Wednesday, November 13, 2024
Hawai'i Free Press

Current Articles | Archives

Wednesday, December 16, 2015
Nai Aupuni’s "Oprah Theory Of Elections"
By Robert Thomas @ 4:15 AM :: 5047 Views :: Akaka Bill, OHA

The "Oprah Theory Of Elections" - Everyone Wins! Hawaiians-Only Election "Terminated," All Candidates Invited To Participate

by Robert Thomas, InverseCondemnation, December 15, 2015

You win the election, and you win the election! and ...

We can't take credit for the pithy headline because we cribbed it from elections law guru, lawprof Rick Hasen ("Hawaii Election Subject to #SCOTUS Stay Cancelled") ("(It’s the Oprah rule: You get elected! You get elected! Every-body-gets-elected!)").

Coming up with lines like this is why Professor Hasen earns the big bucks.

We appropriated it because it accurately captures the end result of the announcement this morning by Nai Aupuni, the NGO set up to conduct the election -- funded with millions of dollars of taxpayer money -- of delegates to a convention whose purpose it will be to settle on a way forward for Hawaiians to have some sort of sovereignty (or maybe not, since all options are professed to be open). Nai Aupuni announced this morning that the election was "terminated," and that the outfit actually doing the ballot counting has been instructed to stop taking ballots, and never, never, never to count those that it has already received.

And here's the Oprah part: Nai Aupuni also announced that the "aha," the quasi-constitutional convention for which the now-terminated election was choosing delegates, is going to happen in February 2016 anyway, and every candidate who was in the race -- all 196 of them -- is invited to be a delegate. 

In other words, in effect they all got elected.

After Thanksgiving, the U.S. Supreme Court had enjoined the counting of ballots and certification of the election pending a decision by the Ninth Circuit in the appeal from the District Court's denial of an injunction. The central issue is whether the "election," was a private affair, and thus insulated from the requirements of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, or whether the public funding and questions involved meant that this could not be a race-restricted election. On the challengers' motion for a preliminary injunction, the District Court upheldthe private nature of the election, and the Ninth Circuit refused to issue a stay on appeal.

Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, however, as Circuit Justice, issued a stay pending review by the entire Court, and when the rest of the justices got a look, they split 5-4 and prohibited the counting of ballots and the certification of the election. In response, Nai Aupuni announced that the closing date of the election would be extended for three additional weeks, which resulted in a lot of cringing in the peanut gallery since that's the sort of thing that is supposed to happen only in a banana republic. 

But now that doesn't appear to matter, as the election has been called off, and according to the press release, we should expect a motion by the defendants to dismiss the appeal as moot.

---30---

Links

TEXT "follow HawaiiFreePress" to 40404

Register to Vote

2aHawaii

Aloha Pregnancy Care Center

AntiPlanner

Antonio Gramsci Reading List

A Place for Women in Waipio

Ballotpedia Hawaii

Broken Trust

Build More Hawaiian Homes Working Group

Christian Homeschoolers of Hawaii

Cliff Slater's Second Opinion

DVids Hawaii

FIRE

Fix Oahu!

Frontline: The Fixers

Genetic Literacy Project

Grassroot Institute

Habele.org

Hawaii Aquarium Fish Report

Hawaii Aviation Preservation Society

Hawaii Catholic TV

Hawaii Christian Coalition

Hawaii Cigar Association

Hawaii ConCon Info

Hawaii Debt Clock

Hawaii Defense Foundation

Hawaii Family Forum

Hawaii Farmers and Ranchers United

Hawaii Farmer's Daughter

Hawaii Federation of Republican Women

Hawaii History Blog

Hawaii Jihadi Trial

Hawaii Legal News

Hawaii Legal Short-Term Rental Alliance

Hawaii Matters

Hawaii Military History

Hawaii's Partnership for Appropriate & Compassionate Care

Hawaii Public Charter School Network

Hawaii Rifle Association

Hawaii Shippers Council

Hawaii Together

HiFiCo

Hiram Fong Papers

Homeschool Legal Defense Hawaii

Honolulu Navy League

Honolulu Traffic

House Minority Blog

Imua TMT

Inouye-Kwock, NYT 1992

Inside the Nature Conservancy

Inverse Condemnation

July 4 in Hawaii

Land and Power in Hawaii

Lessons in Firearm Education

Lingle Years

Managed Care Matters -- Hawaii

MentalIllnessPolicy.org

Missile Defense Advocacy

MIS Veterans Hawaii

NAMI Hawaii

Natatorium.org

National Parents Org Hawaii

NFIB Hawaii News

NRA-ILA Hawaii

Obookiah

OHA Lies

Opt Out Today

Patients Rights Council Hawaii

Practical Policy Institute of Hawaii

Pritchett Cartoons

Pro-GMO Hawaii

RailRipoff.com

Rental by Owner Awareness Assn

Research Institute for Hawaii USA

Rick Hamada Show

RJ Rummel

School Choice in Hawaii

SenatorFong.com

Talking Tax

Tax Foundation of Hawaii

The Real Hanabusa

Time Out Honolulu

Trustee Akina KWO Columns

Waagey.org

West Maui Taxpayers Association

What Natalie Thinks

Whole Life Hawaii