Off the News: Senate leadership; Movie theaters

Let’s hope coup wasn’t distracting

Oh, those eager beavers in the state Senate. In an unusual move, the 25-member body couldn’t wait until the Legislature’s Thursday adjournment so, two days prior, it ousted Sen. Donna Mercado Kim and installed Kauai Sen. Ron Kouchi as its new president. With the shakeup came shuffling of committee chairships and other leadership roles.

Other than loss of power for Kim and a couple of obvious cases like Sen. Josh Green, who lost a committee, it’s too early to tell how all this will affect law-making next session.

For now, it’s all we can hope that good legislation didn’t get left behind because senators were too distracted with their chamber coup.

Personal interest always helps

Every legislative session yields some surprises. The hearing impaired may have followed this issue, but the rest of us likely found the new law requiring more captioned film screenings a development that was unexpected.

Hawaii is the first state to pass such a statute, already signed into law, which ensures that most movie theaters here exhibit captions on at least two weekly showings of a movie.

This is where diversity in elective office really does count. The bill was championed by Rep. James Tokioka, who has a hearing-impaired son.

Of course, other lawmakers can have the empathy to push through legislation such as this without being in similar circumstances. But in that the bill was opposed by the film industry, it’s likely it wouldn’t have cleared the hurdle without an extra push.