No love on Kaua’i for controversial legislative plan Last night, Kaua’i voters from Kekaha to Hanalei expressed unanimous disdain last night for proposals which again would lump north Kaua’i with portions of another island in so-called “canoe districts” for the
No love on Kaua’i for controversial legislative plan
Last night, Kaua’i voters from Kekaha to Hanalei expressed unanimous disdain last night for proposals which again would lump north Kaua’i with portions of another island in so-called “canoe districts” for the Legislature.
Staff from the state’s Reapportionment Project Office said the redrawing of legislative districts is strictly a numbers game, with the intent to make each House and Senate district roughly the same size in population.
That means – at least with the draft plan out for statewide public hearings now, including the one Tuesday night in Lihu’e – two House and two Senate districts which cross ocean and county lines.
The proposal would create two canoe districts, one House and one Senate, with portions of Maui and the Big Island, one House district composed of north Kaua’i and parts of Wahiawa and northwest-central O’ahu, and a Senate district including north Kaua’i and the Kailua area of east O’ahu.
The U.S. constitutional mandate of one-person, one-vote supersedes the Hawai’i state constitution’s reapportionment provision that “no district shall extend beyond the boundaries of any basic island unit (the counties),” according to state reapportionment officials.
The idea behind the new districts is to ensure the deviation between population sizes is no greater than 10 percent of the ideal-sized district, something officials feel is legally defensible.
Current canoe districts lump north Kaua’i with east Maui, with Hanalei resident Mina Morita as the state representative in the district that has a majority of its residents on Kaua’i, and Avery Chumbley of Maui as the senator in the district that has a majority of constituents on Maui.
The districts as redrawn would effectively end Chumbley’s time as a Kaua’i senator and give Morita a new, smaller segment of her district on O’ahu.
It would also likely mean north Kaua’i would have a state senator who lives on O’ahu, where a majority of that district’s residents live.
The plan is “horrible, terrible” and “unacceptable,” said Anahola resident Jimmy Torio.
Torio said Chumbley and state Sen. Fred Hemmings, the Kailua resident who could become Kaua’i’s newest senator, feel the same way he does.
It took the better part of a decade for north Kaua’i voters to get to know Chumbley, said Torio, adding that Chumbley’s new district under the proposed plan would include east Maui and the Puna district of the Big Island.
He challenged the Reapportionment Commission to show some flexibility, challenge the process and come up with a workable plan that doesn’t include canoe districts.
“We will give it great consideration,” commission chairman Wayne K. Minami said before around 35 people at the Historic County Building.
Several speakers noted there is no commission representation outside O’ahu, and the districts were redrawn primarily with O’ahu in mind.
Morita, who had to attend a community meeting in Hana in the Maui portion of her district and was not at Monday’s meeting, had Hanalei resident Barbara Robeson read her testimony.
“One cannot escape the perception that this reapportionment plan is driven solely to benefit the island of O’ahu, thus making the entire process suspect,” Morita said in her statement. “The commission ignored the court’s findings that there is a rational basis to support reapportionment among basic island units. There are compelling arguments to exclude military dependents, but the commission has chosen to include military dependents to the benefit of O’ahu, thus discounting the growth that has taken place on the neighbor islands during the past decade.
“All members of this commission come from O’ahu. The neighbor islands are not represented on this commission. A citizen’s vote in the smaller portion of the canoe district is so diluted that it becomes ineffective. The end result is that a citizen is denied meaningful participation in the elections process.”
Reapportionment is required under federal and state law every 10 years to create districts of similar population sizes, as determined by Census figures compiled every decade.
Morita cited several court cases which she said appear to support reapportionment “among the political subdivision of basic island units, possibly eliminating the need to consider canoe districts.”
“The proposed canoe districts are remnant parcels arbitrarily lumped together to satisfy only a mathematical equality standard,” said Morita. “Please drop the discussion of canoe districts and give us a plan that benefits the entire state, not just O’ahu.”
Seven of the nine commission members attended the Kaua’i hearing, which Torio said should have been held in the island’s North Shore area, where the affected people live.
Staff Writer Paul C. Curtis can be reached at mailto:pcurtis@pulitzer.net or 245-3681 (ext. 224).
