Hawaii legislative session ends on a divisive note

The state Legislature on Thursday adjourned for the year without its traditional display of unity, when House and Senate members clasp hands and sing “Hawai‘i Aloha.”

Instead, Senate leaders were left standing outside a locked door leading to the House chamber after knocking three times.

Whether or not it was an intentional snub by the House, it was symbolic of tensions that played out between the two houses, particularly when it came to emotionally charged issues of water rights and the proliferation of illegal vacation rentals blamed for driving up housing costs for struggling residents.

“I really can’t say what motivates the House,” said Senate Majority Leader Kalani English when reporters asked what happened to “Hawai‘i Aloha.”

Members of the House sang it without them. Carolyn Tanaka, a spokeswoman for the House, said that the House just adjourned early and that there was no ill intent on the part of the House.

“All that I can say is that the Senate stands on tradition,” English said. “We’re the upper House where … we were designed to be the more cooler heads. … And we are trying to reach across to the House and say we are all in this together. And I think this is the message that we have to get out there, that we are not the enemy of the House and at the end of the day we have to work for the betterment of Hawaii.”

Sticking points

Senators expressed frustration that the House failed to assign negotiators to important bills in the final days of the legislative session — in particular for a bill aimed at helping counties crack down on illegal vacation rentals. Instead, the Senate found itself boxed in to agreeing at the last minute on a House version that would require platforms such as Airbnb and VRBO to collect taxes on behalf of the state but didn’t include enforcement measures against unpermitted rentals.

“We believe in differences. We believe that is the democratic process that we have our differences,” said English. “But we also believe that we owe it to our constituents to sit down and negotiate at the end.”

One of the bills left hanging this year was a measure that would have allowed water permit holders — such as Alexander & Baldwin, electrical utilities and farmers and ranchers — another seven years to obtain long-term water leases. The water users have been operating under short-term permits for years allowing them to circumvent stringent requirements for obtaining leases, such as environmental reviews, conservation management plans, water appraisals and public auctions.

Most of the permit holders are struggling to meet a year-end deadline to convert those permits to leases. State officials say that because lawmakers failed to extend that deadline, those users could lose access to water.

The House passed out a bill that would have extended the deadline. But the Senate couldn’t get enough votes to agree to the measure, which faced heated opposition from groups such as the Native Hawaiian Legal Corp. and Sierra Club of Hawaii.

Mixed bag

Overall, this year’s legislative session had few discernible themes when it came to what passed and what didn’t.

The House and Senate failed to come to agreement on legislation to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour — a top priority of the Democratic Party. A long list of bills to limit the influence of money in politics and fight public corruption, flagged by the House as top priorities, mostly died. Lawmakers failed once again to pass a bill that would have required the names of police officers disciplined for offenses such as domestic violence and drunken driving from being made public, disappointing advocates for police reform.

They also shelved dozens of bills related to climate change, including measures aimed at protecting the state’s eroding shoreline, despite increasing concerns about the environment.

But there were also some surprises. The Legislature passed a bill to decriminalize small amounts of cannabis. They approved a measure that would eliminate a tax deduction for real estate investment trusts, despite significant pushback from hotel and commercial property owners. The bill is expected to bring in about $9 million a year in additional corporate income taxes.

Legislators also passed bills to reform Hawaii’s civil asset forfeiture program, which allows police to seize property suspected of being connected with a crime without first obtaining a conviction or even filing charges. They passed bills to provide independent oversight of Hawaii’s troubled correctional system and reform the bail system.

They also passed bills instituting all-mail voting beginning in 2020 and requiring automatic recounts in elections with razor-thin results.

In total, nearly 300 bills made it out of the Legislature, most of which are awaiting final decisions by Gov. David Ige.

House Speaker Scott Saiki told reporters the House “really took the lead taking on some big initiatives this year that were really successful.”

He also touted the zero- based budgeting system that the House Finance Committee implemented under Finance Chairwoman Sylvia Luke. “This is the first time that we allowed our subject committees to assess and evaluate agency budgets, appropriations and expenditures,” he said.

Making amends

Democratic leaders in both houses supported former Congresswoman Colleen Hanabusa’s challenge against Gov. David Ige’s reelection bid last year. But if there are lingering tensions between Ige and lawmakers, they weren’t on display as the session wrapped up.

The House gave Ige a standing ovation when he showed up for the floor session, and Saiki gave him a warm welcome in his remarks.

Luke said House members had put the election behind them.

“We don’t have the luxury to be holding grudges or being angry,” she said. “We have … a constitutional responsibility to do the people’s work.”

>> Clarification:

This story has been updated to add comments from House spokeswoman Carolyn Tanaka who said that the House didn’t mean to snub the Senate. She said the Legislature doesn’t always sing Hawaii Aloha when they adjourn.