Update: the 2013 Hawaii State Legislation( Part 1)
By Lee Aldridge
Late last year( 2012), Larry Quimby, former Treasurer of TEA Party Maui( TPM) and now a resident of Oahu, initiated a program to coordinate the efforts of several TPM volunteers( myself included) to track and submit testimony on Hawaii State legislative bills in 2013. January 16th was the opening day of the Hawaii State Legislative Session for 2013. Bills are introduced by Senators and House Representatives and placed into the“ hopper” whereupon they are referred to one or more of the 20 House Committees and 16 Senate Committees where three hearings must be held on a bill before it can be moved through the next stage of the legislative process. Public testimony is permitted at the first two hearings, but not the third hearing as it is reserved for decision making by the legislative committee, however most bills are processed through more than one committee and are thus subjected to three hearings before each committee. January 24th, 2013: was the internal legislative cutoff date for the introduction of any bill. At the end of the day on January 24th, a total of 2872 bills had been introduced( 1484 House, 1388 Senate). Between the opening day and the January 24th cutoff, all of the bills were divvied up by Larry Quimby and randomly assigned to 7 to 8 volunteers( 2 or 3 of the initial 10 volunteers essentially dropped out early on). Assigned around 400 bills apiece, the volunteers utilized the Hawaii State Legislature website referred to as PAR( Public Access Room) to assist them with their task of reading and determining which bill to follow and provide testimony. PAR provides a wealth of information including the full text of every bill and amendments, the bill’ s authors, status, schedule of hearings, copies of all submitted testimony, and much more including the ability to easily submit testimony online. The plan was to have each volunteer read each bill they were assigned leaving it mostly to their individual discretion as to whether a particular bill warranted the effort to pursue for testimony. The criteria for selection were non-specific, but generally based upon the concept of maintaining limited government. That is to say, any bill that appeared to foster bigger and more powerful government( and higher taxes) were to be opposed while those bills that appeared to reduce the impact of government would be supported. Naturally, volunteers selected a greater or lesser number of bills depending upon their own sensibility with regard to the selection criteria. Overall, roughly 200 bills were specifically identified for tracking and testimony. It was the responsibility of each volunteer to keep track of the hearing schedules for their selected bills and to alert the rest of the group to the hearing dates. This was only partially successful as some volunteers could not keep up completely with their assignments and some seemed to have dropped out completely after an initial effort. Thankfully, every year, there is great deal of attrition in the number of bills as they proceed through the legislative process. This is due not only to public testimony in opposition, but also to the State Agencies’ and legislator’ s support or opposition to a particular bill. It is primarily at this first stage that bills“ die” in committee due to the breadth and strength of opposition and / or lack of sufficient internal( executive and legislative) support. Some significant milestones in the legislative process and the fate of the 2872 bills initially introduced are summarized below: � March 7th, 2013 when the first cutoff was reached for bills to crossover from their originating chamber to the other chamber
( i. e. House to Senate, Senate to House) only 753 bills( 363 House, 390 Senate) made it through this first deadline.
� April 11th, 2013, an important second cutoff was reached for bills to be passed back to their originating chamber( 2nd crossover). By his time, only 414 bills( 180 House, 234 Senate) survived.
� May 2nd, 2013; Legislature is adjourned( sine die) without setting a date for reconvening. As of June 2, 2013, the date I wrote this article, the legislature had passed 294 bills on to the Governor to sign into law( as an Act) and their status stands as follows: � Bills passed by the Legislature and pending the Governor’ s signature: 208( 93 House, 115 Senate bills)
� Bills already signed by the Governor: 86( 30 House, 56 Senate bills)
� Bills identified by the Governor’ s
Office to be vetoed: 0 What happens next? The Governor may sign, veto, or not act on a bill in which case it automatically becomes law. He must act within 10 days for bills presented to him earlier than 10 days before legislative adjournment. For bills presented within the 10 days before adjournment or after adjournment, he has 45 days to act. Any bill vetoed by the Governor may be reconsidered by the legislature up to noon on the 45th day after adjournment. A veto may be overridden by a 2 / 3 vote of both House and Senate or a simple majority may amend and return the vetoed bill to the Governor for reconsideration. Chances are high that all the bills pending the Governor’ s signature will either be signed into law or will pass into law automatically due to inaction on his part. As for the efforts of TPM volunteers, it is unfortunately difficult to judge what
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Pono Press, June 2013, Page 6