It’s official: Say can stay.
With a historic vote Friday, the state House unanimously found that one of its veteran members, Democratic Rep. Calvin Say, is qualified to represent his district, despite at least eight years of assertions from some neighbors, voters and political rivals that the former House speaker lives outside of its boundaries.
The House approved a special committee’s findings from last week that Say resides in the 20th District — a rebuke to the latest challenge involving Say’s residency. That challenge was the first of its kind to be considered by the House, according to the chamber’s leaders.
Say (D, Palolo-Kaimuki-St. Louis Heights) left the chamber during the vote Friday after asking to be excused because the issue affected him personally.
Voters have now unsuccessfully challenged Say’s residency on five separate occasions through the city, the courts and now the Legislature, asserting that he lives in Pauoa Valley and not the Palolo Valley home that he owns with his wife in his House district. Say has previously said that he spends time in both places but that his residence is on 10th Avenue in Palolo.
A group of six Oahu voters brought the challenge before lawmakers in this session, and a six-member panel of House leaders considered the matter in recent weeks.
After the special committee issued its decision last week, Rep. Karl Rhoads (D, Kalihi-Palama-Iwilei-Chinatown), the committee’s chairman, said that "there was nothing even close to compelling" under the law to indicate Say has abandoned his Palolo home. Most of the evidence had already been vetted in the four previous attempts to prove that the longtime representative no longer lives there, Rhoads said last week.
Rhoads also said that statements from some neighbors saying they never saw Say at the Palolo house, or water utility records that showed virtually no use for a time, failed to prove anything conclusive. The laws on residency aren’t as "black and white" as some people might hope, Rhoads added.
City property tax records show that Say and his wife claim an $80,000 property tax exemption on the Palolo property.
Lance Collins, the attorney representing the voters who brought the challenge, watched from the gallery above the House floor Friday as members voted on the committee’s findings. Later he reiterated what he first said after the committee issued its report: His clients intend to keep fighting in Circuit Court the matter of Say’s residency until he "moves back" or resigns.
Say was first elected to his seat in 1976 and served as House speaker for 14 years — the longest run as speaker since statehood. House Speaker Joseph Souki and a coalition of dissident Democrats and minority Republicans toppled Say in 2013.
