More grist for the mill. A ruling by Chief Election Officer Kevin Cronin earlier this week rejected a challenge to the Democratic Party’s replacement candidate for the Manoa House seat vacated by Kirk Caldwell. The challenge was filed by Francisco Figueiredo, who is on Charles Djou’s staff at the City Council. [Ooops–sorry for the original bad link that greeted folks this morning, all fixed now.]

Figueiredo argued that the replacement candidate had not been selected before the applicable deadline.

Mr. Caldwell informed the Office of Elections on July 22, 2008 that he had withdrawn from the House District 24 race. The Office of Elections confirmed the withdrawal by a notice posted on its website the same day. Mr. Caldwell then filed nomination papers for Honolulu City Council District 5 the same day. And the Office of Elections accepted Mr. Caldwell’s nomination for Council District 5 the same day. Since Mr. Caldwell could not legally file “for more than one office,” HRS § 12-3(c), and the Office of Elections could not legally accept invalid nomination papers for filing, HRS § 12-3(f), Mr. Caldwell had necessarily withdrawn from the House District 24 race before he filed for the Council District 5 race.

Cronin’s ruling makes it clear that, in his view, Caldwell did not notify the Office of Elections that he intended to withdraw before the filing deadline, and did not legally withdraw from the House race until 9:57 a.m. on July 23, the day after the filing deadline, according to the time/date stamped copy of the letter attached to the ruling. The result was that the Democratic Party had until Saturday to select a replacement candidate. Challenge swiftly disposed of.

That appears to bounce the issue of Caldwell’s candidacy for the city council back to city clerk Denise Decosta, who by law (Section 12-8 HRS) must decide on challenges to candidates for county office. Now that Cronin has ruled that Caldwell remained a candidate in his House district until sometime on the morning following the filing deadline, and state law prohibits a candidate from filing for more than one office, Decosta appears to have less wiggle room in determining whether Caldwell’s council filing was valid.

Still on the issue of elections, I ran across the transcript of oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Davis v. FEC, the case that struck down the so-called “millionaires amendment” and appears to have swept away other reforms in the process.

Perhaps surprisingly, attorney Andrew Herman, who successfully argued the case against the statute, pointed to public financing as a less restrictive reform than the law being challenged.

MR. HERMAN: Well, Justice Ginsburg, I can
think of one off the top of my head which is not this
case, and that’s public funding. If Congress were truly
concerned about providing a boost to minor party
candidates who may not be able to raise the $2300 to
begin with, much less take advantage of the benefits of
319, or wanted to boost self-financed candidates who,
say, like Mr. DeRossett in the amicus brief, in his
amicus brief, who mortgaged his house or others who have
encumbered their pensions and raised $350,000 or
$400,000 and then triggered the amendment, if they
wanted to foster all of those people of modest means to
participate, then the easiest way and the way sanctioned
by this Court in Buckley is to institute a public
funding system and allow them to choose. They can raise
private funds if they’d like; they could do it
personally with their own money; or they could take
whatever amount that the — that the State was willing
to give them —

There were also moments of attempted humor. At one point, Justice Scalia praises the millionaire as candidate:

JUSTICE SCALIA: Who is more incorruptible
than the millionaire, right?
MR. HERMAN: He is the ultimate independent.
JUSTICE SCALIA: The ultimate incorruptible.
(Laughter.)

Then Justice Scalia again on the issue of “leveling the playing field” for candidates.

JUSTICE SCALIA: You think that’s really a
proper function of government, to look out over there
and say, we’re going to even the playing field in this
election? What if some — one candidate is more
eloquent than the other one? You make him talk with
pebbles in his mouth or what?
(Laughter.)

Here’s an equation for the day:

1 catnip toy + 9 cats = Resource War

That’s what we had yesterday when Meda opened one of the toys we brought back from California. The toy itself was a treat, as was the bag it came in.

Kili earned first drool, then Ms. Wally took over, followed by Leo, Toby, Annie, Silverman, and others. Duke didn’t get close until hours later. Click on the photo for a full view.