Can Tommy Waters Even Run For A Third Honolulu Council Term?

Soon after Honolulu City Council Chair Tommy Waters filed to run for a third term, East Honolulu resident Christian Butt filed an official objection with the city clerk’s office.

Butt, identifying himself simply as a registered voter, pointed out the Honolulu City Charter says council members can’t be elected to more than two consecutive four-year terms. Waters took office in spring 2019 and was reelected in 2022. Now, in 2026, he’s running for reelection again. 

Butt’s question: Can Waters even do that? 

Waters took office partway through the term that started in 2019, Butt said in his letter to the clerk, and “I am unsure how that partial term is treated for purposes of the charter’s two-term limitation.”

In April, the acting city clerk’s preliminary decision said that yes, Waters can do that. 

It was an early victory for the Waters campaign, sending a public message that the incumbent had the blessing of a city official to run again. But what went unsaid is that Butt, the objector, is a friend and former law school classmate of Waters who donated to him in the past. Despite his legal background, Butt did not include any legal research in his so-called objection, which was submitted to the acting clerk — a city employee who reports to the council Waters presides over. The council has the power to appoint the clerk to a six-year term.

Asked whether he feels that dynamic is a conflict of interest, acting clerk Chadd Kadota declined to say yes or no. But he said he understands why somebody would think that.

“The council appoints the City Clerk’s position,” he said in an interview. “So, if the clerk needs to make this determination, then yeah, I can see that analysis.” 

Butt did not respond to requests for comment.

Waters said in a written statement Thursday that many community members have asked him at public events if he is eligible to run again, and that his response has always been that anyone can make a formal inquiry. 

“He wanted to find out whether or not I’m not eligible,” Waters said when asked about Butt in a recent interview. “Clerk said yes.” 

That surely won’t be the end of it. Waters’ opponent Trevor Ozawa plans to soon file his own objection to the clerk’s office. An attorney himself, Ozawa said he plans to reference legal research, including cases on the mainland, that suggest Waters’ third go-around is illegal, and he’s willing to take the case to court.

Kadota, who has been in the job for about nine weeks, said he’s not yet sure what happens if somebody submits another objection to his office about Waters’ candidacy. He said he would look at it on a case-by-case basis.

Election law scholars contacted by Civil Beat say the charter’s language is ambiguous. Waters himself said he’s not even sure if he’s eligible. 

“I thought, you know what, I’m going to give it a shot,” Waters said. “See what happens.” 

A Waters-Ozawa Rematch  

This isn’t the first time Waters and Ozawa are facing off. In 2014, the two ran against each other for an open seat on the council as Ozawa’s former boss Stanley Chang unsuccessfully ran for Congress. 

Ozawa beat Waters by fewer than 50 votes. When Waters contested the result, arguing that ballots may have been miscounted, the state Supreme Court ruled against him, allowing Ozawa to take office. 

Four years later, Ozawa again beat Waters by fewer than 50 votes. When Waters contested the result this time, the Supreme Court sided with Waters, invalidating the results of the fall 2018 election since a few hundred ballots arrived late. 

To fill the seat, the city held a special election in April 2019 that Waters won. 

Waters was sworn into office that May. Because he missed the first few months of that term, he now says, it doesn’t count toward his two consecutive four-year term limit.

“I didn’t get two consecutive four-year terms,” he said. “And probably the most important part that I missed was the budget. To me, that’s a big part of your term. And I missed that.”

Waters said he’s “not just taking a shot in the dark” by running again. He said along with the plain language in the City Charter, there is precedent that council members can serve two consecutive four-year terms after entering during a different term via special election.

Council members over the years have died or vacated their seats to run for a different office. Former council member Ann Kobayashi, for example, won a special election in 2009 to take over Duke Bainum’s seat after he died, and she later served two additional consecutive four-year terms.

But Kobayashi thinks the circumstances are different, she said in an interview. She said the City Charter is ambiguous, but that in her case, a different person was already in the seat and serving out his own four-year term before she took over.  

Still, she said, “I think a court has to decide.”

No Clear Answer

Election law experts generally agree with Kobayashi. The City Charter is vague when it comes to whether serving a partial term counts toward term limits, they say, and it may come down to a court decision. 

“I think there’s compelling arguments on either side of this issue,” said John Heilman, a law professor at Southwestern Law School and many-time mayor of West Hollywood who will soon hit his own term limit on his city council. 

Heilman said Waters has a point that the plain language of the City Charter could be interpreted to mean that he is eligible to run again. But he said it’s different than if a special election were held because the seat was vacated.

“The election where he was elected at was really the election for that four-year term,” he said, “it just got delayed because of the court decision.”

Council member Andria Tupola tried to address this by proposing a charter amendment in 2022, which, if approved by voters, would have said a council member had served the equivalent of a four-year term if they had served at least one year of it. It also would have restricted people from serving more than two four-year terms, even if they were not consecutive.

All nine council members approved it during first reading – which is typical, even for doomed legislation – but seven of them voted with reservations, including Waters. He then decided to not schedule it for a committee hearing.

In a written statement, Waters said the proposed amendment’s implications were too complicated, including by retroactively counting prior service. 

“That could have created voter confusion, legal uncertainty, and additional public costs, including the potential cost of holding multiple, off-year elections,” he said.

It’s very possible – and maybe even likely – that Waters remains in the race. 

Michael Morley, director of the Florida State University Election Law Center, said in an email that unless a candidate is clearly ineligible for the ballot, “courts are reluctant to limit voters' ability to elect the candidate of their choice.”

Some constituents might see him as not following the spirit of the law, a charge his opponents are hoping sticks. But Waters said he’s not worried. 

“Honestly,” he said in an interview, “I don’t know if people actually think about that.”