Proving to be a man of his word, Hawai’i Reapportionment Commission Chair Wayne K. Minami has instructed the Reapportionment Project Office staff to redraw proposed state House and Senate districts to eliminate “canoe districts.” After the Kaua’i public hearing on
Proving to be a man of his word, Hawai’i Reapportionment Commission Chair Wayne K. Minami has instructed the Reapportionment Project Office staff to redraw proposed state House and Senate districts to eliminate “canoe districts.”
After the Kaua’i public hearing on proposed new state House and Senate districts which would have continued the island’s sharing of state elected officials between counties, or so-called canoe districts, Minami said he and the commission would carefully consider the concerns of the Kaua’i folks who testified at the Historic County Building.
Testimony the commission heard on all the islands, that canoe districts and including military dependents in the population base used to re-draw the state House and Senate districts so each would be roughly similar in population size weren’t good ideas, influenced Minami and a majority of the other eight members to drop both of those ideas, said Betty Chandler, Kalaheo resident and Republican appointee to the Kaua’i Apportionment Advisory Council.
It doesn’t seem likely the project staff will redraw the districts and get the plan to the state’s chief elections official by the mandated 100-day deadline.
So the commission will go beyond the Friday, Oct. 26 deadline to submit the plan to the state’s chief elections officer, Dwayne Yoshina.
In fact, the plan will go out for both public informational meetings and public hearings on each island, said Chandler.
That, and the fact that there will be sizable deviations in district sizes that may make a canoe-district-less plan challengeable in court, will make the commission turn to the public opinion against canoe districts as defense of its position, Chandler said.
As reported in this newspaper earlier, the proposed Kaua’i map will show three state House seats of roughly the same population size, and a Senate district encompassing all of Kaua’i and Ni’ihau.
Eliminated also will be current and proposed canoe districts between Maui and Hawai’i.
“It was a big victory for neighbor islands. It really was,” said Chandler. “It truly was. It’s a big win for neighbor islands,” she said, complimenting the commission and chair for courage, and for listening to the concerns of the citizens against canoe districts.
It will take a few weeks for the staff to draw up the new districts, and then the Kaua’i Apportionment Advisory Council will hold informational meetings before a Kaua’i public hearing, she said.
“All boundaries of the districts will be changed,” Chandler concluded.
The Hawai’i Reapportionment Commission is a nine-member body convened every 10 years to re-draw U.S. House and state House and Senate districts to reflect changes in population as chronicled by the U.S. Census, which is conducted in every year ending in zero.
There are four members of the commission appointed by elected state Democratic lawmakers, and four appointed by elected Republican lawmakers. The eight appointees choose a ninth member, who automatically becomes chair.
Staff Writer Paul C. Curtis can be reached at mailto:pcurtis@pulitzer.net or 245-3681 (ext. 224).
