WASHINGTON — As Congress heads toward a monthlong recess starting late this week, a bill dealing with Native Hawaiian self-government remains stalled on the road to floor action in the Senate and House with little chance for a vote before the fall.

The bill, which would create a process for a Native Hawaiian governing entity to be formed and gain federal recognition, cleared both House and Senate committees in the spring but has not moved since then.

Yet even if the bill clears the House and Senate — where it has been stalled for seven years — it faces an even taller hurdle in dealing with a possible White House veto. Congress has yet to override a veto during President Bush's 6 1/2 years in office.

Still, the state's congressional delegation says that shouldn't stop them from pushing for passage of the bill, first introduced in 2000.

"We've been putting all our time in doing that (getting congressional approval) with the hope that as soon as it goes through, we can get it through the administration," said Sen. Dan Akaka, D-Hawai'i, the bill's lead sponsor.

Rep. Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawai'i, said a veto threat shouldn't deter Congress from passing the bill.

"At that point, a lot of it depends on whether the president really wants to get invested in such a thing," he said. "The argument we make to the president is the Congress has passed this. Give it a chance."

Regardless of a veto threat, "first things first," said Rep. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawai'i. "We have to get it out of the House and Senate."

The lawmakers are hopeful they'll get votes on the bill before Congress adjourns for the year, but firm Republican opposition, especially in the Senate, means it would require House and Senate leadership to clear time in an already crowded legislative calendar.

"We're still trying to have it scheduled," Akaka said.

Akaka said a recent extension of the Senate's fall schedule to mid-November could be good news for the bill.

"It gives us a better opportunity to try to get it on (the floor schedule) this year," he said.

Both Akaka and Sen. Daniel K. Inouye, D-Hawai'i, said they believe they have the 60 votes to overcome procedural roadblocks that Senate Republican opponents have used for years to keep the bill from a vote.

"What we don't want to do is go there (to the Senate floor), give dramatic speeches and nothing happens," Inouye said. "If we are going to go out there, we are going to go because we have the votes."

Abercrombie and Hirono also said they believe they have the votes in the House, which approved the bill once before in 2000, to pass it again this year.

"I think so, although there is a group of vocal opponents to all measures that help Native Hawaiians," Hirono said.

Even some Republican opponents of the bill said it could pass Congress.

"It has a chance," said Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., although he added, "I hope it doesn't get through the Senate."

Alexander, one of the leading Senate opponents of the bill, said he thinks the bill would create a race-based government.

"Our Constitution and traditions specifically prohibit that, but it (the vote) may be close," he said.

If the delegation manages to get the bill through Congress successfully, the Justice Department could be another roadblock. Justice officials have said they strongly oppose it, stating in May that it would pose serious constitutional issues, a ruling that raises the specter of an almost certain White House veto.

"I would hope that if it passed, the president would veto it," Alexander said.

Sue Tolchin, professor of public policy at George Mason University, said that with Justice Department opposition, a veto is almost certain, and Democrats may have to wait until they acquire more political power in Congress or regain control of the White House.

"The bill appears to be stopped for now," Tolchin said. "Even though it's a lame duck White House, they can hold the line for at least another year and a half."

Hirono said if Bush vetoes the bill, he will have made it "very clear" that he doesn't believe Native Hawaiians are an aboriginal people.

"I'm hoping that other people such as Alaska Natives and American Indians will take note of what the Republican president did," she said. "But I hope that fairness and legal underpinnings of why Congress did this will prevail."

The Hawai'i delegation also agrees it would be almost impossible to overcome a veto in the current closely divided Congress.

"It would be hairy at best," Inouye said.

Ira Rohter, a political scientist at the University of Hawai'i, said it would be hard to see any political rationale for Republicans to go against the president in a veto override vote, especially since a vocal contingent of anti-affirmative-action conservatives is against the bill.

Some Republicans would be needed by the Democrats for an override vote to be successful.

"Why alienate even a small fragment of your base," Rohter said.

Abercrombie, the bill's sponsor in the House, was even more blunt about the possibility of Congress overriding a veto. "We don't have the votes for that," he said.

Although several changes were made to the bill in 2005 to satisfy Justice Department concerns, the state's delegation said nothing more has been done since then about the problems the agency now is raising.

Inouye said the Democratic lawmakers' influence has been limited in the Republican White House and they are hoping for help from Republican Gov. Linda Lingle.

"We've had meetings with the governor," Inouye said. "We think she is going to help us."

Reach Dennis Camire at dcamire@gns.gannett.com.