Beth Fukumoto: Could Islandwide City Council Seats Increase Diversity?

At first glance this proposed Honolulu city charter amendment sounded like a bad idea. But maybe not.

When I first skimmed Common Cause Hawaiʻi’s new charter proposal, I thought I knew exactly what I was going to write about it.

Ranked choice voting for the Honolulu City Council? Yes, please. That part felt like a no-brainer.

But electing all nine council members at-large, on a single islandwide ballot, instead of by district? That, I was sure, would make representation worse, not better.

Then I called Common Cause Director Camron Hurt to talk it through. Somewhere in the middle of our conversation, the column I thought I was writing slipped out of reach, and something else took its place.

Every decade, Honolulu convenes a Charter Commission to review the city’s governing document. It