Gerrymandering accusations delay reapportionment

Charges of gerrymandering and a last-minute proposal by a dissident faction of House Democrats led the state Reapportionment Commission to delay Wednesday a vote on approving new district maps for state House and Senate seats.

A final vote is now scheduled for Friday.

Chief Election Officer Scott Nago said he was unsure how the delay would affect his office’s ability to carry out this year’s elections.

"We don’t know," Nago told the commission at a meeting Wednesday. "This is the first time we’ve ever been in a situation where we do not have lines in an election year."

Nago previously testified that his office needed the maps by Wednesday to begin allocating precincts, assigning voters and begin mailing notification cards to inform more than 600,000 registered voters of their polling places.

Meanwhile, potential candidates for state offices are unable to file the necessary paperwork to run for election until the maps are finalized by the Elections Office and they know the boundaries of where they will be running.

Charges of gerrymandering — redrawing districts to favor a person, party or political faction — were raised by a faction of 18 House Democrats who have opposed the leadership of Speaker Calvin Say.

Members of the dissident faction accused the commission of redrawing new districts favorable to Say, noting that the new boundaries pit more of their members in races against fellow incumbents and place more of their members in unfamiliar territory.

Under the current boundary proposal, seven pairs of lawmakers were put into new districts — six in the House and one in the Senate — meaning incumbents would have to run against each other. In the six House districts in question, four involve members of the dissident faction.

The group also presented a study by University of Hawaii mathematics professor Tom Ramsey showing dissidents were more likely to be put into districts with a greater number of new constituents.

On average, a dissident lawmaker had a district with 52 percent new voters, compared to non-dissidents, who on average had only 25 percent new voters. The chance that a fair process would produce "such an unusual pattern" was 1 in 1,000, according to the study

"A reasonable person should conclude that the unfair treatment was deliberate," Ramsey said.

Dissidents presented an alternative map for Oahu that they said was based on the plan approved by the commission last year that is "rational" and respects natural boundaries and established political borders, and preserves community integrity.

"There are serious concerns that have been raised regarding gerrymandering and we clearly cannot move ahead with maps that are not legal and not constitutional," said Rep. Chris Lee (D, Lanikai-Waimanalo), a dissident.

Commission Chairwoman Victoria Marks, a retired circuit judge, said she would have appreciated receiving the maps earlier in the process, but asked the commission staff to study the proposal and determine whether changes could be reasonably adopted.

"We feel like we want to consider all information that we’re provided and they just got it to us too late to consider it for this meeting," she said. "And so we’re taking a breather so we can at least look at it."

Commissioners have denied charges of gerrymandering, saying they did their best under tight time constraints.

"It’s hard to make anything out of it other than a group of folks are disgruntled," Marks said. "I don’t believe that individuals, or a group of individuals, were targeted."

While Marks was appointed chairwoman by the state Supreme Court, other members were appointed by party leaders in each chamber with equal representation by Democrats and Republicans.

Commissioner Dylan Nonaka, a Republican appointee, took exception to the gerrymandering accusations.

"To insinuate that somehow we got together to harm another faction, I think, is ridiculous," he said. "If there was something like that going on, I think the partisan members of this commission would call the other members out on it."

The original plan adopted by the commission last year was tossed out Jan. 4 by the state Supreme Court, which agreed with Hawaii island plaintiffs who argued that too many nonpermanent residents were included in the population base used to draw boundaries, negating population gains that should have resulted in Hawaii island gaining a seat in the state Senate. Oahu would lose a seat.