A single issue - same-sex marriage - kept three dedicated, thoughtful, conscientious first-rate state legislators from re-election this year. The voters fired Sen. Rey Graulty in the primary election and Reps. Len Pepper and Jim Shon on Nov. 5. It was all fair and square but it probably wouldn't have happened if we had multiple-member election districts instead of single-member districts. Multiple-member
election districtsOne person, one district makes candidates highly vulnerable to strong single-issue advocacy groups. Graulty, Pepper and Shon were considered too liberal on the hot-button sex issue but they stuck by their views.
Graulty and Pepper have since been reading "Profiles in Courage" about national figures who also stood their ground. Whether you agree or disagree with them, such willingness to defend a strong conviction is admirable.
I hope either the coming constitutional convention, if we have one, or the next state reapportionment commission in 2001 will take steps to restore more multimember districts. I've seen both in action. Multimember districts work better overall.
Multimember districts are bigger. They tend to send broader-view candidates to the councils of government. They somewhat insulate candidates from the wrath of single-interest groups.
Candidates are more likely to be judged on their overall record than on a single vote. They can be a little more courageous and still survive. On the scale ranging from demagoguery through politician to statesman, multimember districts require less demagoguery to win elections and promote more statesmanship.
Single-member districts were used to elect delegates to the 1978 Con Con. Public opinion at that time was registering in favor of a one-house legislature. Status quo advocates, primarily unions who know how to work the two-house system, identified and targeted the pro-unicameral candidates. They shot a number of them down in the voting. Unicameral was on its death bed before the convention even convened despite wide public support.
Multimember districts help new blood edge in. There were multimember districts in 1954 when Dan Inouye, Spark Matsunaga and George Ariyoshi won their first elections and were seated in the territorial House of Representatives.
When he was governor, John Waihee said single-member districts were a bane on good government. He said society already is too fragmented. He said single-member district legislators often can become strong enough to discourage opposition and run unopposed.
The 1996 defeat of key legislators on the same-sex issue is the exception, not the rule. Most legislators are tame where strong lobbies are concerned, otherwise the government employee unions would not be so powerful.
WAIHEE went to the Legislature from a two-member district and doubts he could have won in a single-seat contest. He asked voters to please give him their second vote and came in first.
We lost multimember districts in 1982 because of a reapportionment ordered by the federal district court. There is no legal barrier to going back to them now.
The enemy of change is that incumbents love the status quo. For them it worked. Lobby groups like single-member districts, too. It makes them more powerful.
Multimember advocates must start beating the drums. Change won't come easily from either a Con Con or a legislatively appointed reapportionment commission.
The commission is appointed in the year following every national census - 2001 being next. The trouble is that the Legislature appoints eight members, who then elect a ninth person to be chairman. That's a formula for preserving the status quo absent very strong public demand for change.