The full House on Wednesday sent 10 “good government” bills, as it called them, to Gov. Josh Green — but none will lead to any sweeping ethics, campaign spending or other reforms to change the way the Legislature does business.
None of the bills is likely to appease a cynical electorate outraged by the ongoing federal political corruption trial of former city Prosecutor Keith Kaneshiro, following guilty verdicts in federal court of former Police Chief Louis Kealoha and his former wife, former Deputy Prosecutor Katherine Kealoha. Their guilty verdicts followed federal corruption guilty pleas by former Senate Majority Leader J. Kalani English and former state Rep. Ty J.K. Cullen, said Colin Moore, who teaches public policy at the University of Hawaii and is an associate professor at the University of Hawaii Economic Resource Organization.
The 10 bills, Moore said, are “not game changers by any stretch of the imagination.”
By passing the bills, Moore said the Legislature has shown that, “More radical reforms like term limits or public financing (for candidates) are a bridge too far.”
Proponents of publicly financed campaigns argue that candidates will be less beholden to big money donors and, therefore, less tempted by political corruption. They also contend that running for office would be more appealing to more diverse candidates who don’t like the prospect of seeking campaign donations and would be able to focus on constitutents’ concerns.
Bypassed by the Legislature this year were less radical changes such as requiring committee chairs to explain why they indefinitely defer bills, which essentially kills them; why they fail to schedule hearings on bills; disclose on whose behalf they introduce bills; or other changes that would serve “to inconvenience current legislators,” Moore said.
Unlike the City Council, legislators are not bound by term limits. And last session they exempted themselves from anti-nepotism rules they imposed on every other state operation, except the state Judiciary.
Political analyst Neal Milner called the 10 bills heading to Green’s desk “mom and pop and apple pie.”
“One of the fundamental ethical questions that people have is lobbyists and money and people in office and their campaigns,” Milner said. “All of the things that involve the public tend to be transparency issues, which are all important but not as important in terms of ethical issues. The broader issue is how much money people and corporations can give to politicians. It’s not just one guy (wastewater treatment company executive Milton Choy) giving money to two chumps (English and Cullen) like last time.”
Some of the bills approved Wednesday can’t even be interpreted as addressing “good government,” Moore said, such as the latest version of House Bill 2231 that “establishes as a goal” increasing the number of female law enforcement officers to 30% in the state by 2030. The bill also wants to increase the number of nonbinary law enforcement officers but fails to specify a specific percentage.
The bill also requires “each law enforcement agency to recruit law enforcement officers from diverse backgrounds.”
Perhaps the most significant bill — the latest version of of HB 1881, Moore said, would increase the amount of fines imposed on legislators and lobbyists to $5,000 from $1,000 for violations of state standards of conduct, to be determined by the state Ethics Commission.
Otherwise, the House on Monday approved:
>> The latest version of HB 1597, which, “Clarifies that members of the public may sue a board or alleged board after receiving an adverse Office of Information Practices decision, and that the decision will be reviewed de novo (anew). Establishes a two-year statute of limitations to bring the lawsuit and reaffirms a complainant’s right to seek review by the Office of Information Practices first.”
>> The latest version of HB 1598, which, “Requires boards to make available for public inspection board packets, if created, at the time the board packet is distributed to board members but no later than two business days before the board meeting. Provides that public testimony may be distributed to board members before the board meeting. Requires boards to include in the notice to persons requesting notification of meetings, a list of the documents that were compiled by the board and distributed to board members before a board meeting for use at the meeting. Requires boards to post board packets on its website.”
>> The latest version of HB 1599, which, “Requires public meeting notices to inform members of the public how to provide remote oral testimony in a manner that allows the testifier, upon request, to be visible to board members and other meeting participants. Recognizes a board’s authority to remove and block individuals who disrupt meetings.”
>> The latest version of HB 1600, which, “Requires boards to schedule a meeting for deliberation and decision-making on a report by an investigative group at least six business days after the board meeting in which the investigative group presented the findings and recommendations of its investigation to the board.”
>> The latest version of HB 1879, which would require the state Office of Elections to prepare a “digital voter information guide” to be posted on its website along with a printed version to be distributed to all public libraries for the public to read. The guide would include a photo of each candidate provided by the candidate and a statement of up to 150 words; an explanation of any proposed constitutional amendments, to be drafted by the state Attorney General’s Office; and a description of any proposed charter amendments, to be written by each Corporation Council.
>> The latest version of HB 1916, which aims to reduce the possibility of violence against government officials by prohibiting “government agencies, persons, and organizations from making publicly available on the Internet the protected personal information of certain public servants, upon written request from the public servant or their representative.”
>> The latest version of HB 2069, which allows the state Department of Accounting and General Services “to employ certain persons within the Comptroller’s office who are exempt from state laws governing civil service and collective bargaining for certain purposes, as part of the State’s information technology modernization efforts.”
>> The latest version of HB 2072, which would make it a Class C felony for any candidate, candidate committee or noncandidate committee to “solicit a contribution in a manner that would lead a reasonable person to believe that the solicited contribution would primarily be used to provide assistance to persons directly affected by a disaster. …”
Moore called all of the bills that passed out of the House on Wednesday “good, but they’re incremental.”
“They seem like they’ll move the needle slightly, but none of these represent major changes in our political system,” he said. “None of these really threaten the incumbents or the way Hawaii politics work.”
