A divided Hawaii Supreme Court made quick work Wednesday denying a citizen petition that challenged state political maps drawn by the Reapportionment Commission and lifting a stay on candidate qualifying for the state Legislature and U.S. House.
The order keeps in place the maps approved by the commission, including a Big Island House map that puts the newly allocated eighth state House district in West Hawaii, rather than in Puna, where some petitioners who drew a community map wanted it to go.
The petition, by a coalition from Oahu, Hawaii Island and Maui, had asked the Supreme Court to declare the political maps invalid and direct that the state withdraw them and draw new ones. The court had put a temporary hold on candidate qualifying for state legislative offices and federal House races until it could consider the petition.
On the heels of the court order, the state Office of Elections sent out an announcement saying candidate qualifying is immediately open for all races. The candidate filing period ends June 7 for the Aug. 13 primary election.
The terse order Wednesday morning followed oral arguments Tuesday afternoon, where some justices seemed to let their skepticism show, even behind their face masks.
At issue for the justices was how much discretion the commission had over drawing the political boundaries, a once-a-decade exercise to balance population changes after the decennial census. While the state constitution lists eight criteria to be considered in reapportionment and redistricting, not all of them are mandatory, the state argued.
The court voted 3-2 to deny the petition, with Chief Justice Mark Recktenwald and Associate Justices Todd Eddins and Paula Nakayama in the majority and Associate Justices Sabrina McKenna and Michael Wilson dissenting.
The opinions were not available by press-time Wednesday. A call seeking comment from and Mateo Caballero, the attorney who argued the case, was not returned by press time.
“We are pleased that the Hawaii Supreme Court agreed that the final reapportionment plan adopted by the 2021 Reapportionment Commission is valid and should not be disturbed, and that the court will be allowing candidate filing to proceed unimpeded,” the Department of the Attorney General said in an email response.
Interested parties were eager to see the opinions.
“We will have to wait for the final written decision to assess how bad this is. A central issue was whether the Commission has the discretion to ignore a constitutional criterion without explanation,” Bart Dame, a national committeeman for the state Democratic Party who was a frequent testifier at the Reapportionment Commission meetings but was not a party to the lawsuit, posted on his public Facebook page. “It might be that the Court does not affirm the right of the Commission to ignore such criteria. It may be that they were not convinced that the Commission’s actions resulted in a map characterized by obvious favoritism, gerrymandering, etc.”
“I am hoping the ruling does not grant future commissions even wider discretion in making their decisions,” he added.
