CHC 1979-04-10 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home

.changed that since then because according to-the Hawaii- Revised Statutes ' copy of the 'County Charter it is still on the books. They may have changed it by ordinance or some other way which I don ' t have a copy of, but assuming that it is still in existence we also have a two year residency requirement. it appears to me, from my research of the cases in the law library that the two year residency provision is unconstitu- tional. So that provision would have to be changed. The question is, next, what is constitutional? I haven ' t found one single case that said three months, six months, one year or anything like that. Again, going back to the Maui and Honolulu Charters , by the way, which were revised very recently, the last few years--Honolulu and Maui Charters have no' resi- dency requirements for running for office. All you have to do to be qualified to be elected to the councils of Maui and , Honolulu is that you be a duly qualified elector of the district from which you are running. In other words , a re- gistered voter, citizen of the United States. That sort of thing. There is no specific time limit on how long you have to live--for example, if one of you wanted to move to Maui , tomorrow, and the next day you could register to run as a county councilman. .. If you change your residency:and-you qualify to vote over there and, assuming you do, you can run for county council. The same in Honolulu. I would say that that particular provision regarding residency is one matter that should be taken up by the commission. I cannot say, right now, what the recom- mended specific period of residency requirement would be but more than likely it appears that no residency requirements would be the best possible alternative. MR. TRULSON : Mr. Oda, you say residency require- ment. . .how about a resident voter requirement, or a registration to vote? That is also almost the same thing, isn 't it? You can 't do one without the other. You can ' t be a registered voter for two years unless you are a resident for two years. That is also in :the charter. So the whole thing then would go? Is says here that"a person must have been a resident voter of the district from-which he is elected or appointed for at least two years. " Where the residency in the district is a requirement. But that also would have to be eliminated. MR. ODA: That ' s right. Anytime you have residency requirements, it is constitutionally suspect today. are residencys such as requirements in certain instance There divorces!wThey used to have them_ in _welfare requirements but the United States Supreme Court did away with that. In limited situations, residencies are permissible. But very limited type of residencies. I suppose the basic premise behind getting rid of some of these archaic residency requirements, as I call it, is that if an individual moves into Hawaii County and wants to run for the mayor or one of the council seats or whatever; if he hasn ' t been living here long enough, his unfamiliarity with the county would immediately show in his bid for election. You can leave the intelligence of the people who are voting to - 24 -