Hawaii’s state and city lawmakers may not be so sharp at taking care of public concerns such as affordable housing, gridlocked traffic and rundown infrastructure, but they’re wizards at taking care of themselves.
For the second year, a popular bill to reform elections via public funding died at the hands of a committee chair despite apparent broad support among lawmakers.
In 2023 it was Senate Ways and Means Chair Donovan Dela Cruz who deep-sixed the measure, intended to diminish the dominance of special- interest campaign donations that prop up incumbents, after versions had passed both houses.
This year House Judiciary Chair David Tarnas did the dirty deed, even after the measure had passed the Senate and had the endorsement of House Speaker Scott Saiki.
Tarnas, who supported the bill last year, now cited problems with funding and staffing that were poison pills inserted by legislators that could have easily been fixed.
Tarnas in 2023 unilaterally killed legislative term limits, another key reform to give more people a chance at public office.
Dismiss the mumbo-jumbo about costs and administration; this is about incumbent legislators putting their self-interest in retaining office — and the wishes of the moneyed interests they cater to — ahead of the public interest in more fair and inclusive elections.
Legislators can safely feign support for reform, knowing committee chairs like Tarnas or Dela Cruz will take the heat for all of them by killing it in the end.
At Honolulu Hale the city Salary Commission appointed by Mayor Rick Blangiardi and the City Council is proposing new 3% pay raises for both — despite the fact that Blangiardi doesn’t want it and public outrage is still high over last year’s 64% Council salary bumps.
If the new raises are finalized, pay for part-time Council members will have risen since 2023 to $116,712 from $68,904, engineered by Chair Tommy Waters to take effect without Council hearings or votes.
Waters and his vice chair, Esther Kia‘aina, haven’t fulfilled their promise to push legislation making Council jobs full time, leaving a worst-of-both-worlds situation in which members draw full-time pay while still free to hold often-lucrative outside jobs that put them deeper in the pockets of special interests.
One Salary Commission member said high Council pay is justified so that not just “retirees and independently wealthy people” can run for the jobs.
Except we have no retirees or independently wealthy people on our Council, currently composed of four former state legislators, two former Council staffers, a former federal staffer, a former construction union lobbyist and a comedian.
Most likely to be attracted by the pay raises are more state legislators, who can collect far more on the Council for similar part-time work. Until, of course, the state Salary Commission uses Council pay as precedent for giving legislators outrageous raises.
Our lawmakers devote their best energy to keeping insiders in — a rigged system that can be changed only by those who benefit most from the corrupt rules.
It won’t improve until reform-minded candidates can raise enough to target imperious legislative leaders and show them ignoring the public good has a cost.
Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com.
