Redistricting case will go before judges

A three-judge panel of the U.S. District Court will hear a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the state’s reapportionment and redistricting maps.

U.S. District Judge J. Michael Seabright issued an order Tuesday granting the request of the plaintiffs.

The chief judge of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is to name two judges who will preside over the case alongside Seabright. A timetable for the case has not yet been set.

In the order, Seabright said a status conference was held Monday to discuss the request.

"Defendants agreed that substantial questions of constitutionality require the convening of a three-judge court," the order states. "Further, from the court’s preliminary review of the complaint and relevant case law, the court finds that the constitutional claims are not insubstantial."

"It’s a good sign they decided to take it," said David Brostrom, a retired U.S. Army colonel and a plaintiff in the lawsuit. "They think it’s worth arguing."

Brostrom, along with state Rep. K. Mark Takai and four other registered voters, filed the federal lawsuit Friday challenging the reapportionment plan as unconstitutional because it is based on a population count that excludes about 108,000 so-called "nonpermanent" residents — military members, their dependents and out-of-state students.

Their exclusion violates the Constitution’s equal protection clause, the lawsuit says. Additionally, the lawsuit contends maps do not divide residents equally in legislative districts and might also violate a state constitutional provision that new districts not be drawn to unduly favor a person or political party.

Plaintiffs are seeking an injunction preventing the state from implementing the plan and directing the state to come up with another plan which counts the excluded residents.

The nine-member state commission, formed every 10 years to redraw political boundaries to reflect population changes based on the decennial census, was forced to exclude the nonresidents after an earlier lawsuit challenging their inclusion was successful.

Commissioners approved a plan last year that included the nonpermanent residents, but Hawaii island constituents sued, saying the inclusion maintained a greater population base on Oahu and negated population gains on their island that should have resulted in Hawaii island gaining a fourth seat in the state Senate. Oahu would lose a seat.

The Hawaii Supreme Court agreed in January and ordered the commission to redraw the maps.

Commissioners redrew the plans in February, only to be delayed again by allegations of gerrymandering made by a faction of House Demo­crats who argued new districts were favorable to Speaker Calvin Say, who they have been trying to oust as speaker.

Final maps, with the exclusion of the nonpermanent residents that shifted a state Senate seat to Hawaii island, were approved March 8.

Because of the delays, the state Office of Elections was forced to truncate the candidate filing period by about a month and has been forced to prepare for the Aug. 11 primary election under a tighter time period.