In concluding the Gettysburg Address, President Abraham Lincoln — whose name is synonymous with fair representation and equal rights — signaled the country’s hope that a government “of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from
In concluding the Gettysburg Address, President Abraham Lincoln — whose name is synonymous with fair representation and equal rights — signaled the country’s hope that a government “of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
How does one build a government of, by, and for the people? Through the democratic process of free elections, of course.
Maui residents, lawmakers and attorneys are currently struggling with a controversy over whether Maui County Councilman Sol Kaho‘ohalahala, elected to represent the neighboring island of Lana‘i, actually lives on Lana‘i and if he should qualify.
That raises a fair question here: Should Kaua‘i County Council members represent specific districts of the Garden Isle? Should each ahupua‘a have at least one of its residents on the county’s legislative body? If Lana‘i — home to around 3,000 of Maui County’s 120,000 citizens, according to the 2000 census — gets its own council voice, do 3,000 Kekaha residents, or for that matter, approximately 130 Niihauans, need their own vote as well?
The answer is no.
As a community, it is our responsibility to elect seven qualified councilmembers to protect the land — all of it — and represent the people — all of them. There is no need to discriminate by city of residence.
Districting proponents might warn you that population centers like Lihu‘e and Kapa‘a can hold outsized influence when it comes to elections, but does anybody really believe that a candidate running on a platform of funnelling all our resources to central Kaua‘i to the detriment of landmarks in outlying communities like Hanalei, Waimea and Po‘ipu would stand a chance in an election?
In a community as tight — both geographically and culturally — as Kaua‘i, where even Lihu‘e and Kapa‘a residents routinely visit places as far away as Polihale, Koke‘e and Ha‘ena, there is simply no need to be afraid that anybody will forsake those areas. Kaua‘i is so small that it’s impossible to do so. The whole island is important to everybody.
Slippery slope arguments can be taken to the extreme, and it’s not a game I like to play, but we need to ask: Where does this dangerous logic stop? Should we pass a law requiring the council to feature at least three members of each gender? Should we limit ourselves to no more than one rep of each ancestry — Japanese, Filipino, Native Hawaiian, Portugese and Haole — to ensure that each and every citizen has someone from their own background? Of course not.
That is not to say diversity — in terms of city of residence, gender and nationality — is not something to be valued and strived for. But there is a right way to achieve that admittedly important balance — through the cornerstone of democracy: the popular election.
For that same reason, there should also not be any requirements in terms of minimum age or years as a Kaua‘i resident.
Let the people speak for themselves. If a plurality of Kaua‘i voters say they want seven Lihu‘e residents to call the shots, so be it. If they want seven men, or seven political neophytes all born after 1980, or seven Japanese-Americans, then that’s how it should be. Such homogeneity would be regrettable, I’ll freely admit, but that doesn’t mean we should legislate to tell people what to think or who to elect.
At the end of the day, we need to have faith in our fellow Kauaians to cast their precious vote not for candidates who hail from their hometown and represent their personal interests but to instead elect leaders who will malama the whole island and who will represent us all.
Power to the people.
Michael Levine, assistant editor, can be reached at mlevine@kauaipubco.com.
