Attorney general urges court to stay clear of regents issue
POSTED: Friday, November 07, 2008
The state Supreme Court should not step in to referee a “;political dispute”; between the Legislature and the governor over appointments to the University of Hawaii Board of Regents, the state attorney general argued in court documents filed yesterday.
New Regents WantedThe Regents Candidate Advisory Council is recruiting applicants for two seats on the Board of Regents that will become vacant on June 30.
Applications are being accepted through Nov. 17.
The council will screen the applications and submit up to four names for each vacancy to the governor, who will select a nominee from the list. The nominees must be confirmed by the state Senate.
For more information, call Roy Takeyama at 692-1218 or visit hawaii.edu/rcac.
The Board of Regents oversees the running of the 10-campus public higher education system.
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Last month, Senate President Colleen Hanabusa and Education Chairman Norman Sakamoto asked the Supreme Court to compel Republican Gov. Linda Lingle to fill six vacancies on the board.
Instead of nominating new regents from a list provided by a regents Candidate Advisory Council, Lingle decided to “;hold over”; six regents whose terms had expired.
The holdovers include the governor's friend and adviser Kitty Lagareta, whose nomination for a new term was rejected by the Democratic-majority Senate.
Hanabusa and Sakamoto argued that a state constitutional amendment passed by voters in 2006 - and a law enacted in 2007 by the Legislature over the governor's veto - require the governor to act in a timely manner to fill vacancies on the board.
By not appointing new regents from a list provided by the Candidate Advisory Council, the governor is violating the law and the Constitution, the Senate leaders argued.
“;The only thing preventing the BOR appointment process from being properly implemented was the governor's own refusal to act,”; Hanabusa and Sakamoto said in court papers.
But Attorney General Mark Bennett said, in papers filed with the Supreme Court yesterday, that the Legislature could have - but did not - impose any timetable on the regents appointment process and also could have limited the ability of regents to holdover - but did not.
Ordering the governor to select regents now “;would have the effect of rewriting the regents' governing statute, and ordering the head of a co-equal branch of government to take an action the law does not currently require,”; Bennett argued.
“;We believe the statute is clear and the intent of what the parties want to do is clear,”; Hanabusa said yesterday.
Hanabusa said the court could rule based on the written arguments submitted or could ask for more information, perhaps scheduling oral arguments before issuing a ruling.
