Harris to appeal, Mayor Jeremy Harris says he will appeal a judge's decision that he should resign his office because he is running for governor.
campaign on hold
Mayor says he will appeal
a judge's ruling that he must
quit to run for governorBy Mary Adamski
madamski@starbulletin.comIn the meantime, Harris said he will suspend all campaign activities until an expedited appeal is heard by the Hawaii Supreme Court.
Circuit Judge Sabrina McKenna ruled yesterday that "Harris was required to resign as mayor when he became eligible as a candidate for the office of governor of the state of Hawaii on or before the filing of his organizational report on May 15, 2001."
At a news conference this afternoon on the steps of Honolulu Hale, Harris said he was shocked by yesterday's ruling, which he said contradicts years of accepted practice.
"We are confident our appeal will be upheld because 24 years of judges, election officials and candidates have interpreted the resign to run law differently," Harris said in a written statement.
Previous opinions by the state Office of Elections and the Department of the Attorney General have construed the 1978 state constitutional amendment to apply when a candidate files formal nomination papers.
Harris said he will also seek a stay of the judge's ruling. A hearing was scheduled today in Judge McKenna's courtroom to certify the ruling, a technical matter that must occur before an appeal is filed with the higher court.
Russell Blair, a former judge and state lawmaker who filed the court challenge, said the judge rendered "a good, courageous decision."
"What the decision means is that when you act like a candidate, when the average person in Hawaii would see you as a candidate, then you need to resign," said Blair's attorney, William Deeley.
Rick Tsujimura, co-chairman of the Harris 2002 campaign, said in a written statement that he had not seen the court decision.
"But we can say that for 24 years, this law has been interpreted such that candidates didn't have to resign until July when they filed their nomination papers.
"We can't understand why Mayor Harris would be treated differently than all other candidates have been for the last two decades."
July 23 is the deadline for candidates to file nomination papers.
Blair said the decision may affect other officeholders in the field of candidates for lieutenant governor and for mayor when the seat is vacated. The 1978 amendment to the state Constitution requires officeholders to resign when they become a candidate for another office with an overlapping term.
Deeley said the ruling will affect future mayors with plans to run for governor.
"It will set things right. The problem is when an executive uses the position as a steppingstone rather than pay attention to the business of the city."
Blair said Harris "is so in-your-face with it that it was hard not to call him on it. Since Sept. 11 he has used his office to be on the air every possible moment, warning us about getting an anthrax letter ... like a pale imitation of (former New York Mayor) Rudy Giuliani."
City Councilman Jon Yoshimura, who has filed organizational papers to run for lieutenant governor as a Democrat, said that if the ruling applies to him, all Council members would be precluded from seeking another seat while in office.
Yoshimura said Constitutional Convention participants in 1978 "didn't contemplate term limits or a Campaign Spending Commission, which requires you to file organizational papers in order to raise funds."
City Councilman John DeSoto said he and other elected officials have been under the impression that they only need to resign if they choose to run for another office during the middle of a term. He has filed organizational papers to run for lieutenant governor, although he has not decided whether he will be doing so as a Democrat or Republican.
Because his four-year Council term ends in January, when he presumably would take the office of lieutenant governor, DeSoto believes he should not have to resign.
But if forced to make a decision, he said: "I'll pull my organizational papers (and not run for lieutenant governor). My commitment is to my term on the Council. I gave my constituents my word."
Blair said Harris had only served 98 days of his current mayoral term when he filed the May 15 organizational report with the state Campaign Spending Committee.
In discounting the mayor's argument that he was not eligible as a candidate, the judge repeated Blair's contention that Harris was "eligible to hire a campaign manager, eligible to retain a campaign chairman and vice chairman, eligible to have a campaign bank account, eligible to have a campaign headquarters, eligible to address campaign supporters, is eligible to collect hundreds of thousands of dollars for that campaign and ... to sign his name over the line marked 'candidate' on the candidate committee organizational report."
The judge specifically underscored the de facto doctrine upheld by the state Supreme Court in past cases that the decision in no way invalidates any actions taken by Harris in his official capacity up to the date he finally leaves office as mayor.
Harris has three possible avenues to respond, Deeley said: He can "take the high ground" and resign; he can withdraw from the gubernatorial race; or he can appeal the decision to the state Supreme Court, which declined in December to hear Blair's original petition on the matter.
If it is appealed, Blair said he will seek a speedy hearing. "I suspect the mayor would like it done quickly also."
"This is not a political issue, it's a constitutional issue," said Blair, who has challenged the constitutionality of other cases. A former state lawmaker, Blair resigned from a District Court judgeship in November to return to the University of Hawaii to study math and chemistry.
Star-Bulletin reporter Gordon Y.K. Pang
contributed to this report.
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