Panel OKs new A state panel has approved new legislative boundaries that puts seven pairs of incumbents in the same districts, which leaves four state House seats and three Senate seats without any incumbent for next year's elections.
legislative boundaries
7 pairs of incumbent candidates
would be facing each other
in the same districtsBy Pat Omandam
pomandam@starbulletin.comAlso yesterday, the 2001 Reapportionment Commission approved new district lines for Hawaii's two U.S. House seats, and a plan to stagger the 25 state Senate seats up for election next year.
"Overall, the commission did well to listen and get rid of canoe districts and for keeping communities intact as much as possible," said Jimmy Toyama, Oahu chairman of the Democratic Party of Hawaii. A canoe district is one that includes areas from two different islands.
Maps of the new redistricting plans will not be available until early next week.
Those legislators who now find themselves living in the same district with another incumbent are state Reps. Charles Djou and David Pendleton, both Republicans, as well as Democrats Terry Nui Yoshinaga and Ed Case, Felipe Abinsay and Ben Cabreros, and Roy Takumi and Nobu Yonamine.
Sharing new political boundaries in the Senate are Democrats Rod Tam and Suzanne Chun Oakland, Les Ihara and Matt Matsunaga, and David Matsuura and Lorraine Inouye. An earlier plan had Republican Sens. Sam Slom and Fred Hemmings in the same district, but it was later changed.
Slom told the commission yesterday he never asked for any changes and remains upset the panel split his Hawaii Kai community. "You don't break up communities," he said.
Commission Vice Chairwoman Jill Frierson said there was a tremendous clockwise shift of Oahu's 18 Senate districts during the redistricting process that forced the Waimanalo Senate district to swing around Makapuu and into Hawaii Kai.
The new boundaries that now divide the community were considered the most reasonable choice, she said.
What was deemed unreasonable by Toyama and others yesterday was the commission's decision to exclude nonresident military dependents from the population when creating the new districts. This panel included this group earlier this year but reversed its decision after public criticism.
Mililani resident Scott Smart, a retired Navy serviceman whose wife is on active duty, told the commission its decision may violate federal law and open up the redistricting plan to a legal challenge.
But Jim Hall, a former state reapportionment commissioner and researcher for the House Minority, said the state has never included nonresident military in its reapportionment base and that the U.S. Supreme Court has already upheld that decision.
The commission is expected to deliver the new plans to the chief election officer on Dec. 14 and will make a final report to the state Legislature in mid-January. At that time, the nine-member, bipartisan panel will complete its work.
Plans call for the Office of Elections to assume control of the commission's interactive Web site and build on it over the next decade.
State Web Site
