Hawaii governor wants more legal advice before filling Senate vacancy

Gov. Josh Green says if he has to pick a new state senator for District 22 before the Aug. 10 primary it will be Cross Makani Crabbe.

Green told reporters at a press conference Wednesday that he is waiting on the state attorney general to tell him whether he has to fill the seat within 60 days after the seat becomes open or can wait until after the primary and let the voters decide which Democrat they want.

The seat became open when Sen. Maile Shimabukuro resigned on May 31.

Crabbe, Cedric Gates and Stacelynn Eli were selected by area Democrats to be on the short list given to Green for his consideration.

The Senate seat represents Ko Olina, Nanakuli, Maili, Waianae, Makaha and Makua.

The governor made it clear that he would prefer to wait until after Aug. 10, something he first announced on Tuesday. But Senate President Ron Kouchi told Green that he disagreed with the delay, stating in a press release that the state law on vacancies was unambiguous about the 60 calendar-day deadline.

While Green said it was his constitutional obligation to support fair elections, Kouchi countered that Green’s constitutional obligation “is to comply with all state laws.”

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At Wednesday’s press conference, the governor said he was in an “ethical bind” and is trying to balance his constitutional duties while respecting the will of District 22 voters. It was not appropriate, he said, to put his hand on the scale to favor one candidate over another.

“It would be better from an ethical standpoint and a process standpoint for me to just wait until the voters have chosen the person in the primary, and then that person could easily be chosen by me to go forward as the person that holds that Senate seat until the general election,” he explained.

Eli and Gates are competing for the Senate seat in the Democratic primary and Green has said he doesn’t want to give either of them an advantage by putting one of them in office just 11 days before the primary.

If he selects Crabbe, however, that raises an unusual scenario, as Crabbe is running in the Democratic primary for House District 45 (Waianae, Makaha), which Gates is vacating to run for the open Senate seat.

Asked if picking Crabbe would tip the scale in his favor for the House seat, Green acknowledged that it was a unique situation driven by “internal politics.” He did not elaborate but appeared to be referring to legislative and policy disagreements between him and the Senate and the fact that Kouchi needs the support of 13 senators to lead the 25-member chamber.

The governor said his administration would consider recommending to the Legislature that the 60-day appointment window be extended to 90 or 120 days.

“We’ll have our policy folks work on that,” Green said. “It would be better if we could just use common sense and ethics rather than, in some cases, internal politics. Internal politics drove this, unfortunately, and I ended up getting a complete slate of individuals that would be one-upping the other. And I just don’t feel that it’s right.”

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This story was originally published by Honolulu Civil Beat and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.