LOCAL ISSUES
Hawaii State Legislation Update
By Lee Aldridge TEA Party Maui ( TPM ) has been active in submitting testimony on House and Senate bills introduced into the 2013 Session of the Hawaii State Legislature . TPM has been utilizing online access forum called the Public Access Room ( PAR ) established by the Hawaii State Legislature to increase public participation in the lawmaking process of the State . Anyone can access the Hawaii State Legislature PAR web site by using the following link : http :// www . capitol . hawaii . gov / Use of PAR was first introduced to TPM nearly two years ago , but the effort was not a well-organized approach and there was no significant involvement in submitting testimony . Late last year , Larry Quimby , former Treasurer of TPM and now an Oahu resident , organized the program and in January 2013 , he randomly assigned various House and Senate bills to volunteers including Lee & Rosemary Aldridge , Kurt Hanson , Luke & Kathleen Campbell , Emmons & Mary Connell , and Larry Quimby himself . The volunteers were to do the following : ( 1 ) Review the full set of bills that had been assigned to each person . ( 2 ) Select those bills for which there were a need to track in order to submit testimony for or against . ( 3 ) When notified that a selected bill was scheduled for a committee hearing and was accepting testimony , the volunteer would then alert other TPM members and friends by sending out a " PAR Testimony Opportunity " alert . ( 4 ) After alerting others to submit testimony online , volunteers would continue to monitor selected bills as they proceed through the legislative process . When there are no longer any more hearings or opportunities to submit testimony , hopefully at that point in time the bill in question has been killed or dropped if we oppose it , or passed if we support it .
2013 Legislative Timetable
March 1st --First Decking 7th --First Crossover 11th --Budget Decking 13th --Budget Crossover -Last day to introduce Substantive
Resolutions 14th --Second Triple Referral Filing deadline 22nd --Second Lateral 29th --Holiday : Good Friday
It is no small task as the 2013 State Legislative session has cranked out around 2872 bills in total including 1484 House bills and 1388 Senate bills . These bills are sent to more than 16 Senate committees and 20 House Committees in the State Legislature although most bills usually pass through no more than three committees . Thankfully however , as former State Representative George Fontaine told TPM , only around 10 % of the overall number of bills ever passes through the Legislature each year to reach the Governor ’ s desk for signature . At the time this is written , the author is not certain overall ( including all volunteers ), how many bills are being tracked , but the author and his wife were assigned 473 bills of which 40 are being tracked not including an additional 10 bills involving gun control because of our interest in the 2nd amendment . It is easy to follow a bill and to submit testimony online on a bill using the PAR website . Use the following links : To access the PAR web site : http :// www . capitol . hawaii . gov / To check on upcoming hearings : http :// www . capitol . hawaii . gov / upcominghearings . aspx To submit testimony on a bill : http :// www . capitol . hawaii . gov / submittestimony . aspx ? billtype = HB & billnumber = 426 Here is the legislative timetable below . There is still time for all of us to have an impact on the laws that our legislators pass . March 1st is an important date for it is the “ First Decking ”. For a bill to become law , in addition to passing through all the committees to which it ' s been referred , it must pass three separate readings , or votes , in each chamber . The “ First Decking ” deadline is the date by which a bill must be filed with the originating chamber ' s Clerk for 3rd reading . This year , Friday , March 1st is the First Decking deadline .
April 1st --First Lateral for Senate Concurrent Resolutions 2nd --First Lateral for House Concurrent Resolutions 5th --Second Decking 11th --Second Crossover & Last day to disagree 12th --First Crossover for Concurrent Resolutions 19th --Constitutional Amendments : Deadline for final form 22nd --Second Crossover for Concurrent Resolutions 25th --Last day to file Non-Fiscal Bills to deck for Final
Reading 26th --Last day to file Fiscal Bills to deck for Final Reading
May 2nd --Adjournment sine die ( Session pau !)
Pono Press , March 2013 , Page 3