Every fight for civil rights in American history has had two things in common. They are long. And they are decided by Supreme Courts.

From the day Governor Abercrombie abandoned negotiations weeks before our contract expired and unilaterally imposed his version of a contract on us, we knew that our constitutional right to bargain collectively had been stripped from Hawaii's teachers. And we knew that when the rights of anyone are taken, the rights of everyone are threatened.

I said then what I will say now - constitutional rights are not negotiable.

Constitutional rights must be permanent and are of far more historic significance than any temporary contract dispute.

In these filings, we are not asking the Supreme Court to rule on the constitutional questions. Rather this filing asks the Court to order the executive branch agencies to do the job our laws require them to do and rule on our petitions. Once they do, we will then have the opportunity to bring the significant Constitutional questions to the Supreme Court.