A month ago, the question of whether or not to call Hawai'i's first Constitutional Convention in 30 years seemed the hottest local issue likely to be on the November ballot, with Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann and other incumbent office-holders seemingly cruising to re-election with little opposition.

Now, the mayor's races in Honolulu, Kaua'i and the Big Island are all hotly competitive, there are interesting council races around the state and it seems increasingly likely that a rail transit question will be on the O'ahu ballot.

ConCon has slipped into the background and the discussion has gone nearly silent, raising the question of whether its prospects are improved or diminished in an election that is suddenly generating excitement elsewhere.

A hot-button rail initiative, especially, would draw away attention and resources that otherwise would have gone into advocacy for or against a ConCon.

My guess is that while the new developments may mean a quieter ConCon debate, they may well increase the chances that enough voter support will materialize to call a Constitutional Convention.

According to the Advertiser's Hawai'i Poll, partisans on both sides of the rail dispute agree by a good majority that voters should get a say on the matter, a strong showing of support for direct participatory democracy that could transfer to the ConCon question.

The embarrassing fumbling by elections officials on qualifying candidates at the filing deadline seems to be increasing the sense that something is wrong with our political system that needs to be fixed.

Whether or not a ConCon is the sexiest issue on the ballot, it remains one of the most important things we'll decide this year.

Groups like HawaiiConCon.org will have to find ways to keep a vibrant discussion going — not only on whether to call a ConCon, but how it should be set up to assure a true citizens' convention and not a gathering of the status quo.

Tags: ConCon, Constitutional Convention, elections, mass transit, rail transit

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 30th, 2008 at 3:00 am and is filed under Volcanic Ash. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.