Posted on: Wednesday, March 13, 2002

EDITORIAL
We need to clear up resign-to-run quagmire

Jeremy Harris' decision to — temporarily, he hopes — shut down his campaign for governor is a good thing, in that it will give his battered and bruised campaign a breather as he works to sort out an ungodly tangle of legal and political complications.

But by rights, this hiatus should be brief. The mayor — and indeed all other active and potential candidates out there — deserve a swift resolution of the legal cloud that now hangs over the election cycle. In fact, if there are questions, it would be far better to resolve them at a future date, when we are not in the middle of a campaign year.

It must have been a bittersweet day for Harris yesterday. While he was still deciding what to do about a bad-news state court ruling that he should immediately resign as mayor, he hears the good news that a federal court has apparently cleared away a potent fund-raising headache.

In that second case, Federal Judge Helen Gillmore issued a preliminary injunction against a state Campaign Spending Commission decision that Harris had to count $4,000 contributions collected in his last mayoral campaign against the $6,000 total any individual would be allowed to contribute to his campaign for governor.

That preliminary injunction should be made permanent. The playing field should be level for all candidates for governor in the fund-raising race.

True, Harris has an opportunity to "double dip," in that some of those $4,000 contributions might still be in his treasury. But that could apply to almost anyone with a surplus from a previous race.

Step down now?

The larger issue is the Circuit Court ruling by Judge Sabrina McKenna that the state Constitution's "resign-to-run" provision would require Harris to step down as mayor right now, since he has already become an "eligible candidate" for governor.

Harris had been operating on past practice and popular understanding that the resignation requirement does not kick in until the actual filing of nomination papers, which is in July.

But McKenna ruled that the apparent objective of the framers of the Constitution, the voters who approved the amendment and the state of Hawai'i itself, was that Harris should have already resigned.

On April 18, Harris announced his candidacy and he filed his organizational papers as a candidate for governor with the state Campaign Spending Commission on May 15.

In a news conference on the steps of City Hall, surrounded by Cabinet officials, political supporters and family, Harris vowed that he has no intention of stepping down because he promised voters and his constituents that he would continue to serve at least through the end of the "fiscal year," which happens to coincide with the filing deadline.

That's stretching the idea of keeping your promise to the voters, since Harris was elected to a four-year term, not a fiscal-year-to-fiscal-year term of service. But we take his point.

Swift ruling deserved

The Harris campaign wants a swift resolution of this matter by the Hawai'i Supreme Court, and it deserves it. McKenna's ruling puts a terrific legal cloud not only over Harris, but over any incumbent thinking about, or acting on, a campaign for an office whose term begins before the term of the current position ends.

That's a lot of people.

Take council members Jon Yoshimura and John DeSoto, for instance. Both men are contemplating a run for lieutenant governor. Their terms as councilmen end at 12 noon on the second day of January following the November elections, but the lieutenant governor takes office on the first Monday in December following the election.

Or, any incumbent thinking about running for Harris' seat in a special election (should he resign) would be affected since the winner of that election takes office right after the September primary.

The legal complications of this are immense. Our thought is that rather than change common understanding and past practice mid-stream in an election year, it would be better to keep things as they are for this cycle and then clean up the entire mess before the next election season.

Clarity is needed

Candidates need clear statutory instruction as to when they become candidates, when they have to resign and what their obligations are. At the same time, lawmakers would do a great service by standardizing the terms of office for all offices, state and county.

Across the state today, there are at least five different starting and ending dates for terms of office, ranging from "upon election" through the second day of January following the general.

That's a recipe for chaos.