Gov. David Ige vetoed eight bills Tuesday, including measures that would have created a new crime of sex trafficking and allowed University of Hawaii graduate students to unionize to bargain for better pay and working conditions.
Advocates for both bills say they will return to the state Legislature next year to try to fashion new drafts that will pass muster with lawmakers and Ige.
The governor last month announced he intended to veto the eight bills, and House and Senate leaders declined to attempt an override of Ige’s decision on any of the measures.
In his message explaining the veto of the sex trafficking bill, Ige said the Honolulu, Hawaii and Maui County prosecutors as well as state Attorney General Doug Chin argued the bill was flawed and should be rejected.
Supporters of the bill say it was intended to encourage prosecutions of pimps who control and exploit adult and underage sex workers, and was designed to treat the sex workers themselves as victims of a crime instead of as criminals.
However, Ige said the language in the bill that would create the new offense of sex trafficking was “confusing,” and the crime could be difficult or impossible to actually prosecute. He also said the existing offense of first-degree promotion of prostitution already appears to cover pimps who use violence or intimidation to force people into prostitution.
Ige said a Penal Code Review Committee that includes the attorney general and the four county prosecutors will have an opportunity to review sex trafficking laws later this year and propose amendments that will have “a broader base of support.”
Kris Coffield, executive director of the advocacy group IMUAlliance, said Hawaii is now the only state in the nation without a law that specifically prohibits the act of “sex trafficking.”
“Instead of treating sex trafficking survivors as victims of violent crimes, Ige has chosen to continue calling them criminals and punishing them for their own exploitation,” Coffield said in a written statement. “Rather than stand with sex trafficking victims, he has chosen to side with perpetrators of sexual terror.”
Coffield disagreed that the bill would have made prosecutions more difficult, arguing the legal analysis by Honolulu Prosecutor Keith Kaneshiro and Chin is off the mark.
“Far from impeding prosecutions, this bill would have ensured that victims are properly identified and offered them the safety and security needed to disclose their trauma, in turn leading to a spike in arrests,” he said.
Coffield said supporters of the law against sex trafficking will return to the state Capitol next year to renew their push for a measure “to remove the criminal label from the heads of victims.”
“We must unite, now, in proclaiming that exploitation will no longer be tolerated in Hawaii,” Coffield said in a written statement. “Not in our communities. Not on our islands. Not anymore.”
Any lobbying effort to require that law enforcement officials treat all prostitutes as victims will encounter continued opposition from Kaneshiro.
“As far as I know, prostitution is a criminal act and prostitutes are criminals,” Kaneshiro said. “The ones that have come forward and have informed us that they are coerced, and are willing to stand by that, we give them immunity, and we don’t prosecute them for prostitution. They are treated as victims.”
Kaneshiro said he will continue to look for ways to make Hawaii’s anti-prostitution laws more effective, but said the current law is working.
He cited the Polaris 2014 State Ranking on Human Trafficking Laws, a report that evaluates states to determine whether they have sufficient laws to deal with sex trafficking. Hawaii ranked in the first tier in the report, among the best states in the nation.
Ige also vetoed a measure to allow graduate students to unionize to bargain for better wages and working conditions, saying in his veto message that the bill was “incomplete and could potentially cause administrative and legal problems.”
Lawmakers failed to legally create a new bargaining unit or assign the graduate students to an existing bargaining unit, Ige said. They also neglected to explain whether an impasse during negotiations would be resolved through arbitration, a strike or some other means, he said.
Ige also said in his veto message that the current compensation of graduate students is “competitive” and that UH and the state would face “significant cost increases” if graduate students formed a union to bargain for better pay.
Jonathan Dial, president of the UH-Manoa Graduate Student Organization, said the students will return to the Legislature next year with what he hopes will be a stronger coalition to press for the legal right to unionize. He said the students also plan to appeal to the Hawaii Democratic Party for support.
“Since the intent-to-veto list came out, there’s been a lot of discussion about how vetoing this particular bill kind of contradicts the Democratic core ideals of the party, specifically with labor,” Dial said.
Dial contends that providing better pay for graduate students would help reduce “brain drain” out of the UH system of students who cannot afford to stay because of low pay and Hawaii’s high cost of living.
“It would make it more appealing for graduate students to come to or stay in Hawaii, which would be good overall for all industries,” he said.
In addition, Ige vetoed House Bill 540, a measure the University of Hawaii says would have created a problematic “use it or lose it” approach to spending.
Language was added in conference committee to “ensure that appropriations to the University of Hawaii are expended for the specific purpose intended by the Legislature.” The bill would have allowed lawmakers to take any funds the university didn’t spend in a fiscal year and reduce UH’s budget the following year by that amount.
“The university supports the governor’s decision to veto this bill as we believe it is not a fiscally prudent approach to fiscal management of budgets,” Kalbert Young, UH’s chief financial officer, said in an interview. “In practical terms, a ‘use it or lose it’ provision is not prudent because it actually encourages spending, typically. The way this bill was written up, and why it would only apply to the University of Hawaii and no other state departments, makes no sense.”
As an example, he said lawmakers included a requirement in this year’s budget for UH that the university must spend $75,000 for a Turkish-language professor.
If HB 540 had been signed into law, Young said, “We would have to find $75,000 within our budget to spend on this, and if we fail to do so, basically next year the Legislature will reduce our budget by $75,000.”
In his veto message, Ige said he had concerns that the bill would infringe on the university’s autonomy. He also said that reducing the university’s base budget year to year would create uncertainty for UH.
| Senate Bill 265: Change wording in statute from “promoting prostitution in the first degree” to “sex trafficking”
Senate Bill 105: Require estimated future debt service for proposed construction projects to be included in the budget documents submitted to the Legislature
House Bill 553: Allow UH graduate students to unionize to bargain for better wages and working conditions
Senate Bill 349: Repeal the ethanol facility tax credit and create a new renewable-energy tax credit
Senate Bill 569: Increase the threshold for the charge of felony theft to $750 from $300
House Bill 540: Extend authority of UH to maintain separate accounting and financial management systems
Senate Bill 218: Clarify the order of succession to the Lieutenant Governor’s Office
Senate Bill 1324: Provide authority for the Employees’ Retirement System to make direct payments of benefits to a nonmember former spouse of a member following a court judgment, order or divorce decree
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Star-Advertiser reporter Nanea Kalani contributed to this report.
