Writing in December’s Hawaii Bar Journal about the massive local corruption exposed by federal law enforcers, University of Hawaii emeritus law professor Randall Roth derided the persistent inaction of state and county authorities as “willful blindness.”

He called it a “non-criminal form of corruption” in which local officials afraid of stepping on the wrong toes practiced “intentional ignorance” and “deliberately chose to go along to get along.” (https://issuu.com/hawaiibarjournal/docs/december2023_-journal)

Roth took sharp aim at attorneys who didn’t honor their oaths to uphold the law in scandals involving Bishop Estate/Kamehameha Schools in the 1990s and Louis and Katherine Kealoha more recently.

“If enough lawyers express themselves candidly and forcefully, meaningful change is possible,” he wrote.

The same point applies to many Hawaii lawmakers as the state Legislature comes into session this week.

OUR LEGISLATURE IS NOTORIOUSLY top-heavy, with most power in the hands of leadership and committee chairs, who can capriciously make or break legislation with little transparency or accountability.

Too many rank-and-file legislators exhibit the willful blindness Roth describes, afraid to offend leadership and risk losing the little power and third-tier titles that trickle down to them.

Last session, the result was death by committee chairs of popular government reform measures such as publicly funded elections and legislative term limits. Individual members had no say — or accountability.

The session ended in chaos with the passage of a budget that a few committee chairs had pulled out of their backsides and most members hadn’t seen.

As with Roth’s call to lawyers, if rank-and-file legislators grew backbones and asserted themselves, the reforms they claim to support might actually pass.

WE PERHAPS SAW THE BEGINNING of this at the end of last session when a handful of House Democrats couldn’t hold their noses on the rushed budget full of misplaced priorities and voice their objections.

It was well short of the 26 House members and 13 senators it would take to change leadership, but it’s potentially the start of a reform movement. It takes only a third of the members to force legislation bottled up by committee chairs to the floor.

Those seeking reform should focus on one or two key issues; a single big win could pave the way for more in the future.

One obvious goal is to fix the budgeting process so full committees are involved in making decisions, not just the chairs, and it happens in reasonable public view.

Another attainable goal is passing a bill for publicly funded elections in Hawaii, which would greatly reduce the power of the special-interest money at the root of so many of our problems. Public funding would greatly increase the candidate pool and voter choices at a relatively small cost.

Such a measure appeared to have support to pass in 2023, but was first watered down and then killed by money committee chairs at session’s end.

Sen. Karl Rhoads says he’ll reintroduce the measure this year, and members who claim to support this key reform must push for an up-or-down vote in both houses so any “willful blindness” is exposed.

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Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com.