The editorial in today’s Honolulu Star-Advertiser writes:
The state Supreme Court’s ruling in January that determined how boundary lines should be drawn for this year’s election in August made scant reference to the agency created primarily for that purpose: the U.S. Census Bureau. That is why a lawsuit in federal court should result in the prompt ordering of the lines to be redrawn to conform with the nationally customary method of including military and out-of-town students in the population count, in time for the upcoming elections.
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The commission noted in its final report last year that the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled in 1962 that a state could not exclude military people from the population base “based solely on the nature of their employment,” but that seems to be what the state’s high court mistakenly has done.
In 48 other states, lines are drawn according to the Census Bureau’s simple numbers of population. However, eight pages of standards used by the bureau determine that each “usual resident of the state” is counted, according to Robert H. Thomas, an attorney for the plaintiffs challenging the state court’s ruling.
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No state sees it otherwise, except Hawaii and Kansas. With a population of nearly 3 million and a military count of less than 1,000, Kansas has prompted no one to bother challenging its parochial methodology.
In Hawaii, the issue is more important because of the large military numbers, which will provide a larger population base and thus affects area representation by legislators in the state House and Senate. The issue should have been resolved long ago and needs to be decided consistently with other states and the U.S. Constitution in recognizing “usual residents,” rather than “permanent residents,” in measuring political representation.
Read the entire editorial here (may be behind paywall). Disclosure: we represent the plaintiffs in this case. The complaint is posted here.