08/30/2026
Honolulu City Council Chair Tommy Waters hit his term limit. He filed to run again anyway claiming that a delay in the start of his original council term meant he could run for a third term.
More than 8,000 people voted for Waters in the primary before the state's Supreme Court ruled him ineligible. Those votes are gone now. And there's no telling how differently people would have voted, or who else might have run, if voters had known from the start he wasn't actually eligible.
Someone gets a taste of power, and sooner or later they start looking for the exception that lets them keep it. That's exactly why term limits are so important.