The state Supreme Court’s ruling in January that determined how boundary lines should be drawn for this year’s election in August made scant reference to the agency created primarily for that purpose: the U.S. Census Bureau. That is why a lawsuit in federal court should result in the prompt ordering of the lines to be redrawn to conform with the nationally customary method of including military and out-of-town students in the population count, in time for the upcoming elections.
The candidate filing period for the Aug. 11 primary election runs until June 5, so the redistricting lines must be drawn by that time to allow ballots to be sent to citizens overseas. Both sides in the case will argue back and forth on paper over the next three weeks and are to make final arguments on May 18 before three federal judges. A quick appeal would go directly to the U.S. Supreme Court.
In the latest twist in Hawaii’s reapportionment saga, a state legislator and five other Hawaii registered voters on April 6 challenged the state high court’s ruling and asked for a three-judge panel in federal court. In its narrow ruling, the Hawaii Supreme Court made no mention of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which forbids any state from depriving anyone of equal protection of the law.
Such deprivation came via a 1992 amendment to the Hawaii Constitution, which required that only "permanent residents" be counted in determining where lines should be drawn for the state’s political districts. That definition led Hawaii’s Supreme Court to rule this January that the total of the state’s residents should exclude more than 100,000 military members, their families and university students from out of town, from the state’s population. That ruling sent the Hawaii Reapportionment Commission back to the drawing board; the commission, appreciative of the U.S. Constitution, had initially excluded from the population only 16,458 members of the military for lack of data.
The commission noted in its final report last year that the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled in 1962 that a state could not exclude military people from the population base "based solely on the nature of their employment," but that seems to be what the state’s high court mistakenly has done.
In 48 other states, lines are drawn according to the Census Bureau’s simple numbers of population. However, eight pages of standards used by the bureau determine that each "usual resident of the state" is counted, according to Robert H. Thomas, an attorney for the plaintiffs challenging the state court’s ruling.
"It’s where someone usually is, where somebody can usually be found most of the time, where they put their head on the pillow every night," Thomas said. That includes children, illegal aliens, federal workers stationed temporarily in Hawaii and others who may refer to "back home." If a person votes in another state, pays taxes there and is stationed in Schofield Barracks, Census Bureau policy records that person as a "usual resident" of Hawaii and not a resident of the state "back home."
No state sees it otherwise, except Hawaii and Kansas. With a population of nearly 3 million and a military count of less than 1,000, Kansas has prompted no one to bother challenging its parochial methodology.
In Hawaii, the issue is more important because of the large military numbers, which will provide a larger population base and thus affects area representation by legislators in the state House and Senate. The issue should have been resolved long ago and needs to be decided consistently with other states and the U.S. Constitution in recognizing "usual residents," rather than "permanent residents," in measuring political representation.
CORRECTION: Final arguements before the state Supreme Court will be held on May 18. An earlier version of this editorial and the editorial in the print edition said the arguments would be on May 11.
