2004-03 Council Member Term Limits Article III, Section 3-2, Hawaii County Charter

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Honorable Bob Jacobson May 26, 2004 Page 8 omission in language that the city clerk based his denial of Woo's eligibility for seeking election to the council. The City, defending its Clerk's position, argued the new term limit language was unambiguous, and made no exception for terms commenced before July 1993. The City further argued the deletion of the italicized language indicated an intention to effect change. The Court of Appeal, Second District, Division 3, of the State of California rejected the City's arguments and reversed the lower court's decision. In finding Woo was eligible to seek reelection to the council, the California appellate court opined as follows: A city charter is the city's constitution. (City and County of San Francisco v. Patterson [1988] 202 Cal.App.3d 95, 102, 248 Cal.Rptr. 290; see Domar Electric, Inc. v. City of Los Angeles [1994] 9 Cal.App.4t' 161, 170, 36 Cal.Rptr.2d 521, 885 P.2d 934 ["[T]he charter represents the supreme law of the City, subject only to conflicting provisions in the federal and state Constitutions and to preemptive state law. [Citations.]']) Accordingly, we construe a voter-approved amendment to the city charter as we would construe a voter-approved amendment to the state Constitution. (Footnote omitted). We also are guided by the principle that the right to hold public office is a fundamental right of citizenship (Zeilenga v. Nelson [1971] 4 Cal.3d 716, 720, 94 Cal.Rptr. 602, 484 P.2d 578) that can be curtailed only if the law clearly so provides (carter v. Corn. on Qualifications, etc. [1939] 14 Cal.2d 179, 182, 93 P.2d 140; Helena Rubenstein Internat. v. Younger[1977] 71 Cal.App.3d 406, 418, 139 Cal.Rptr. 473). Any ambiguity in a law affecting that right must be resolved in favor of eligibility to hold office. (Carter, at p. 182, 93 P.2d 140; Younger, at p. 418, 139 Cal.Rptr. 473.) Moreover, the ballot pamphlet did not set forth the text of the proposed provision or facilitate a comparison with the existing provision through which a voter could discover the purported change that the description and summary failed to disclose. A voter would have had to turn to a separate booklet containing the complete text of the proposed city charter to discover the apparent inconsistency between the information provided in the ballot pamphlet and the actual text of the term limits provision. We do not suggest that an inconsistency between the ballot pamphlet and the actual text of a measure necessarily must be resolved in favor of the ballot