Communication 07 Supreme Court Opinion

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120 P.3d 217 Page 17 108 Hawai'i 318, 120 P.3d 217 (Cite as: 108 Hawai'i 318, 120 P.3d 217) quate consideration to the rest of the Island. the record, this court may rely on these grounds to affirm the court's judgment. See DelosReyes v. Kuboyama, 76 Hawai‘i 137, The Commission needs to consider all of the Is- 140, 870 P.2d 1281, 1284 (1994) (“This land and all of its people in making the best plan. court may affirm a grant of summary judg- Such plans would spread around more fairly the ment on any ground appearing in the record, benefits and detriments of equal numbers but on even if the circuit court did not rely on it.”). equal geography. IV. (Emphasis added.) Another commissioner ex- [12] [3] In their third point, Appellants argue that pressed the Commission's motivation to adopt a plan while the Commission's reliance on the total popula- ensuring that, consistent with the provisions of Char- tion base “reflects the underlying principle of the one ter sections 3-17(f)(1) and (2), “[n]o district shall be man-one vote doctrine, it does not describe a rational drawn to unduly favor or penalize a person or politi- state policy” inasmuch as it “allows an apportioning cal faction” and that districts would be “contiguous body to create legislative districts under which pre- and compact”: existing districts (and the incumbents therein) are I have no doubt in my mind that we did the very favored and [to] ‘fracture’ well-known communities best we could with creating, you know, as compact of interests because of administrative convenience and as contiguous districts as possible.... FN8 [.]” (Emphasis in original.) So we did as a Charter mandate, we did the very FN8. Appellants argue as follows: best we could wherever possible to create a[sic] compact and contiguous districts as we could. We made concerted efforts to keep communities and In offering its justification for the County subdivisions together. Again, here and there, there Reapportionment Commission's plan (in [sic] wasn't absolutely do-able because of the cen-substitution of the Commission's omis- sus tracts and numbers and all the other issues. But sion), this Court states that the Commis- **232 *333 I have no doubt in my mind that we sion's purpose must have been to use a to- did our very, very best. tal population base that would give every man, woman, child, incarcerated felon, soldier, dependent of a soldier, resident .... alien and others “representation.” I have no doubt in my mind that no specific While this statement reflects the underly- group was penalized, and no specific group was ing principle of the one man-one vote doc- favored, we did the very best we could, all of the trine, it does not describe a rational state Island and all the communities. policy. Nor does it explain how that state policy is in fact legitimately advanced by (Emphases added.) Pursuant to Riley, these a plan that is prima facie unconstitutional statements, made by the Commission members them- because it violates that one man-one vote selves, justify the slightly greater than 10% deviation. doctrine of keeping populations as equal FN6 Accordingly, this court did not “overlook” or as possible to avoid the danger of diluting FN7 “misapprehend” the Riley holding. votes. FN6. Hence, as County Appellees maintain, The extension of this statement is that the “it would be a futile exercise to remand to one man-one vote principle allows an ap- ask commissioners for a reason which they portioning body to create legislative dis- have already expressed in the vote on the tricts under which pre-existing districts motion at the June 22, 2001 meeting.” (and the incumbents therein) are favored and that “fracture” well-known communi- FN7. Inasmuch as the reapportionment plan ties of interests because of administrative and the commissioners' testimony are part of convenience, the only articulated reason © 2011 Thomson Reuters. No Claim to Orig. US Gov. Works.