Email Nancy Cook Lauer at ncook-lauer@westhawaiitoday.com.
By NANCY COOK LAUER
Stephens Media
The Big Island’s fourth state Senate seat is creating new opportunities for current and former lawmakers.
New maps for both the Senate and the House will be displayed at 6 p.m. Tuesday during a public hearing in Hilo, with videoconferencing to Kona. The public can participate in County Council chambers at both locations.
State Rep. Bob Herkes, D-Puna, Ka’u, South Kona, North Kona, said he’ll be seeking the newly created Senate District 2. The new Puna district runs from Pahala roughly north to Stainback Highway.
Hawaii Island’s 24.5 percent population growth rate over the past decade earned it additional representation in the state Legislature. But the battle for the fourth Senate seat was hard-fought, going to the state Supreme Court and resulting in a month’s delay of candidate qualifying.
The state Reapportionment Commission, after being told by the Supreme Court it must remove nonpermanent military and students from the population count and redraw its maps, now plans to have the maps finalized by the end of the month.
The map doesn’t pit any Big Island incumbent senators against each other, but it does create incumbent battles on Oahu, which lost a Senate seat.
The West Hawaii District 3 now runs from Kona International Airport to Naalehu. Sen. Josh Green, D-North and South Kohala, North and South Kona, said he’s pleased with the map.
“I respect the commission’s decision to leave Kona intact,” Green said. “I’m pretty satisfied that they have done a good job.”
But former state Sen. Lorraine Inouye, who had submitted her own proposed map, found that the map drawn by the Reapportionment Commission moves the line between the North Hawaii District 4 and the Hilo District 1 farther southeast, putting her Papaikou residence a few miles out of her preferred District 1 and in the same district as Sen. Malama Solomon, D-Waimea, Hamakua, North Hilo, Rural South Hilo, Hilo.
Inouye said she won’t be testifying at the public hearing because it would seem “self-serving.” She does plan to attend, however.
“I’m looking at running,” Inouye said. “I’d like to see what they end up with.”
Solomon, one of the initiators of the lawsuit that forced the fourth district, didn’t return a telephone message Thursday. A former senator who has lost to Inouye in the past, Solomon was appointed to the position by Gov. Neil Abercrombie in December 2010 after he named former Sen. Dwight Takamine director of the Department of Labor and Industrial Relations.
The new Senate District 1, Hilo, seat is also held by an appointee, Sen. Gilbert Kahele, D-Ka’u, Puna, Hilo. Kahele, former East Hawaii campaign coordinator for Abercrombie, was appointed in January 2011 after Abercrombie named former Sen. Russell Kokubon chairman of the Department of Agriculture.
Email Nancy Cook Lauer at ncook-lauer@westhawaiitoday.com.