Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 14, Number 9, 1 September 1997 — Con-Con rears its ugly head [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Con-Con rears its ugly head

Auē! Just three months ago, believing that at least we were safe for the time being, 1 sighed with relief and asked all of vou to be grateful that our supreme court had killed the constitutional convention. I also warned that

the Con-Con question could be put to the voters again in 1998. As it turns out, our securitv has proved even more short-lived than I had imagined. On Julv 11, Judge David Ezra ordered a new vote on whether Hawai'i should have a constitutional convention. As mueh as I dread the expense to the taxpayer and the possibility of a vote in favor of a Con-Con, I understand the judge's logic. Just so we are all on the same page, let's review the sequence of events that led to this state of affairs. When we went to the polls last November, we

cast 163,869 votes saying "yes" to the constitutional convention, 160,153 saying "no" and 45,245 blank ballots. For months the fate of the Con-Con hung on the effect of the blanks. Should they be counted as votes for or against? Should thev be counted at all? While our supreme court was deliberating these issues, our legislature was acting as if a Con-Con was a done deal. Against all recommendations from concerned citizens, our legislators began to set things up for eaeh representative district to have one Con-Con delegate, thereby guaranteeing themselves summer jobs in 1998. But they had to stop these shenanigans in mid-

session because the supreme court decided, according to established precedent and our Hawaii Constitution, that the votes had to be interpreted as against a constitutional convention. However, when Judge Ezra got the case, he decided that the issue was not Con-Con yes or no but whether the election had been fairly conducted since we voters had never been told how a blank vote would be counted. So the eleehon has to be held all over again. Although experts are predicting further appeals will drag on and on, Dwayne Yoshina is gearing up to

bring us back to the polls for a special election — at a cost of $2.1 million, nearly $2 million more than if the question were put on the 1998 general eleehon ballots. According to Yoshina, the vote will be held on Dec. 2, a date I urge all of you to circle on your calendar. We Hawai-

ians need to turn out massively that dav and reject a constitutional convention onee and for all. Our protections and benefits are being targeted by politicians who would like to see them disappear with a stroke of a pen. In particular, they would like to wipe out the Office of Hawaiian Affairs and our native gathering rights, both now guaranteed under our present constitution. We need to stand together and make sure they never get the ehanee to take these guarantees away from us by redrafting a new constitution to suit themselves. Plenty of voters do not want a constitutional convention any

more than we do. They object to the cost and to rewriting from scratch every few years the framework of our state government and the source of our most basic rights and protections. I wish we did not have to deal with this, but we must not consider Judge Ezra's ruling a total defeat for our people. Rather, it's an opportunity — to show our Hawaiian clout by saying "No!" to a constitutional eonvention. For more information regarding the state Con-Con please feel free to contact my office at 594-1838.

Ka Wai Ola o OHA

Trustee, At-Large