December 2007 Home   Newsletters

April 2008

President's Report
Preparing for Consensus on ConCon (Jean Aoki)
Evening with Bill Schneider
At the Legislature (Jean Aoki)
Vol. XLIII No. 4
LWV of Hawaii - Proposed Budget - June 1, 2008 - May 31, 2009
Honolulu Report (Piilani Kaopuiki)
Hawaii Report (Leilani Bronson-Crelly & Sue Dursin)
Kauai Report (Carol Bain)
Maui Report (Sue Irvine)
LWV-HI Council 2008
Calendar of Events

Preparing for Consensus on ConCon

Inserted in this issue of Ka Leo, you will find the report of your ConCon Study Committee which will be used to help in our discussions at the Annual Meetings of the local Leagues. Please take the insert to your local meeting.

We have included an updated introduction from our 1996 study because we feel the document is still relevant and important for our purposes. Otherwise, this year's report is much simpler.

At the Annual Meetings, we will be deciding on one of the three choices we have:

  1. Support ConCon

  2. Oppose ConCon

  3. Take no position

If we choose not to take a position, we are considering launching plans to inform the public on the arguments for and against having a ConCon and addressing questions like:

What is a constitution?

What is constitutional law versus statutory law?

What is the trend nationally on constitutional conventions?

What are the problems to avoid in a ConCon?

What are the successes we would want to emulate?

Are there other ways of revising a constitution that might be more productive and effective?

We will be sponsoring forums, debates, and possibly a conference where some of the above questions, and more, should be answered.

Should the voters decide on a ConCon, we will have more work to do. Some of the above questions are even more pertinent at that stage. There is a resolution, HCR 231, requesting the Legislative Reference Bureau to do a study on the cost of convening a ConCon in 2010.

We encourage all of our members to attend their local League's Annual Meetings so we have good, robust discussions and come to consensus on what position, if any, we should take on ConCon.

Jean Aoki, Chair
LWV ConCon Study Committee

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