Loopholes let legislators and others duck ethics concerns

In 1967, the fourth state Legislature passed Act 463, now popularly known as the State Ethics Code.

This important law governs all appointed and elected officials, protecting and informing both the public and the public servant about expected standards of conduct.

In 2012, in an effort that the League of Women Voters opposed, the Legislature passed a bill amending the law by exempting members of temporary task forces from sections of the State Ethics Code. But the damage to our ethics standards didn’t end there. Act 208 — in seeking to create an exemption for task force members — created a loophole that exempted legislators from section 84-13, Hawaii Revised Statutes, allowing legislators, in their official capacity, "to use their position to secure unwarranted privileges, advantages, or treatment for themselves or others."

Obviously, this is objectionable to any reasonable person because it leaves the door wide open to favoritism from a legislator on matters that have nothing to do with his or her job as a legislator.

In a widely publicized example, in 2012 state Sen. Josh Green intervened in a payment dispute between the City and County of Honolulu and Automated HealthCare Solutions.

Subsequently this firm contributed $2,000 to Green’s campaign, and later, Green donated this money to charity, saying he had not intended to take the firm’s side.

In 2013, Green introduced Senate Bill 669, designed to correct the "inadvertent" omission of the broadened fair treatment exemption for legislators. While the measure was carried over to the 2014 session, it’s going nowhere fast. Meanwhile, another attempt to fix this oversight, SB 2973, still awaits a hearing by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The public should not have to depend on investigative reporters to create a public outcry and embarrass legislators about ethically questionable fair treatment behavior.

Eight words of amendment proposed in SB 2973 is a better solution. The bill would amend HR Section 84-13 to limit the exemption only to action "in the exercise of the legislator’s legislative functions."

We’d like to see Sen. Clayton Hee, the Judiciary and Labor Committee’s chairman, immediately schedule a hearing for SB 2973, Relating to Ethics.

Fixing this loophole in our ethics law would clear up any uncertainty about what’s expected from our legislators when it comes to fair treatment provisions of the ethics code.

And we expect the Legislature is interested enough that it will pass SB 2973 during this 2014 session.