I’ve always admired state Senate President Colleen Hanabusa as one of our brightest and most talented elected officials, but her problem is that sometimes she wastes her smarts on political games that aren’t as clever as she thinks.

The Pacific Business News provided an excellent example in a story by Linda Chiem detailing how Hanabusa appointed former Kaua’i Judge George Masuoka to the state Judicial Selection Commission after a fast shuffle to circumvent a constitutional prohibition against stacking a majority of lawyers on the panel that plays a key role in picking judges.

Masuoka would have been the fifth attorney on the nine-member commission, so the retiree resigned from the Hawai’i State Bar Association and gave up his license to practice law in order to technically qualify himself, according to PBN.

Masuoka has close ties to Chief Justice Ronald Moon of the State Supreme Court, who gets to make his own appointment to the Judicial Selection Commission in addition to Hanabusa’s two.

The betting here is that this is part of a political play to make sure Republican Gov. Linda Lingle’s options are limited when Moon hits the mandatory retirement age of 70 in 2010 and Lingle gets to appoint his successor from a list of candidates provided by the Judicial Selection Commission.

The Judiciary is the one branch of government that needs to be protected from any taint of politics, and Hanabusa should know that as a practicing attorney.

There were plenty of qualified candidates for this appointment. Making a mockery of the Constitution to slip in Masuoka was shabby, unnecessary and destructive to public trust in the integrity of state institutions.

Let’s not return to the bad old days of the Bishop Estate scandal when the Judicial Selection Commission and the Judiciary itself were disgracefully rolled into the political patronage machine.

That sorry episode already left enough of a stain on the legacy of the Moon Court.

Kudos to Pacific Business News for breaking this important story that deserves more visibility and discussion.
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For another example of cheesy politics in the Hanabusa-led Senate, check out my column in the Opinion section of today’s Advertiser, “Senate is playing cynical game with public elections bill.”