Two Senate measures that would have concentrated more legislative power on Oahu at the expense of the neighbor islands were shut down last week in their first House committee.
The House Committee on Government Reform on Wednesday deferred Senate Bills 3244 and 3254, which strive to change how population is counted for allocating the number of senators and representatives per island and drawing legislative boundary maps. The reapportionment process is undertaken every 10 years following updated population figures from the U.S. Census.
Following lawsuits in 2011, the state Reapportionment Commission began extracting the counts of nonresident military and students before divvying up House and Senate seats by island.
Since most nonresident military and students are on Oahu, the ultimate result of counting them would be more legislative seats there. The Big Island most recently added Senate seat and House seat came about after the nonresidents were extracted, in 2011 and 2021, respectively.
Common Cause of Hawaii supported both new measures. Executive Director Sandy Ma said Hawaii is the only state to remove the nonresidents from its count.
“We don’t want a process where certain people are not counted in reapportionment and redistricting, where other people such as temporary and part-time residents may be counted,” Ma said. “We do understand the plight of neighbor islands. We want to have a fair balance but Hawaii is actually the only state that extracts military and students, that has an extraction process, and so there is a concern as to having a good process in place.”
The U.S. Census counts all people who live at a specific address on a specific day, in the latest case, April 1, 2020.
The stated intent of the latest bills isn’t to strengthen the state’s most populous island’s representation in the House and Senate. But that would be the ultimate result, which gave some lawmakers pause. All four of Hawaii Island’s senators voted against the bills when it was in that chamber before crossing over to the House on votes of 19-6 and 21-4.
The bills fared worse in the first House committee, which has Maui Democrats as both chairman and vice chairwoman.
“I don’t like either of these bills. I think they are very bad for neighbor islands,” Vice Chairwoman Tina Wildberger said. “And we’re going to lose House and Senate seats if either of these two go forward.”
Chairman Angus McKelvey noted, “we have numerous testimonies from numerous individuals, all in opposition.”
SB 3254 proposes a constitutional amendment basing reapportionment and redistricting on the number of all residents, not just permanent residents, as is the current requirement. That means, if the bill had passed and voters subsequently approved it on the ballot, nonresident military and students would no longer be removed from the count before new legislative districts were created.
SB 3244 would repeal the definition of permanent resident.
The bills appear dead for the session.
“Given the concerns to the neighbor islanders, especially the Big Island and the fact that it could change map lines and conceivably trigger lawsuits which would not only delay papers but also upend the voter guide bills going forward, we’re going to defer this measure for the year,” McKelvey said.
Email Nancy Cook Lauer at ncook-lauer@westhawaiitoday.com.