"I think the people of Hawaii won one more," said Gary Rodrigues, Hawaii State AFL-CIO president, noting the Hawaii Supreme Court decision made it a "good day for the people."

"I think that we're all glad that the Supreme Court did cut down the Con Con," said Sue Reardon, director of Marriage Project Hawaii, a civil rights group advocating same-sex marriage. "I think it would have been bad for women, native Hawaiians, children, I just don't think it would have served all of the people of Hawaii."

The Supreme Court ruled yesterday that a proposal for a Constitutional Convention did not get a majority of voters last fall. This invalidates an opinion of state Attorney General Margery Bronster.

Earlier, about 45,335 blank and spoiled ballots were excluded from the count on the advice of the attorney general. There were 163,869 votes in favor of holding a constitutional convention and 160,153 votes against.

But the high court said in measures involving proposed constitutional amendments, a majority is required in which the "yes" votes must be more than the combined count of "no" ballots and blank and spoiled ballots.

The Supreme Court said the state Constitution says: "If a majority of the ballots cast upon such a question be in the affirmative, delegates to the convention shall be chosen at the next regular election."

Herbert Takahashi, the attorney who filed the lawsuit, said the ruling "says the attorney general was wrong and we were right. ... The language was very clear, ballots cast as opposed to votes."

Previous court rulings and statutes going back to territorial days consistently define what ballots are and votes are, Takahashi said. "All ballots count, including blank ballots."

Takahashi argued throughout that language in the Constitution referring to the question of convening a constitutional convention uses the words "ballots cast," as distinguished from "votes cast" or "votes tallied."

Bronster said the decision won't be appealed.

"They didn't agree with us," she said. "Basically, their decision focused on the words 'ballots cast.' We felt that the key to the issue was looking at ballots cast on the question," she said.

"They viewed the decision in a way that was much more focused on the specific words."

This doesn't mean Hawaii won't have a Con Con for another 10 years, Bronster said.

"That's not the case. At any time, the Legislature may put the question on the ballot and let the voters vote again on whether or not to have a Con Con," she said. "That can be done at any general election or at any special election."

The Hawaii State AFL-CIO, representing more than 50 labor unions, filed the lawsuit in Hawaii Supreme Court Nov. 25.

Rodrigues, who is also the United Public Workers state director, added that if someone wants state constitutional amendments, they can submit them through the Legislature.

In 1996, the Hawaii State AFL-CIO voted to oppose the Constitutional Convention, Rodrigues said. "After the election was done, it was my job as president to follow up on that issue," he said. "First of all, it (a constitutional convention) was not necessary because our document is sound."

"When you open up an entire Constitution to review, you're going to have people that are elected once to formulate what the new Constitution would look like -- and the public would have no recourse to vote them out because they didn't like what they proposed," Rodrigues said.