Changing state Constitution is easier said than done

Every year, the state Legislature changes hundreds of laws.

That comes after poking around in some 3,000 or so separate proposals. Everything is fair game; the Legislature has dozens of ways to allow it to pry into any subject and fiddle with the gears and levers of government.

Except the state Constitution; that is almost always put on a shelf nearly too high for legislative grasp.

"Proposals to amend or revisewill succeed only after surviving a series of hurdles," explains Anne Lee Feder, in her scholarly reference guide, "The Hawaii State Constitution."

The last hurdle is a vote by the people, who, according to rulings by the Hawaii Supreme Court, "are presumed to know what they want, to have understood the proposition submitted to them in all of implications, and by their approval determined that the amendment is for the public good and expresses the free opinion of a sovereign people."

Remember that the whole 1998 debate in Hawaii over gay marriage was about an amendment to the state Constitution allowing the Legislature to define marriage as between a man and a woman. Then, the furious debates last fall about allowing the Legislature to more fully exercise that power and finally allow same-sex marriage came from the same constitutional wellspring.

So what’s up now? How is the Legislature going to change the Constitution, the DNA of our laws?

So far there are two constitutional amendments for voters to decide in the November elections.

The first would allow the state to give tax money to private early education programs. The reason is the realization last year that while early education is good, the state could not handle the job alone and many private programs, including church-related schools, were already doing it — but public money can’t go to a private educational institution without the amendment.

The second amendment would increase the mandatory retirement age of judges from 70 to 80.

In total there are some 73 proposed constitutional amendments under consideration by the Legislature. But, getting any of them on the ballot this fall will not be easy.

The two already there won their place because a super majority in the House and Senate approved them last year.

This year’s amendments would also need a two-thirds majority vote in both chambers to get on the November ballot.

The general theme of the proposed amendments is to change an existing amendment that didn’t work out.

The University of Hawaii’s Board of Regents was a flash point during the Republican Lingle administration, so the Legislature changed the Constitution to call for a committee to find regent candidates; there is now a call to repeal the regents’ advisory council requirement.

There is also a proposal to drop the gubernatorial appointment of state Board of Education members and allow the Legislature to name the BOE.

Some of the proposals are in the "File under F for Fat Chance category," because they aren’t going anywhere, such as Rep. Karl Rhoads’ annual attempt to declare that "freedom of speech applies only to natural persons."

That proposal is a protest against the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling that corporations and labor unions can spend as much money as they want on a political campaign that is not coordinated by the candidate.

Of course, the state of Hawaii cannot reverse or change a federal court case, so Rhoads’ idea will not move.

Neither will a series of proposed amendments by the Senate’s lone Republican, Sen. Sam Slom.

He wants to change the Constitution to allow for a unicameral Legislature, a balanced budget amendment and those hardy legislative perennials of initia- tive, referendum and recall.

Yup. File them under F.

Changing the Constitution may a good thing, but it will never be an easy thing.

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Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Reach him at rborreca@staradvertiser.com.