Friday, February 13, 2015

 

Committee investigating Calvin Say’s qualification to hold office may struggle with the concept of “intent”


by Larry Geller

This won’t be “disappeared news”—the hearing room at the State Capitol today was packed with both observers and press.

The newspaper and TV coverage should be pretty good, so I’ll just add some comments. For the record, a copy of Speaker Joe Souki’s memo establishing the special committee can be downloaded here (pdf).

My observations:

So it could be that this question of “intent” decides the issue for the committee.

I don’t know how the committee will decide this, but if  unquantifiable “intent” is allowed to trump the fact that a lawmaker was continually absent from the district he represents, then the whole concept of residing in the district falls apart completely.



Comments:

This raises the following overarching questions:

Why do we want legislators who lie to the electorate?

Why have laws that are not enforced?

Mahalo
 


Good points, should be self-evident, of course.

But it hasn't yet been determined that Say lives outside his district.

I wonder if the law doesn't need "fixing" to clarify that vague "intent" to move back to the district is not enough? It may be that a legislator claiming "intent" effectively nullifies the "intent" that each legislator live in the district she/he represents,
 

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