Redistricting process will affect every 2022 Hawaii state House and Senate race

The effort to realign state House and Senate district seats according to Hawaii’s latest census data has to be finished in February and will affect next year’s elections, when every legislative seat will be up to voters across the state to decide.

Proposed redistricting maps drawn by the state Reapportionment Commission have gotten lots of criticism since the commission began meeting this summer, as it’s required to do every 10 years.

One plan to incorporate Portlock into the Kailua- Waimanalo House District 51 seat drew criticism from people like Bill Hicks, who testified before the commission Oct. 14.

“Several times, commissioners encouraged people to use the interactive map and submit a plan,” Hicks told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. So Hicks, chairman of the Kailua Neighborhood Board, took them up on their offer and started working on his own Oahu House and Senate maps at 11 p.m. Oct. 21 and stayed up until 5 a.m. using tools available on the state Office of Elections’ reapportionment website.

“The proposal was to split Manoa Valley in half,” Hicks said. “Starting where I did, you keep Manoa Valley intact. Then I discovered their proposal had an 8% population deviation between the most populous and least populous districts. I could get it down to 2% and used highways, mountains and streams to divide the districts where it seems to make sense. Mixing East Oahu and Windward Oahu seemed wrong. Splitting valleys seemed wrong.”

The biggest change under “The Hicks Plan,” as it’s now being called, is to create a new House District 32, which currently covers Salt Lake-Moanalua Valley, that would run from east of Barbers Point to west of Ewa Beach, an area experiencing population growth.

“I don’t know the political ramifications for any district. I don’t have any clue,” Hicks said. “Every 10 years you have an opportunity to make it right for the people.”

In her written comments to the Reapportionment Commission, Manoa resident Patricia Johnson said, “I would not like being separated from my neighbors on the other side of the valley. … Please accept The Hicks Plan.”

Jackie Lasky of Kailua wrote to the commission that including Hawaii Kai with Kailua and Waimanalo “simply doesn’t make sense when the constituencies and community issues are so different, and when Hawaii Kai is geographically removed from the windward side.”

Hicks, 67, graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., and went on to command the USS William H. Bates Sturgeon-class attack submarine out of Pearl Harbor. After retiring at the rank of captain, he rejoined the Navy as a civilian and served as director and deputy director of submarine operations in the Pacific before retiring again in 2019.

Hicks said he followed the Reapportionment Commission’s rules in drawing his own district maps.

“I only looked at making the districts compact, contiguous, geographically consistent and as equal in population as possible,” he said. “There was no political calculus involved.”

The commission is prohibited from “gerrymandering” districts to favor any political party or politician, said Dr. Mark Mugiishi, the commission chairman, who is also president and CEO of HMSA.

The commission’s work got off to a late start because U.S. census data was delayed due to COVID-19 and did not arrive until September, when the commission’s new districts were supposed to be ready, Mugiishi said.

It took a state Supreme Court decision in July to allow the commission to delay filing its congressional and legislative reapportionment plans to Hawaii’s chief election officer no later than Feb. 27.

“We’re on a pretty tight deadline, and we have to follow a rigid process while getting public comment,” Mugiishi said. “Given all those complexities, I think we’re doing pretty well.”

So Mugiishi said he appreciates the efforts of people such as Hicks who have come up with their own overall plans rather than just complain about how a proposal would affect their individual voting district.

“The maps have to follow the rule of proportionality and be compact and contiguous,” Mugiishi said. “Every effect will have some kind of countereffect, while making sure the voice of minorities are not silenced. So no map will ever be drawn to make every single person happy. That’s just impossible.”

While the commission is responsible for drawing new voting maps for congressional and state House and Senate seats across the state, the largest number of complaints involve the Oahu House seats.

And there has been drama concerning commission member Kevin Rathbun after state Rep. Matt LoPresti (D, Ewa Villages-Ocean Pointe-Ewa Beach) twice called for Rathbun’s removal during the redistricting process.

At its Oct. 28 meeting, LoPresti submitted testimony that the latest plan for LoPresti’s House District 41 had turned “into a gerrymandered mess … for partisan reasons” and “a Frankensteinian monster district.”

LoPresti blamed it on Rathbun, his neighbor. Rathbun’s daughter, Amanda Rathbun, finished a distant third in the 2020 Democratic primary contest won by LoPresti, who went on to beat Republican David Alcos in the general election.

LoPresti told the commission in written testimony that Rathbun “told me he would ‘fix it’ so it wouldn’t happen again.”

“At the time Commissioner Kevin Rathbun swore to me that he would see to this, I had no idea what he was actually talking about and figured he was just upset about losing again,” LoPresti wrote in his testimony. “You see, he has served as the de facto campaign manager for my opponents in the last two elections, and if I understand things correctly, for whatever personal reasons has gone out of his way to work on the campaign of every opponent I have ever had since my first successful campaign to represent the Ewa Beach area in the state legislature in 2014.

“That is, of course, his right. However, when I learned he was actually on the reapportionment commission and he was informing me that he would be deliberately shaping the lines specifically to do the one thing he had been unable to do in so many different free and fair elections, Commissioner Kevin Rathbun crossed a clear line that invalidates this map and creates the opportunity for a successful court challenge to frankly any map which he has a hand in drawing.”

Rathbun told the Star- Advertiser there is no gerrymandering in the proposed districts. “The LoPresti allegations and innuendo I have no comment on,” he said.

Mugiishi said LoPresti first brought his concerns about Rathbun to both him and the state Office of Elections, “which did not find any evidence to substantiate that.”

Mugiishi said he also looked into the allegations, “and I was satisfied as chair that there wasn’t an issue.”

Rathbun said he agreed to serve on the commission as part of his overall commitment to community service, which has included serving as Kapolei Chamber of Commerce president, sitting on the city commission that oversees Oahu’s neighborhood boards and as chairman of the U.S. Vets Advisory Council.

He had never served on the once-a-decade Reapportionment Commission and was not sure what to expect — especially the level of criticism aimed at the Oahu House district proposals.

“I expected a little bit of public outcry,” Rathbun said. “We’re taking it on the chin, and that’s fine.”

At the same time, Rathbun is pleased that a handful of people such as Hicks have taken the time to submit their own proposals.

“The Hicks Plan has gotten a lot of publicity,” Rathbun said. “We’re still working on the process and moving forward knowing we have a deadline of February.”