MIN CHC 1989-08-09 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Our recommendations are: ARTICLE 3 Section 3-2 now reads in part: "There shall be a County Council composed of nine members who shall be elected at-large for terms of four years. " "Of the nine members elected to the County Council, one shall be a resident of the district of Puna, one a resident of the district of Kau, one a resident of the combined districts of North and South Kona, one a resident of the combined districts of North and South Kohala, one resident of Hamakua and one a resident of the combined districts of North and South Hilo. " The following are 1987 population estimates per traditional Districts from the 1988 Hawaii State Data Book as represented in Section 3-2 above: DISTRICT EST.POP. OVER UNDER REPRESENTED REPRESENTED Kau 4700 8011 N. Kohala 3600 S. Kohala 7100 911 N. Kona 20500 S. Kona 7300 15089 Hamakua 5300 7411 North Hilo 1500 South Hilo 45300/ 34089 Puna 19000 6289 TOTALS 114400 divided by 9 = 12711 Taking into consideration that populations ebb, flow and shift constantly i and reminding the Commission of testimony they heard from Professor Jon Van Dyke, University of Hawaii Professor of Constitutional Law on February 15, 1989, in part and referring to At-Large elected members "What we call this is a multi-member system in the sense that all nine are elected by the At- Large system. That can be constitutional. It is used in a number of situations. But it does have the potentiality of being unconstitutional. "- "If the result of an at-large or muti-member approach is to exclude certain distinct racial groups or other identifiable political groupings, the U.S. Supreme Court has had a lot of litigation, particularly in the South where black people view at-large election processes as discriminating against Othem. " "And the other way it can be distorting is that the person elected from a district may not be , in fact, the choice of the people in that district" - I Discussing single district representation "the advantage is that those 494