chair Pika Fejeran said.

But Phillips cited a federal judge's first opinion in the case - that the CLTC suit is more about "land restoration" than race. Philipps saying because of this, he is confident Guam can prevail in the case.

"We're fighting this," he said. "Were trying to win this. We believe we can do this without a congressional act.