It’s debatable how well the 2025 Legislature took care of constituents, but lawmakers diligently looked after themselves.
They gobbled 48% raises over six years that will ultimately pay $114,348 a year for their part-time jobs, blocked campaign reforms that would have made it easier to run against them and gave themselves free child care fellow citizens don’t get.
The pay hikes came without public hearings or votes after Senate President Ron Kouchi and House Speaker Nadine Nakamura refused to hear Republican bills to decline raises proposed by a Salary Commission appointed predominantly by the Legislature, allowing increases to automatically take effect.
Public outrage was matched by that of unionized state workers, who got raises of about 4% a year.
“How are you guys going to take that kind of money and throw us pennies?” asked corrections officer Paul Kyles, a United Public Workers negotiator, in Honolulu Civil Beat.
Lawmakers say the high pay is needed to attract more and better candidates for the seats, but they did everything they could this session to prevent competition for their jobs from happening.
Every major measure died that would make elections more open and with less advantage for incumbents — term limits, public financing of campaigns, easier voter registration, more in-person polling places, curbs on pay-to-play fundraising that corrupts local politics.
Death often came unilaterally at the hands of powerful committee chairs or Kouchi and Nakamura, without broad member involvement — at least publicly.
But the Big Bad Wolf image of leadership is partly play-acting. Members want to get oversize raises and kill reforms but are chicken to cast unpopular votes. So leaders do the dirty work and members are off the hook; that’s how they get to be leaders.
Disingenuous legislators can then say in the next election there was nothing they could do about pay raises and failed reforms because there were no votes.
The free child care, along with care for elderly parents, came via Senate Bill 1202, which allows lawmakers to charge the expenses to their campaign funds. The bill passed both houses with overwhelming support and is already signed into law by Gov. Josh Green.
It’s the latest attempt to turn political campaign accounts into personal slush funds, following previous acts allowing politicians to make their charitable donations from campaign funds and use their own accounts to give to other candidates.
So we have on one hand an increasingly corrupt election financing system that legislators refuse to fix, and on the other hand lawmakers creating new incentives to grub even more special-interest campaign money they can put to personal use.
Legislators claim the new child care perk is needed to make it easier for lawmakers with families to serve.
Hey, free child and elder care would make it easier for police officers to serve. And for teachers to do their jobs. And for nurses and bricklayers to work. What has the Legislature done to get free child care for the rest of us?
The 2025 Legislature did a fine job of protecting its own members from the economic pain of these uncertain times. As far as protecting those they serve, not so much.
Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com.
