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December 2007

President's Message
League's Goal
Con Con Study Committee Reports (Jean Aoki)
Honolulu League Strongly Opposing Rail (Pearl Johnson)
Gleanings from Our Readings (Jean Aoki)
Amending the State Constitution (Harold G. Loomis)
Drug Policy Study (Suzanne Meisenzahl)
Ah Jook Ku
Tennessee Really Makes it Hard! (Jean Aoki)
In Support of the LWV-HI (Jackie Parnell)
League Immigration Policy (Jackie Parnell)
Iron-Jawed Angels Fundraiser (Jackie Parnell & Mary Anne Raywid)
Hawaii Chapter Report (Leilani Bronson-Crelly & Sue Dursin)
Kauai Chapter Report
Honolulu Chapter Report (Piilani Kaopuiki)
Website Update - www.lwv-hawaii.com - the first year (Stephen Trussel)

Gleanings from Our Readings

Some interesting items from our readings on amending and revising state constitutions:

While Hawaii has endured nearly 50 years under one constitution, our Statehood Constitution, many states have had three or four new constitutions. Louisiana leads the pack with 11, followed by Georgia with 10. Hawaii is one of 19 states sticking with the original.

What makes a new constitution? Remember, Hawaii made some extensive revisions to ours in 1968 and again in 1978. But that's not the same as rewriting a brand new one. Alabama adopted its first constitution in 1819, then new ones in 1861, 1865, 1868, 1875, and its present one in 1901.Four new constitutions in fourteen years between 1861 and 1875? That must have necessitated beginning work on a new one before the ink was dry on the one just adopted.

New Hampshire has the briefest constitution with an estimated 9,200 words, Hawaii's is in the middle somewhere with 20,774 words, and Alabama's weighty constitution takes 340,136 words. Did Alabama lengthen its constitution with each rewrite?

Massachusetts has the oldest constitution -- the one and only since 1780. Louisiana's is the newest having been adopted in 1974, but she has replaced her constitution a total of 10 times.

Jean Aoki

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