Harris must resign to run for governor, judge rules
By Kevin Dayton and David Waite
Advertiser Staff Writers
Honolulu Mayor Jeremy Harris' campaign for governor suffered yet another shock yesterday when a Circuit Court Judge ruled Harris must resign as mayor to continue his run for governor.
Adveritser library photo
In a decision that startled some experienced politicians, Circuit Judge Sabrina McKenna ruled yesterday that Harris should have resigned as mayor before he filed organizational papers for his new campaign on May 15 last year.
Mayor Jeremy Harris said the lawsuit against him is part of a "smear campaign."
Attorney William Deeley, who represented plaintiff Russell Blair, said last night that he believes Harris now has three options.
"He can resign from office, he can withdraw from the governor's race or he can seek a stay of this ruling pending an expedited appeal to the Supreme Court," Deeley said.
He said he expects Harris to take the matter to the Supreme Court.
The judge's decision was a declaratory ruling on the meaning of a 1978 amendment to the state Constitution that requires incumbents to resign before they run for a new office if the terms of the old office and the new one overlap.
Her ruling imposes no penalty on Harris, but Deeley said last night that if the mayor continues to run for governor without resigning his mayoral office, the courts could be asked to issue a restraining order or impose some other sanctions.
Until McKenna's ruling yesterday, the resign-to-run amendment was widely believed to mean politicians had to resign when they filed formal nomination papers to seek office, not when they merely announced plans to run.
Rick Tsujimura, co-chair of the Harris 2002 campaign committee, said that "for 24 years, this law has been interpreted such that candidates didn't have to resign until July when they filed their nomination papers. We can't understand why Mayor Harris would be treated differently than all other candidates have been for the last two decades."
Blair, the former state district judge who went to court to challenge Harris on the issue, said Harris brought the matter to a head by announcing three months after winning the 2000 election for mayor that he planned to run for governor.
"Nobody's ever pushed it the way Jeremy has, so, in a sense, he brought it on himself by 98 days after he was elected mayor announcing he didn't really want to be mayor, he wanted to be governor," said Blair, who also is a former state senator.
When he filed his case, Blair named only Harris.
Harris has charged Blair's lawsuit is part of a "massive smear campaign" meant to ruin his run for governor, saying the smear also includes an investigation into illegal campaign contributions in Harris' 2000 mayoral campaign.
The state Campaign Spending Commission documented illegal contributions to Harris' last campaign, and voted in January to refer the findings of its investigation to Honolulu Prosecutor Peter Carlisle for possible criminal charges.
Spending commission executive director Robert Watada and Blair deny that they are part of any political conspiracy.
Blair said he believes Harris will seek a speedy appeal to resolve the issue in a higher court because the mayor doesn't want to give the impression he is disregarding a requirement of the Constitution.
"He's already got enough problems," said Yas Kuroda, political science professor at the University of Hawai'i-Manoa. "It doesn't auger well for his gubernatorial bid."
At issue before McKenna was what voters had in mind in 1978 when they ratified the so-called "resign-to-run" amendment to the state Constitution.
According to that section of the Constitution, "Any elected public office shall resign from that office before being eligible as a candidate for another public office, if the term of the office sought begins before the end of the term of the office held."
The issue Mckenna specifically addressed was: What event triggers the resignation requirement?
Is a resignation required at the time a candidate files an organizational report with the state Campaign Spending Commission — as argued by Blair — or can a candidate wait to resign until he or she files official nomination papers — as argued by Harris.
McKenna sided with Blair, interpreting the resign-to-run language to mean Harris should have resigned as mayor before or when he declared himself a candidate for governor and filed an organizational report with the Campaign Spending Commission on May 15, 2001.
According to McKenna's ruling, Harris actually announced his intention to run for governor on April 18, 2001, 98 days after beginning his term of office as mayor.
In her ruling, McKenna quoted statements made by various participants in the 1978 constitutional convention.
"All in all, with respect to the intent of the framers, although there was arguably some confusion with respect to the intent and effect of the resign-to-run provision, it appears that the framers understood that the provision would require resignation when an elected official began to seek or run for higher office, not when the elected official officially files nomination papers," the judge said in her decision.
McKenna's decision contradicts an earlier ruling by then Circuit Judge Simeon Acoba who ruled in 1987 that then-city Councilwoman Marilyn Bornhorst did not need to resign from her seat on the Council to run for mayor before the deadline to file her official candidacy forms.
In that case, Acoba lacked a booklet prepared by constitutional convention delegates to inform voters on the effect each of the proposed amendments would have on the state Constitution.
Deeley said that in plain language, the booklet told voters the intent of the proposed change was to "make an elected official who wants to run for another office quit before running for another office if the terms of office are not the same."
"This is not an anti-Harris deal," Deeley said. "I just think the Constitution should be respected."
Advertiser reporters Lynda Arakawa and Johnny Brannon contributed to this report.
Reach Kevin Dayton at kdayton@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8070.
Correction: The lawsuit filed by Russell Blair challenging Mayor Jeremy Harris' interpretation of the resign-to-run law named only Harris. A previous version of this story incorrectly said other elected officials were also named in the suit.
