It looks like Say can stay.
The House’s special committee looking into whether state Rep. Calvin Say actually lives in his district voted unanimously Friday that Say "is qualified to sit as the member representing the 20th District" — a rebuke to the latest challenge involving Say’s residency, the first one considered by the Legislature.
That decision from the six-member panel came after six Oahu residents asserted during this session that Say lives in Pauoa Valley — not the Palolo Valley home that he owns with his wife in the district that he represents. Say has said previously that he spends time at both places but that his residence is in Palolo, on 10th Avenue.
"People can have two houses. I wish I had two houses," quipped state Rep. Karl Rhoads, the committee’s chairman, after a less than 10-minute hearing on the matter. The way the law is written made it fairly straightforward to side with Say, he added. "If you read the stuff about residency, you see it’s just not as black-and-white as people would want it to be. And even if it was black-and-white … there was nothing even close to compelling to say that he’s abandoned, that this wasn’t his residence."
Say (D, Palolo-St. Louis Heights-Kaimuki) did not attend the committee’s hearing Friday. However, in a statement released after the committee’s decision, the longtime lawmaker and former House speaker said, "I hope we can finally put this behind us and get on with the people’s business."
The committee’s report now goes before the full House, which could consider its findings as early as Thursday.
Lance Collins, an attorney for the six voters who brought the challenge to the Legislature, said he was disappointment but not surprised at the decision. "There certainly wasn’t a thorough investigation," he said afterward. "If that’s the level of investigation that the House is going to do," then it really isn’t one, he said. The committee had previously held a hearing to get oral testimony and ask questions Feb. 13.
In an unusual move, Collins added that he and several of his clients would head straight to Honolulu Police Department headquarters following Friday’s hearing to file a criminal complaint against Rhoads and Bert Kobayashi Jr., Say’s attorney.
Collins this week asserted that Rhoads had improperly shared voter data with Kobayashi for two of Collins’ clients, including their telephone numbers, addresses and emails. Those two clients no longer live in Say’s district, but they’re among the six voters who brought the complaint. Rhoads wasn’t authorized to share tha data because it wasn’t for election purposes as required under state law, according to Collins.
Providing that information directly to Say’s camp "is not part of his investigation, and that is not an election purpose," Collins argued. "Whether it’s a crime or not, it’s totally inappropriate."
Rhoads called Collins’ assertions of wrongdoing "ridiculous," "nonsense" and a "red herring" to distract from the larger issues on Say’s residency.
"If he (Collins) had just been honest with us and given me or given Speaker Emeritus Say the information, it never would’ve come up," Rhoads said.
"I couldn’t have been more authorized," Rhoads added. "I’m the chair of an investigative committee where the first rule … was (that) the petitioners have to be registered voters in the district. That was the first thing we checked."
The House special committee found that most of the evidence provided by Say’s challengers had already been vetted in the previous four unsuccessful challenges against his residency — and that little has changed.
Rhoads said 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.
"There was no smoking gun," he said. To determine true residency, "how could you really prove it? You’d have to put a camera in the guy’s bedroom or something. I don’t think that makes any sense to do."
Rhoads (D, Chinatown-Iwilei-Kalihi) did add, however, that he had previously considered introducing measures to clarify residency. "It is really an amorphous concept when it comes right down to it," he added.
State Rep. Beth Fukumoto Chang, the committee’s lone Republican (representing Mililani-Mililani Mauka-Waipio Acres), said she supported the committee’s decision but understood how the challengers might be disappointed.
"I know that’s going to be frustrating" to the petitioners. "I understand that seems unfair, and at some level that seems unfair to me, too," Fukumoto Chang said. However, she added, the committee’s investigation wasn’t the proper venue to change the laws that its members were considering.
Rhoads noted that controversy over Say’s residency has existed for years, yet Say, who’s held his seat in the House since 1976, continues to get elected. Pursuing residency challenges against him is "like Captain Ahab — or the Republicans in the U.S. House trying to repeal Obamacare," Rhoads said. "At some point you have to say, ‘It’s over.’"
Collins said the challengers intend to keep fighting in court the matter of Say’s residency "until he moves back or resigns."
