Redrawing Hawaii’s Election Districts: ‘People Are Going To Be Pissed’ … Years ago the political lines were redrawn in ways that clobbered Republicans. Today, the question is which Democrats will take the hit.
Twenty years ago the North and South Kona communities were mostly represented by Republicans, or by Democrats who had switched over from the GOP. To hear former state Rep. Jim Rath tell it, the story of how Kona flipped to complete control by the Democrats is a subtle tale of the power of reapportionment.
Rath, a Republican who represented Kona in the state House, traces his personal political demise to the reapportionment of 2001. That year the rapidly growing population on the west side of Hawaii County was awarded an extra state House seat, prompting an overhaul of the district maps there.
The town of Kailua-Kona was the bedrock of Rath’s political support, but the 2001 reapportionment commission drew new district maps that placed Rath’s home just outside the border of the newly created District 6, which included the largely Republican Kailua village.
Rath, a well-known politician who had also served on the Hawaii County Council, landed inside an adjoining district that included parts of Waimea about 30 miles away. The neighborhoods in Rath’s new district leaned more toward the Democrats, and were populated by people Rath had never represented.
