Keith Hiraoka easily won Senate confirmation to the Intermediate Court of Appeals this week with senators showing little concern that he also happened to be Gov.
David Ige’s former campaign manager and high school friend.
In nominating Hiraoka for the judgeship, Ige picked him from a list of six candidates that had been vetted and chosen by the state’s Judicial Selection Commission. Hiraoka will fill a vacancy created when Associate Judge Lisa Ginoza was promoted to chief judge of the ICA in April.
The Senate approved Hiraoka 20-0 on Thursday, with five members excused. State Sens. Laura Thielen and Donna Kim voted yes but with reservations. They said during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday that their concerns rested not with Hiraoka’s close association with Ige or his qualifications, but rather with how quickly he was jumping from his position as a 1st Circuit judge, a position he has served in for only
19 months after being nominated by Ige and confirmed by the Senate last year.
“I’m a little taken aback
by that because I assume when you guys come before us, you are making a commitment to the court,” said Kim, noting that Hiraoka applied to the ICA after serving as a 1st Circuit judge for just
13 months.
Thielen said it made it
difficult to implement reforms in the lower courts, which are deluged with high volumes of cases, when judges move up so quickly.
State Rep. Andria Tupola, Ige’s Republican opponent in this year’s governors race, and her running mate,
Marissa Kerns, criticized the governor earlier this month for nominating Hiraoka to the ICA. Kerns, the Republican nominee for lieutenant governor, called it “classic Aloha State Democrat cronyism on steroids and stinky politics of the worst kind.”
However, public testimony on Hiraoka’s appointment was almost unanimously
supportive. David Kimo
Frankel, an attorney with
the Native Hawaiian Legal Corp., was the only person
to testify against Hiraoka during Wednesday’s committee hearing. He noted that
the ICA often reviews actions by government agencies.
“I don’t think it is appropriate for him to be hearing
appeals regarding decisions made by the Ige administration, whether by the
governor himself or his
appointees,” Frankel told the Senate Judiciary Committee. “It’s just inappropriate. It creates an appearance of impropriety.”
Hiraoka noted that he can recuse himself from cases that might pose a conflict of interest.
The Senate also approved Summer Kupau-Odo to
Oahu’s District Court in a
20-0 vote, with five members excused.
Hiraoka’s appointment is for a period of 10 years. The annual salary for an ICA associate judge is $210,780.
Kupau-Odo’s appointment is for six years and pays a
salary of $189,480.
