Convention Edition 2003 Home   Newsletters

Fall 2003

Winter 2003

President's Message (Maile Bay)
To All Leaguers
Proposed Positions for Adoption through Concurrence
On Election of Judges
Elections Office: The Newest & Final (Jean Aoki)
LWV-US Files Amicus Brief
Judicial Independence: Educating Citizens to Protect Equal Justice... (Nancy Connors)
LWV-US Ed Fund Grant
Ugly Side of Redistricting (Jean Aoki)
Practicum on the Hawaii Legislative Process (Grace Furukawa)

To All Leaguers

The 2003 State League Convention approved the Judiciary Study Committee's proposal to place 3 positions on the Hawaii Judiciary for adoption through concurrence. The concurrence process differs from the consensus process in that in the former, the proposed positions are presented for your approval and you can vote them up or down. In a consensus process, there is effort to arrive at areas of agreement.

Virtually this entire issue of Ka Leo Hana is designed to be a pull-out section. It contains the proposed positions, and some articles designed to help you in making your decisions. The inserted concurrence questionnaire may be used to respond, or you may respond via e-mail. Just use the same format as on the enclosed questionnaire but format it as compactly as possible. We will be keeping a record of your responses in case there are any questions about the validity of the results of the concurrence. The Board asks that all questionnaires be mailed or emailed to our State office by October 25.

In a separate mailing, you will receive the committee's report on our study of the State Judiciary and the status of judicial independence in our state. We hope it will help you in making your decisions on the concurrence. We also refer you to the May/June. 2003 issue of the National Voter.

If the positions are approved, we can enter the public discourse on the more general issues that have to do with the judiciary, and do our part to make the public aware of the importance of judicial independence to our democracy and of the significance of threats to judicial independence.

Convention Edition 2003 Home   Newsletters Winter 2003