Bennett v. Yoshina, 97-16408.

Decision Date27 March 1998
Docket NumberNo. 97-16540.,No. 97-16408.,No. 97-16543,No. 97-16596.,97-16408.,97-16540.,97-16543,97-16596.
Citation140 F.3d 1218
PartiesMark J. BENNETT; Charles S. Frumin; Bobby Carinio; Mark R. Spengler; Let the People Decide; Citizens for a Constitutional Convention, on behalf of themselves and others similarly situated, and Jerry Beck, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. Dwayne D. YOSHINA, Chief, Elections Officer of the State of Hawaii; Office of Elections; Mazie K. Hirono, Lieutenant Governor of the State of Hawaii, and; Benjamin J. Cayetano, Governor of the State of Hawaii, in their official capacities, Defendants-Appellants. Mark J. BENNETT; Charles S. Frumin; Bobby Carinio; Mark R. Spengler; Let the People Decide; Citizens for a Constitutional Convention, on behalf of themselves and others similarly situated, and Jerry Beck, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Dwayne D. YOSHINA, Chief, Elections Officer of the State of Hawaii; Office of Elections; Mazie K. Hirono, Lieutenant Governor of the State of Hawaii, and; Benjamin J. Cayetano, Governor of the State of Hawaii, Defendants-Appellees, and Hawaii State AFL-CIO; Gary W. Rodrigues; Russell Okata; Keith Ahue; Jackie Ferguson-Miyamoto; Donald Abdul; Nilda Chock; Clayton Dela Cruz; Guy Fujimura; Carmela Gomez; Leonard Hoshijo; Jonathan Kane; Mark Matsumoto; Stuart McKinley; Richard Rutt; Lawrence Sakamoto; Howard Tasaka; Peter Trask; Adaline Uhrle; George Yasumoto; Michael Amii; Dennis Chang; Patricia A. Chow; Garen R. Deweese; Leslie Anne Deweese; Jan Doi; Robert Doi; Melvin Fong; Kimberly Haines; William Hoshijo; Marsha R. Joyner; Calvin Koseki; Leimalama Lee Loi; Robert Matsunaka; Laverne Moore; Janette M. Nagao; Robert H. Nagao; Craig Nahm; Ayako Nakanishi; Douglass Pang; Larry Sakoda; Ethel Shintaku; Andrei Soto; George Thomas; Leilani Thomas; Linda N. Thomas; Jeanine Tsuchiya; Maureen Wakuzawa; Harry Wood; Lana Young, Defendant-Intervenors-Appellees. Mark J. BENNETT; Charles S. Frumin; Bobby Carinio; Mark R. Spengler; Let the People Decide; Citizens for a Constitutional Convention, on behalf of themselves and others similarly situated, and Jerry Beck, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. Dwayne D. YOSHINA, Chief, Elections Officer of the State of Hawaii; Office of Elections; Mazie K. Hirono, Lieutenant Governor of the State of Hawaii, in their individual capacities; Office of Elections; Benjamin J. Cayetano, Governor of the State of Hawaii, Defendants, and Hawaii State AFL-CIO; Gary W. Rodrigues; Russell Okata; Keith Ahue; Jackie Ferguson-Miyamoto; Donald Abdul; Nilda Chock; Clayton Dela Cruz; Guy Fujimura; Carmela Gomez; Leonard Hoshijo; Jonathan Kane; Mark Matsumoto; Stuart McKinley; Richard Rutt; Lawrence Sakamoto; Howard Tasaka; Peter Trask; Adaline Uhrle; George Yasumoto; Michael Amii; Dennis Chang; Patricia A. Chow; Garen R. Deweese; Leslie Anne Deweese; Jan Doi; Robert Doi; Melvin Fong; Kimberly Haines; William Hoshijo; Marsha R. Joyner; Calvin Koseki; Leimalama Lee Loi; Robert Matsunaka; Laverne Moore; Janette M. Nagao; Robert H. Nagao; Craig Nahm; Ayako Nakanishi; Douglass Pang; Larry Sakoda; Ethel Shintaku; Andrei Soto; George Thomas; Leilani Thomas; Linda N. Thomas; Jeanine Tsuchiya; Maureen Wakuzawa; Harry Wood; Lana Young, Defendant-Intervenors-Appellants. Mark J. BENNETT; Charles S. Frumin; Bobby Carinio; Mark R. Spengler; Let the People Decide; Citizens for a Constitutional Convention, on behalf of themselves and others similarly situated, and Jerry Beck, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. Dwayne D. YOSHINA, Chief, Elections Officer of the State of Hawaii; Office of Elections; Mazie K. Hirono, Lieutenant Governor of the State of Hawaii, and; Benjamin J. Cayetano, Governor of the State of Hawaii, in their official capacities; Office of Elections, Defendants, and Hawaii State AFL-CIO; Gary W. Rodrigues; Russell Okata; Keith Ahue; Jackie Ferguson-Miyamoto; Donald Abdul; Nilda Chock; Clayton Dela Cruz; Guy Fujimura; Carmela Gomez; Leonard Hoshijo; Jonathan Kane; Mark Matsumoto; Stuart McKinley; Richard Rutt; Lawrence Sakamoto; Howard Tasaka; Peter Trask; Adaline Uhrle; George Yasumoto; Michael Amii; Dennis Chang; Patricia A. Chow; Garen R. Deweese; No. 97-16596 D.C. No. CV 97-0322 Dae Leslie Anne Deweese; Jan Doi; Robert Doi; Melvin Fong; Kimberly Haines; William Hoshijo; Marsha R. Joyner; Calvin Koseki; Leimalama Lee Loi; Robert Matsunaka; Laverne Moore; Janette M. Nagao; Robert H. Nagao; Craig Nahm; Ayako Nakanishi; Douglass Pang; Larry Sakoda; Ethel Shintaku; Andrei Soto; George Thomas; Leilani Thomas; Linda N. Thomas; Jeanine Tsuchiya; Maureen Wakuzawa; Harry Wood; Lana Young, Defendant-Intervenors-Appellants.
CourtU.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

Steven S. Michaels, Debevoise & Plimpton, New York City, and Mark J. Bennett, McCorriston Miho Miller Mukai, Honolulu, HI, for plaintiffs-appellees and appellants.

Margery S. Bronster, Attorney General of Hawaii, Dorothy Sellers, Deputy Attorney General, Honolulu, HI, for defendants-appellants and appellees.

Marsha S. Berzon and Lowell Finley, Altshuler, Berzon, Nussbaum, Berzon & Rubin, San Francisco, California, for the defendant-intervenors-appellants in Nos. 97-16540 and 97-16596, and for amici curiae Hawaii State AFL-CIO, et al., in Nos. 97-16408 and 97-16543.

Shelton G.W. Jim On, Jim On & Beerman, Honolulu, Hawaii, for amicus curiae Republican Party of Hawaii.

Appeals from the United States District Court for the District of Hawaii; David A. Ezra, District Judge, Presiding. D.C. No. CV 97-0322 DAE.

Before: WIGGINS, NOONAN, and TASHIMA, Circuit Judges.

TASHIMA, Circuit Judge:

This case presents a constitutional challenge to a vote put to the citizens of Hawaii on November 5, 1996. Plaintiffs ask us to invalidate the vote on the ground that the Hawaii Supreme Court's interpretation of blank ballots was so unforeseeable that the voters' substantive due process and free speech rights were violated. We reject this constitutional challenge and uphold the Hawaii vote.

I.

The vote at issue was on a question asking Hawaii voters whether they wished to hold a convention that would propose amendments to the Hawaii state constitution. The constitutional convention question was one of several unrelated items on the general ballot, including ratification votes on three proposed state constitutional amendments.

By way of background, amendments to the Hawaii constitution can be proposed either by the legislature or by a convention. Haw. Const. art. XVII, § 1. The Hawaii Constitution states:

The legislature may submit to the electorate at any general or special election the question, "Shall there be a convention to propose a revision of or amendments to the constitution?" If any nine-year period shall elapse during which the question shall not have been submitted, the lieutenant governor shall certify the question, to be voted on at the first general election following the expiration of such period.

Haw. Const. art. XVII, § 2. Amendments proposed by the convention must then be ratified by the people. Id. Pursuant to Haw. Const. art. XVII, § 2, voters were asked in 1966, 1976, 1986 and 1996 whether they wished to hold a constitutional convention.

Prior to 1996, machine-counted ballots that left the convention question blank were simply ignored in computing whether the convention question had passed. "Yes" votes were counted against "no" votes, and the majority ruled.

In preparation for the 1996 vote, the Office of Elections distributed an "information sheet" that was present at every polling place. The sheet explained the significance of a "yes" vote and a "no" vote, but was silent on what happened to blank ballots. Additionally, a few days before the election, the Office of Elections printed a "fact sheet" that said that a majority on the convention question would be determined without considering blank ballots. This fact sheet was available at the Office of Elections to be picked up, and some voters did so. The fact sheet was also available on the internet, although only a small number of "hits" occurred at this internet site.

At some point before the 1996 vote — it is unclear exactly when — the Office of Elections told Citizens for a Constitutional Convention ("Citizens") that blank ballots would not be counted on the convention question. Citizens is an organization that lobbied Hawaii voters in favor of the convention question, and it claims to have changed its campaign strategy in reliance on the Office of Elections' instruction.

At the November 5 election, the electorate voted (or failed to vote) on the constitutional convention question, as follows: 163,869 voters marked "yes"; 160,153 marked "no"; 45,245 left the question blank; and 90 marked both "yes" and "no." Thus, if blank ballots are counted, they control the outcome of the vote.

Shortly after the election, the Hawaii State AFL-CIO1 sued Dwayne D. Yoshina, the Chief Elections Officer of Hawaii,2 in an original action in the Hawaii Supreme Court. The AFL-CIO sought a declaratory judgment that the constitutional convention question had failed and an order directing Yoshina to certify that it had failed. The Hawaii Supreme Court ruled in favor of the AFL-CIO. Hawai`i State AFL-CIO v. Yoshina, 84 Hawai`i 374, 935 P.2d 89, 98 (1997) ("Yoshina I").

The court noted that Haw. Const. art. XVII, § 2, required a constitutional convention only if the question received a majority of the "ballots cast upon such a question." (Emphasis added.) Once a convention is convened, however, and amendments are proposed to the voters, the amendments pass if they receive "a majority of the votes tallied upon the question." Haw. Const. art. XVII, § 2 (emphasis added). The court noted the difference in language and pointed to a committee report from the 1950 constitutional convention that indicated that the difference in language had been intentional. Yoshina I, 935 P.2d at 95. Therefore, the...

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