Group still wants An effort to have Honolulu City Councilwoman Rene Mansho impeached will proceed even as a related attempt to have her recalled appears to be coming up short.
to impeach Mansho
Some Oahu residents are
circulating petitions to remove
the councilwomanBy Gordon Y.K. Pang
Star-BulletinA loose-knit group of Central Oahu and North Shore residents who want Mansho removed says it will continue to collect signatures for its impeachment petition and then submit it to the state Supreme Court by the end of the month.
The group, consisting of about 20 people, has held petition signings for both impeachment and recall and has been going door-to-door in District 1 neighborhoods since April.
The movement came on the heels of Mansho's acknowledgments that she violated rules of both the state Campaign Spending Commission and the city Ethics Commission. She has paid $80,000 in fines and reimbursements and has been stripped of most of her leadership positions on the Council. Separately, police are considering charging her for improper use of city funds.
The City Charter states that 1,000 signatures from registered voters are needed for the court to consider an impeachment petition. Michelle Kidani, one of those seeking Mansho's removal, said between 1,400 and 1,500 signatures had been gathered for impeachment as of yesterday.
Mansho declined yesterday to discuss efforts to have her ousted.
No one from the Council has faced impeachment proceedings in the 28-year history of the City Charter.
Assuming a petition is filed, the court must first determine jurisdiction. Jim Branham, chief staff attorney for the Supreme Court, said as the first case of its kind, it should not be assumed the case will be heard just because the charter calls for it.
If the court accepts that it has jurisdiction, it must then determine if it is mandatory or discretionary for it to hear the case, he said.
"They would not prejudge that issue unless an actual petition is before them," Branham said.
If the court does hear the case, it may appoint a master to investigate the charges.
"A motion for the impeachment has to be filed, so we're looking for an attorney to do it pro bono," Kidani said. An anonymous donor already has agreed to pay a $125 petition fee, she said.
If the court decided to hear the case, it would act as a board of impeachment in determining whether Mansho should be removed "for malfeasance, misfeasance or nonfeasance in office or for interference with the performance of duties of any officer or employee in any executive agency of the city government."
The movement has apparently failed in its simultaneous efforts to have Mansho recalled. The charter stipulates that a petition for recall requires the signatures of at least 10 percent of the voters in a district for the city clerk to consider putting it on the ballot and that the signatures be gathered within a 60-day period.
Kidani said that Friday is the deadline for the recall effort that began April 11. She estimated between 2,000 and 2,200 registered voters have signed the recall petition, well short of the 5,303 needed.
More signatures were received for the recall than the impeachment petition, she said, because "people were in a rush and would only sign one, and our push at first was for the recall." Some people, she said, "just preferred not to have a court decide and chose just to support the recall."
Kidani said she would prefer to go the recall route. "It's a quicker process," she said. "But on the other side, the impeachment process is going to be something new that historically has not been done before in the history of the City Council."
The 60-day clock for recall is too short, she said. News that police detectives are looking at charging Mansho may also have kept more people from signing the petitions, she said, as did a requirement that petitioners needed to put down their Social Security numbers.
Recall and impeachment efforts also were hampered when several key members of the group dropped out of the removal efforts, Kidani said.
City & County of Honolulu
