Volcanic Ash

I have a thing about political candidates running in districts where their residency is loose or worse.

The purpose of district representation is to have legislators and council members who can truly speak for the needs of the people in the district because they are one of them and have as much stake in the welfare of the district as their constituents.

If we’re going to allow candidates to easily parachute into districts in search of the best political opportunities for themselves, we may as well go back to at-large voting.

Obviously the voters don’t necessarily agree with me. Our last three open congressional seats have been won by candidates who didn’t live in the district in which they ran.

Tulsi Gabbard Tamayo easily won a City Council seat this year despite questions about her ties to the district, and in previous elections the late Duke Bainum won a council seat after moving into the district the day before the filing deadline and Charles Djou moved from Windward Oahu to East Honolulu to find an easier path to the council.

Which brings us to the current special election to replace Todd Apo in Council District I, where Makakilo residents Mel Kahele and Kioni Dudley admit to setting up quickie residences elsewhere in order to be eligible to run.

Kahele, who is using his daughter’s address, justifies himself by saying Makakilo used to be part of District I. And South America used to be connected to Africa.

Dudley rented an address after saying he was unable to find any other candidate actually living in the district who represents his concerns, a conceit that tells you something about his concerns.

Their residency is being challenged with the city clerk by one of the 12 other candidates, Matthew LoPresti, himself a short-timer in the district. It’s unlikely there will be a resolution  before the mail-in voting is done, leaving it to voters to sort things out.

I was at a fast-food drive-through for lunch and the car in front of me had a bumper sticker that said, “Voting for an incumbent is like voting for an allergy.”

I must admit to sharing the sentiment at times of frustration with the fumbling of local government, and it made me wonder why O‘ahu voters so seldom hold incumbent elected officials to account.

I came of voting age on the Big Island, where the electorate once threw out six of the nine sitting council members — including the major power players — in one fell swoop.

Neighbor island voters still aren’t bashful about cleaning house. This year, the Big Island voted out three council members; Maui gave the boot to its mayor, two council members and a legislator; and Kaua‘i dumped its council chairman and a legislator.

On O‘ahu, I can’t think of a single incumbent who lost unless you count Mayor Kirk Caldwell and U.S. Rep. Charles Djou, who were only warming the seats.

Why the difference? Are neighbor islanders just more cantankerous? Do voters in the smaller communities pay more attention and know the candidates better? Is it that elected officials on the neighbor islands get more intense scrutiny from the local media than in O‘ahu’s metropolitan setting?

Whatever it is, we could use more of their healthy political skepticism in the big city.

Happy election day, all.

In this year of the negative ad, I think it’s only fitting to end the campaign with my favorite negative political ad of all time. It’s from 1952, not 1956 as the title says, when Adlai Stevenson alleged that controversial conservative Sen. Robert Taft would run the country if Dwight Eisenhower was elected president.