IT'S OVER WELL BEFORE IT'S OVER

IT'S OVER WELL BEFORE IT'S OVER: For those of us on the neighbor islands, the state legislature- which will mercifully cease to function after tomorrow's "Sine Die"- might as well be on Jupiter.

So it used to be that, for us personally, it was like going to a really long movie and falling asleep during the credits while telling our companion to wake us when it's over and tell us what happened.

After many years of local political wrangling it became apparent about 20 years ago that there are some wacky things that go on at the county level that can be traced right back to the lege and if we wanted to effect any change it would take a change of venue.

Now after two decades of long-distance code-deciphering it's become painfully obvious that we'd be better off- at least as far as our doctor is concerned- going back to a "wake me when it's over and show me the damage" attitude.

Even- or maybe especially- when we had two "allies" in the legislature- Mina Morita in the house and Gray Hooser in the senate- tackling individual bills has been a fool's errand. For the good bills, we had guides in both houses to maneuver them up the hills and out of the valleys.

But for the rest, nothing seems to matter and we only get our hopes up each time a bill moves out of a committee or reaches crossover or clears committee assignments on the other side or makes it to a conference committee.

We know we'll eventually be getting that old queasy feeling that it was all in vain.

We couldn't have agreed more when we opened an email from State Sierra Club E.D. Robert D. Harris yesterday and he wrote:

If I had to summarize this session in one word, it would be: disappointing.

Well actually we would have used a choice adjective or two not found in children's dictionaries, but why quibble?

Now young Mr. Harris is fairly new at this, taking over the SC helm a couple of years ago, so he can be excused for this starry-eyed assessment of how it's supposed to work.

Conference committees are supposed to be the stage at which the House and Senate resolve nagging differences between two different drafts of the same bill. While sometimes the differences are too great to resolve, the expectation is that most bills that reach conference committee can and should pass. Considerable work has already been done to get the bills to this point and open minds can usually figure out how to hammer out a final piece of legislation.

But sometime it takes a less jaded observer- and one who actually sat through this year's debacle- to cut through the crap in the newspapers, whose reporters and analysts have apparently failed to see the forest for the trees.

Harris gave this explanation- one that makes sense to us- as to why every god-damned bill we tracked this year either died or was made toothless, saying:

This year was different. House leaders desperately wanted to pass a tax on high-income pensioners. Presumably under the direction of the House leadership, the House Committee on Finance refused to sign off on a number of environmental bills (this might have been true across the board, but I can only speak on behalf of the bills I was tracking). Most observers concluded this was intended to force the Senate to agree to the pension tax.

The Senate refused to go along. And to increase the pressure, the Senate announced all bills needed to be finished before 6:00 pm on Friday, May 6th or the Senate would stop negotiating.

This type of grandstanding has occurred before. When the 6:00 pm deadline passed, most observers assumed that one side or the other, (House or Senate) would blink and a bulk of the bills in conference committee would then be passed.

To the shock of many, when the two budget committees came back at 9:30 pm they had only passed four or five revenue bills (not including the tax on pensions) and promptly declared the session over. Numerous bills that had been held up by the House leadership simply died.

This result was simply stunning. Critical bills died without so much as a whimper. Bills like the one that would have reallocated income from the barrel tax to fund clean energy programs and a bill to charge small fees to fund the Office of Environmental Quality Control, a chronically underfunded and understaffed agency. Bills like the popular proposed fee on paper/plastic bags, which would have provided a big new revenue source as well as create a big environmental benefit. Hordes of lobbyists were seen walking around the capitol in a daze.

But does it really matter HOW it happened this year? Surely they'll come up with another unbelievably corrupt- if not obscure and arcane- way to do it in 2012.

We'll probably forget about all this by the time next January rolls around again and once more ask around for some legislative packages and optimistically pull a few bills for support only to have ulcers and chest pains by the beginning of May; at least this year we probably won't have to sweat out the long list of vetoes and non-releases of authorized funding that marked the Ding-a-Lingle years... which of course includes the really bad bills that creeped though.

And when we do forget, please- hit us in the head with a frying pan and knock us out until it's over.

Pass the Prozac please.

FEED YOUR HEAD

FEED YOUR HEAD: It never fails to amaze how may ways the Hawai`i state legislative system stinks.

It's bad enough when a great bill gets to a conference committee and collapses because no one can agree on a version. But it happens. And it's worse when the rules allow one graft-addled schmuck to kill it.

But of course the ultimate stomach-churner is the poison pill that comes out of nowhere to take a fine piece of legislation that has waited years for its day in the sun and turns it into a revolting piece of crap.

This years toxin-toting villainous vexation comes courteshttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gify of Senator "Dr." Josh Green who has stolen the pilot program to establish medical marijuana distribution centers and is using it to kill virtually the whole medical marijuana program.

According to yesterday's Honolulu Star-Advertiser when Green got done with the bill:


(u)nder the pilot program proposed in Senate Bill 1458, medical marijuana prescriptions would be limited to patients suffering from multiple sclerosis, cancer, HIV, AIDS and/or glaucoma. It would establish a “compassion center” for distribution on an island where the Department of Health determines there is the greatest need, based on the number of prescriptions.

This bonehead Green thinks because he is an emergency room physician he can say who does and who doesn't need the medicine provided through marijuana despite the fact that he doesn't see chronic patients and has no idea what the medical value of marijuana is.

Admittedly there are only volumes of anecdotal evidence that marijuana treats pain better than opiates- which recently have been called out as the most abused drug in the country- and have allowed many to actually throw away their pills.

That's because research has been squelched by anachronistic, reefer-madness, anti-drug zealots who are way too afraid of allowing marijuana's medical value to be proven.

Green has taken it upon himself to alter the bill at this stage of the game after actually passing it out of his own committee without any restrictions on conditions for which a patient can receive a doctor's recommendation.

It would make Hawai`i the first state to restrict doctors from using their own medical judgment in cases of recommendations for medical marijuana.

We'd gotten spoiled the last few years with former Kaua`i Senator Gary Hooser serving as the Senate Majority Leader where he could make sure these types of bills got a fair shot. Same with former Kaua`i North Shore and Kapa`a Rep. Mina Morita in the house where energy and environmental bills were her kuleana.

If indeed the bill does get to the floor in its current form, the only thing left for proponents is to ask senators and representatives to kill the bill or attempt a rare almost unheard of amendment removing Green's amendment from the bill.

You can write all senators at sens@capitol.hawaii.gov and reps at reps@capitol.hawaii.gov and ask them to maintain the pilot program without stripping the medical marijuana program and restricting physicians' ability to make medical decisions for their patients.

INCOMING

INCOMING: It's that's time of year when all the hard work at the legislature pays off like a Vegas slot with three lemons.

But as the members of the firing squad within the conference committee system load their Uzis for next week's inevitable blood bath somehow some bills manage to hide under the sanguine slaughtered and make it to a vote in both chambers.

Of course those measure are usually half of what could have been done with some kind of red tape thrown in just to make sure nothing in done in perpetuity.

And so it goes with this year's reporters' shield legislation which, instead of making it permanent. "extends the limited news media privilege against the compelled disclosure of sources and unpublished information to 6/30/2013." for some idiotic judiciary study that was already done the first time the law passed with a 2011 sunset date.

The Hawai`i law also covers bloggers making a nasty battle over who is a journalist moot for those of us who do reporting along with commentary and analysis.

But it's real import has been in getting people to talk and being able to offer them the added protection of a law that protects us.

For decades we've given assurances to certain sources that we would never reveal their identities, especially when their safety or job security are involved. But that meant convincing them that we would go to jail to protect their identities.

After a few notable cases across the mainland in the last decade where a handful of reporters either cracked or put pressure on their sources to reveal themselves it made people think twice and forced us to abandon some investigative pieces for lack of corroborating or even primary information, despite the fact that we could sit in Kapa`a and smell a story from Kekaha.

With the shield law we have been able to tell those who would expose corruption and wrong doing that our freedom is no longer an issue.

The problem is that it only applies tothe state court system since there is no federal shield law which would have to make its way through congress where it has stalled year after year.

If you have a story to tell us give us a call (we're listed) or drop us an email (gotwindmills(at)gmail.com) and join us in giving thanks for another two years of peace of mind for whistleblowers around the state.

UP ON THE ROOF

UP ON THE ROOF: They say that with age comes wisdom but the real trick may be in getting to be old enough so that others see that what appeared to be a good idea 10 or 15 years ago actually was.

When solar hot water heaters were becoming ubiquitous- back before passage of the Gary Hooser legacy bill requiring new homes to be built with them- we had wondered why utilities shouldn't make it easy to help people finance not just rooftop solar hot water but solar electricity units with zero percent loans that are collected each month to be paid off with the savings the customer was realizing in the billing period.

We assumed that it was opposition from the utilities that was blocking it because, despite lip service to conservation and alternative energy, each was stuck in "we sell electricity to you" paradigm where the more electricity they sold the bigger the profit.

So we went to the State House Energy Committee Chair Mina Morita and asked what it would take would move the legislature off the dime and get them to pass enabling legislation despite the opposition from electric companies.

We assumed that the handful of providers of solar systems would be a good place to start since they could provide the resources to begin the fight.

But shockingly we found out that the main stumbling block was those self-same companies.

Seems that there were only a couple of them at the time and they had all the business they could handle, thank you very much, and they worried that if the government provided for a massive program it would bring oodles of competition into the market, cutting their monopoly into a million little pieces.

Cut to today and amazingly enough, there are plenty solar companies and so House Bill 1520 SD2 has reached a conference committee and appears to be poised for passage despite opposition from- you guessed it- the utility companies.

The bill, introduced by Morita before she left to head the Public Utilities Commission,

Directs the public utilities commission to consider implementing an on-bill financing program for residential electric utility customers to finance purchases of energy efficient or renewable energy devices and systems through their regular electric utility bills.

According to a Sierra Club's Capitol Watch email "Blue Planet Foundation is holding a rally to promote House Bill 1520 SD2 today at the capitol from 12:30-1 p.m."

Although testimony is no longer being taken at this point in the legislative session it couldn't hurt to drop an email of support to representatives (reps@capitol.hawaii.gov) and senators sens@capitol.hawaii.gov) urging their support for this long overdue measure that would start the ball rolling to decentralize carbon-free electricity distribution.

SICK BUT NOT TIRED

SICK BUT NOT TIRED: "Hi, can I ask you something" she almost shouted as we approached her place of business from 40 feet way.

What the heck is this we thought? Kapa`a is turning into barkers' paradise these days as the guy in the chicken suit down the road attested earlier.

But she wasn't trying to sell anything but attempting to buy.

In a heartbreaking story she explained that her husband and she hadn't smoked marijuana for 20 years but now he has a debilitating illness and a small amount someone had given her had given him the first good nights sleep he's had in months.

And this is what it's comes down to these days- people risking not just their job but their freedom to get medicine because of the catch-22 of the current Hawai`i state law that provides for possession of medical marijuana with a doctor's "recommendation" but gives patents no way to actually obtain it without breaking the law.

We were sorry to have to tell her we've been out of the circuit for many years too but were able to give her some hope by telling her that SB1458 SD2 HD3 which "establishes a comprehensive five-year medical marijuana distribution pilot program in an unspecified county" was hanging on by it's teeth as the state legislature draws to it's close.

And this morning, despite reports of it's demise, the bill apparently almost unanimously passed "third reading" in the house and was referred to a conference committee.

And though the bill at one time had inserted Maui as the county where the pilot program would be established, it now leaves the name of the county blank.

Of course the idiocy of leaving the whole program under the Department of Public Safety rather than moving it to the Department of Health where it belongs will apparently be status quo for another year and the measure to legalize possession of less than an ounce is also dead. It's now a matter of seeing what the conference committee will do.

Overall it's been a disappointing year after so many good bills made it through crossover only to die in the other chamber but as long as our insane hurry-up-and-wait legislative system allows single legislators to kill good bills we'll have to fight every year to achieve some degree of sanity on this and a lot of other no-brainer" issues.

AND WE WERE GOING TO TAKE THE DAY OFF

AND WE WERE GOING TO TAKE THE DAY OFF: When is news not news? When it's in our local newspaper in an article penned by journalism’s worst enemy, Leo Azumbuja.

Yes we're tired of criticizing his "work" (note the quotes)- it's too easy.

But today’s article proclaiming that the SuperFerry bill that has been hanging around the legislature is still alive is so disturbingly inaccurate that it constitutes journalistic malpractice.

If you're going to cover the legislature the first rule is to know something about the process and then look at the legislative calendar.

Because despite Azumbuja's lede proclamation that "(t)he economic crisis that refuses to leave the Hawaiian Islands has not been sufficient to sink the idea of a state-run interisland ferry system" the fact is that today is what is known as "Second Decking Deadline" when as "Civil Beat" put it today

The House and Senate must get their respective bills in final form today in order for the measures to be voted on next week and make second crossover April 14.

The deadline to get bills to the House Clerk is 10 p.m., but the Senate Clerk had not announced its deadline as of late yesterday.

Next up: conference committee, which will pretty much consume the last two weeks of the month.

If Azumbuja had bothered to look at the status he'd have noticed that on March 23 it was referred to the Senate Ways and Means (WAM) Committee where it died after failing to be scheduled for a hearing. And since hearings must be noticed 48 hours in advance the bill will not receive an okay from WAM.

He would have also noticed had HE had read the bill, as he accused 16th District Representative Dee Morikawa of failing to do- he'd have noticed that the current bill was amended by the house with a "defective date" of July 1, 2030.

Of course like any bill it can be pulled by the full body for a vote. But that virtually never happens, with last year's civil unions bill being an exception that had even long time legislative correspondents scrambling to find the last time it had happened.

Of course most anyone who really cared about the SuperFerry Bill had, most likely, received a notice from anti-SuperFerry Activist supreme Dick Meyer of Maui last week that the bill was apparently dead after not showing up on the final WAM hearing notice. But for those who rely on the Kaua`i "newspaper of record" to record the actual record it's the same sad story written by a man seemingly incapable of telling one accurately.

SPILL YOUR GUTS

SPILL YOUR GUTS: Like the clockwork of a broken timepiece the legislative session reaches one of its more absurd dances-of-the-headless-chicken, usually once each session when the Council on Revenues (COR) causes all the budget work done to that point to be chucked in the circular file when they apparently use the poor dead poultry's entrails to divine the economic future of the state.

But, as is the case with many broken political systems, the Hawai`i solution is to repeat the screwed-up process until the whole damn thing collapses.

For the uninitiated, the Hawaii legislative budget system is designed to create a balanced budget but it relies on economists- you know those guys who never agree on anything, basing their opinions on what they had for breakfast that day- to predict the revenues the state will pull in during the budget period.

And as if to prove how unreliable it is, they change their projections every time they meet with wild swings based on current events.

And are always- yes always- wrong.

That they meet at all is objectionable. That they schedule a meeting in the middle of the brief four month legislative session- after the governor presents a budget and the lege works on it- is ridiculous. But when they meet a second time- as they did yesterday at the behest of the governor due to the supposed economic effect of the Libyan war and the Japanese earthquake and tsunami- is disgustingly short sighted... although so is the whole process.

So when the COR lowered projected revenues yesterday no one really questioned why because we'd been told in advance by various pinheaded pundits what the cause was.

But the real foolishness was never more apparent than after reading Honolulu Star-Advertiser Capitol Correspondent Derrick DePledge's blog post today where he reveals what may be the real reason for the lowered projections.

After listing the conventional wisdom he notes that the actual amount collected last month was, shockingly, lower than the last projection predicted he writes that:

While the drop could be an anomaly, it could also mean the economy is not recovering as fast as economists believed.

Pearl Iboshi, an economist, and others on the council found the February figure hard to believe. She had a theory for the state Department of Taxation. “Is there a chance that there’s, uh, you know, lots of …”

“A drawer there with a bunch of checks in it?” University of Hawaii-Manoa economist Carl Bonham said.

“Yes, lots of checks,” Iboshi said.

“That somebody forgot to open because everything slowed down?” Bonham said.

A state Department of Taxation staffer slowly nodded her head.

“There is a chance of that?” Jack Suyderhoud, a University of Hawaii-Manoa business economics professor, asked the staffer. “Is that why you’re going like that?”

“That’s not saying yes, but …” Bonham said.

Of course the end of that sentence is "I'm not saying no".

So we suggest gathering up all your spare tea leaves, tarot cards and crystal balls putting them in a box and shipping them off to the COR. They just may be more valuable tools than the ones they're using now.

JETTIN' TO THE PROMISED LAND

JETTIN' TO THE PROMISED LAND: Upon disembarking, many Kaua`i tourist have been heard to happily exclaim that they feel like they just stepped back in time.

And sometimes- not so happily for kama`aina- it feels like even the interisland airlines are actually running a time machine.

How else do you explain the fact that when we wrote about the bizarre anachronistic fear-mongering emanating from the the Kaua`i prosecutor's and police chief's offices that resulted in a semi-aborted "rally" against the scourge of the evil weed, some mainland and even O`ahu readers thought we might be fabricating the extent of the fanaticism.

So thanks goodness they also scheduled flights back to the 21st century- or the Honolulu equivalent.

As loath as we are to give them too much credit, it's apparent that, with a little backing and a little luck, Hawai`i legislators just might be ready to grow up and leave the naysayers mired in their own skewed, self-serving world.

Because, believe it or not, three key bills on marijuana reform have passed the senate, "crossed over," passed first reading on the house side and received committee referrals.

Of course they have a long way to go but never before have any similar measures even gotten out of committee much less crossed over.

The two medical marijuana bills are astounding enough. The first, SB175 SD2, remedies that counter-intuitive set-up contained in the original law that put the program in the Department of Public Safety- the state agency that administers the prison system- and places it where any medical program belongs- in the Department of Health (DOH). That means that, among other things, rather than the "list" of patients being available to law enforcement agencies they will now have to check the participation of individual patients with the DOH.

SB175 SD2 has passed the senate and first reading in the house and been referred to a joint committee of the Heath and Public Safety/Military Affairs and the Finance committee.

One political note: as if to prove how out of touch some on Kaua`i are, the only "no" vote in the senate was from our own Senator, Ron Kouchi, who somehow was elected this past November, perhaps because he has brown-nosed the good old boys' political machine for so long- and had a war chest to prove it- that no one chose to oppose him.

The second bill, SB1458 SB2, remedies other absurdities in the original law by creating a path to "medical marijuana compassion center license(s) for the sale of medical marijuana to qualified patients." It also creates a "medical marijuana cultivation license" and a "medical marijuana-infused products manufacturing license" which would all be further defined and regulated by the DOH through administrative rules- rules which would be subject to public hearings. And for all you fiscal conservatives out there it "(e)stablishes a fee for issuance and renewal of a license and a special marijuana sales tax."

It has also passed the senate and first reading in the house and has been referred to a joint committee of the Heath and Public Safety/Military Affairs and the Finance committee.

The third, SB1460 SD1, is the miracle legislation which "(e)stablishes a civil violation for possession of one ounce or less of marijuana that is subject to a fine of not more than $100, and establishes an adjudicatory structure for its enforcement." That means that even though it would still technically be "illegal," possession of less than an ounce would be treated like a traffic ticket, not a "crime."

SB1460 SD1 also has passed the senate and first reading in the house and will go to a joint committee of the Heath and Public Safety/Military Affairs and the Judiciary committee.

It goes without saying these days that keeping possession by adults of small amounts of marijuana illegal is not only draconian but is costing taxpayers dearly. The only ones who oppose this are apparently those who stand to keep reaping the benefits of appropriations and grants... as well as the cash cow of the forfeiture laws.

The only problem is that all three bills, if passed in their current form, wouldn't take effect until July 1, 2050.

Well, no one can say the legislature doesn't have a sense of humor.

FIND THE RED QUEEN

FIND THE RED QUEEN: You can set your watch- well, maybe your calendar- by it.

As the two minute warning for the first half of the legislature approaches, with “first decking” coming up on Friday, some wiseacre will try to use the old fumbleroosky play- called in the trade “the gut and replace.”

It’s a self explanatory way to get around the constitutional requirement that bills be introduced very early in the session and it tends to come up this week every year- usually this very day, the Tuesday before first decking, when almost every committee is doing “decision making” on all the bills that have been held up for one reason or another over the past month.

While everyone else- including the press- is busy watching their bill of choice, someone will inevitably try to slip in the worst piece of crap ever by gutting a good bill and inserting a horrific one.

This year's crook was Democratic Sen. Brickwood Galuteria, who has gutted SB 671- a bill introduced by Democratic Sen. Les Ihara to tighten up ethics rules on gift giving- and replacing it with another that would entirely blow up any semblance of ethics in gift giving.

But instead of it sneaking through, as has been the habit over the past decades, in the on-line age it dominated the on-line world late yesterday and this morning.

You can read the gory details at Civil Beat or almost any news and politics blog you choose- Dave Shapiro’s, Ian Lind’s and Larry Geller’s.

But only Geller figured out what the out the “rooski” part of the play was for anyone who discovered the fumble and wanted to testify.

He wrote:

Even if you wanted to testify against SB671 SD1, you can’t, because of the way it is set up. If you submit testimony it would be registered under SB671, not the amended version. Now, SB671, as originally written, appears to be a very fine bill. So if you testified in opposition, you’d be opposing that bill. It’s the way the computer is set up. The committee did not provide a way to testify against the new, evil amendment.

That’s right it's not even one of those “no means yes and yes means no” kind of dirty tricks. It’s more like the “head I win, tails you lose” swindle where the con man gets to interpret all the yeses and noes as whatever he wants them to mean.

Ordinarily this would be the part where we post the email address for the Senate Judiciary Committee but actually this time so many people know about the scam that it is apparently covered.

Instead cross your fingers that today’s decision making on moving oversight of medical marijuana from the Department of Public Safety to the Department of Health goes smoothly. Then if this stuff continues to give you headaches you’ll be more likely to have the medicine to help it go away.

WEARING PROTECTION

WEARING PROTECTION: The reporters’ shield law passed by the legislature last year has quickly become an essential tool in the dissemination of information. It has allowed us to give the same confidentiality to sources this year that we have given in past decades only without the fear of having to go to jail for protecting the identities of whistleblowers.

Although we were never put in that situation it’s something that has happened to reporters across the country in states without a shield law. And there is no federal shield law for cases in federal courts.

The new law has allowed us to turn what used to be sometimes agonizing decisions into no-brainers, not just for we reporters but for sources as well who can now pass on information without fear of repercussions.

Of course we’d prefer to always name our sources but, especially on a small island like Kaua`i, we understand some people’s reluctance to come forward and attach their names. It does make our job a little bit more difficult since it often requires extra diligent double-checking for anonymously reported information, especially if there is no document involved.

But in their infinite lack of wisdom legislators put a “sunset date” of June 30, 2011 on the law meaning it must be passed one more time this year without any sunset date.

The good news is that House Bill 1376 passed out of the House Judiciary Committee yesterday with a unanimous vote and seems destined to move over to the Senate where it should have clear sailing.

But the bad news is that, as Civil Beat’s Sara Lin reported yesterday:

The final decision on any proposed extension of the law could ultimately lie with Gov. Neil Abercrombie. We've noted that he was the only Democrat in the U.S. House to vote against a bill that would have protected the confidentiality of reporters' sources in most federal court cases.

It’s hard to imagine his objections but it’s more important than ever that the bill pass both the house and senate with veto-proof majorities. Although no other hearings are currently scheduled it can’t hurt to send letters of support to all representatives (reps@capitol.hawaii.gov) and senators (sens@capitol.hawaii.gov).

Though the law has perceptibly helped us in our reporting over the last year, the assurance of a shield law is doubly important for sources who are now assured that a reporter will not have pick between spending weeks in jail or caving to prosecutors bent on digging out their sources, as has happened in some cases recently.

Help us help you and support HB 1376.

TURNING OVER AND OVER

TURNING OVER AND OVER: It’s hard to say it wasn’t with a degree of weary glee that we watched some of the finally-beaten-down, bible-thumping wackos try one last time to stick their noses into the crotches of same gender couples as the civil unions bill passed out of one final committee hearing.

But the fact that it took years to beat back a handful of church-zombies showed, if nothing else, the vapid nature of most of the legislators in Hawai`i who needed to be shown at the actual voting polls what the telephone polls showed all along.

The thing is that this time the only argument the religion-addled had left was one that they were actually right about- this separate but equal half-measure is ultimately insulting and shameful to everyone in the state and many won’t rest until same gender marriage is the law of the land.

Although we can’t imagine why anyone would want the state to get involved in their relationships, as a civil rights issue it’s well past time for full marriage rights for those that are into that kind of kinky paperwork.

But now that these busybodies have way too much time on their hands again we’re about to go through the whole thing, with the same cast, all over again on the Death With Dignity Bill (SB 803) which was “held” after a hearing Monday, reportedly effectively killing it once again this year.

The bill says it:

Allows a terminally ill, competent adult to receive medication to end life. Prohibits mercy killings, lethal injections, and active euthanasia. Requires informed consent. Allows alternate doctor to replace attending doctor if latter declines to prescribe. Provides immunity from civil and criminal liability for acts taken in good faith. Imposes penalties for unauthorized altering, forging, concealing, destroying, or exerting undue influence in making or rescinding a request for medication. Requires monitor at time of taking dose.

Many of the same entrenched gutless wonders- who didn’t trust, much less know, their own constituency and quaked in their boots at the thought of losing their precious legislative seats if they did the right thing on civil unions- are back allowing the same religious crazies hijack the bill that would allow terminal patients with less than six months to live to avoid the pain and suffering of a prolonged dying process- should they freely chose to do so.

It’s essentially the same issue as civil unions- one of civil rights. The question in both cases is who owns our bodies- us or the god squad.

The problem here is obvious. While it took years, it was an effort to put a human face on the civil unions issue with happy smiling families coming out, so to speak, that made the hate-mongering of the opponents not just apparent but unsettling enough to cause people to vote out the vile opponents in the last election.

But who is to speak for the dead and dying? A corpse who was forced to suffer needlessly tells no tales. And if it did it wouldn’t be as pretty a picture as young, healthy, same gender couples many with children in tow, simply asking for the same future as everyone else.

THROWN OVERBOARD

THROWN OVERBOARD: Most county employees we’ve heard from are still quietly seething over their politically motivated furloughs last year with their ire about equally split between the mayor, the council and their union.

But after seeing tomorrow’s council agenda one group that must be positively apoplectic is the county’s lifeguards.

For those who missed the circus, when furloughs were first discussed Mayor Bernard Carvalho assured the council the “public safety employees” would not be furloughed.

But, long story short, they were- including non-sworn officers in the Kaua`i Police Department (KPD), which caused all kinds of constipation as the prosecutor’s office, already backed up by the furloughs in the state courts, had to begin letting people loose people KPD had arrested because they couldn’t process them as fast as the law required.

After a huge fight over whether money for the prosecutor’s office to “catch up” on the backlog- supposedly created by furloughs- was truly “related to furloughs” (as the bill’s “purpose” stated) the money was included in the bill.

The lifeguards, however were not so lucky. During the first committee meeting on the bill to end furloughs, lifeguard champion Dr. Monty Downs described how, while lifeguards are part of the fire department for administrative purposes- where they were finally placed a while back after years of being what many called “second class heroes”- for union representation, unlike firemen they are stuck in some obscure backwater bargaining unit in Honolulu.

Somehow that left them out of being considered “public safety” employees and, through a series of screw ups and political maneuverings, they were left, not with furloughs but accepting the 5% pay cuts that the rest of their bargaining unit accepted, even while other counties didn’t screw their lifeguards.

But when Downs asked to do what was fair and promised and give them back the 5% that had been stolen from them in the screw up, the council decided that this was not “related to furloughs” and anyway the bill was “looking forward” even though the prosecutor’s office was getting money to clean up the mess left by furloughs in the past.

But "never fear" councilmembers promised- we can take that up in a new bill, which they promised, would be introduced at the next council meeting.

And guess what doesn’t appear on tomorrow’s council agenda? A money bill to make the lifeguards whole like the rest of the public safety workers.

This wouldn’t be the first time that assurances given during council debate are forgotten when the gavel bangs and the meeting adjourned.

You can reach councilmembers at councilmembers@kauai.gov and ask them why they’ve seemingly forgotten the lifeguards.

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The House Judiciary Committee has scheduled a Thursday, February 10, 2011, 2:00 p.m. hearing on HB 343 (Status) which would allow election day voter registration.

Advance registration is an anachronism and more and more states have gone to same day registration without any problems.

If you care about voter turnout this bill is essential.

As always testimony can be emailed to JUDtestimony@capitol.hawaii.gov or submitted via the web at http://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/emailtestimony and must include the testifier's name with position/title and organization, the committee the comments are directed to, the date and time of the hearing and the measure number.

WRONG PLACE, RIGHT TIME

WRONG PLACE, RIGHT TIME: Today’s 3 p.m. State Senate hearing of a bill (SB 1460) that would make “possession of one ounce or less of marijuana... a civil violation for that is subject to a fine of not more than $100” got some press today.

That joint hearing of the Senate Judiciary and Labor and Health Committees took up a measure that would not only decriminalize possession of less than an ounce but also eliminate a lot of other inappropriate and draconian penalties like requiring substance abuse treatment and eliminating any “intent to distribute” charges for simple possession of pakalolo.

(Update: SB1460 passed JDL/HTH 5-0 and now goes to Ways and Means [WAM])

Also on the agenda at the same meeting was a hearing on the much publicized bill (SB1458) which among other things would establish licensure for “medical marijuana compassion center license for the sale of medical marijuana to qualified patients.”

You can submit late testimony and track the two measures but for many the real action this year is in a bill being heard next week to transfer jurisdiction of medical marijuana from the Department of Public Safety to the Department of Health (DOH).

Bill SB175 would do what should have been done when the legislature first legalized medical cannabis- something done in all other states that allow the practice- instead of setting up the seeming contradictory placement of a legal use under a department that deals with illegal matters.

That has resulted in rules that provide lists of patients to be circulated and kept by law enforcement and allows for preemptive, warrantless raids on patients homes without probable cause and even an incident of the release of a list to the press on the Big Island.

The bill would require all new administrative rules under DOH and eliminate the absurd and potentially abusive oversight of the program by those who actually oppose medical marijuana.

This could be the year after an aborted attempt last session under former Governor Linda Lingle.

The bill is on the agenda for a joint hearing of the Senate’s Committee On Public Safety, Government Operations, And Military Affairs and the Committee On Health, next Tuesday, February 8 at 2:45 p.m. You can track the bill here.

Those wishing to testify can email it to PGMTestimony@Capitol.hawaii.gov, making sure to include the measure, date and time of the hearing.

Easier still is the automatic handy-dandy, fill-in-the-blank email page the Senate provides at http://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/emailtestimony/.
And some good news. Though it still has to get through the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senate Bill 174 has already quietly passed out of the Committee on Health. It would “(r)emoves marijuana and tetrahydrocannabinols from the schedule I controlled substances list and places them in the schedule III controlled substances list”.

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Update: Despite testimony in overwhelming support of the bill (which we detailed on Monday) to select county ethics board members from a list provided by an independent body from Common Cause Hawaii, The League Of Women Voters Of Hawai`i, Americans for Democratic Action/Hawai`i, Rolf Bieber, Larry Geller, Richard Spacer and PNN- and no testimony in outright opposition- HB468 was deferred after last Tuesday’s House Judiciary Committee.

However, the Senate Public Safety, Government Operations, and Military Affairs (PGM) Committee has scheduled a public hearing on the companion bill SB214 a week from tomorrow- Saturday 2/12- at 9:00AM. The senate is probably where the action will be on this one since it was introduced by six senators whereas the house version was introduced by only one representative.

If you sent testimony to the house please resend it to the Senate PMG committee at PGMTestimony@Capitol.hawaii.gov. If you didn’t, now is your chance. As always include the measure, date and time of the hearing. Or use the email page the Senate provides at http://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/emailtestimony/.

SOMEONE UP THERE IS LISTENING

SOMEONE UP THERE IS LISTENING: The mockery of ethics that is the Kaua`i Board of Ethics (BOE- just click the link for our coverage of their many foibles) has been a source of laughs-o-plenty for those like us who have a perverse sense of humor.

But that could end- or at least be curtained- if a bill in the state legislature, set for a hearing tomorrow (Tuesday, 2/1/11) at 2 p.m., passes this year.

County ethics board members are selected, not for their sense of ethical stridency but, often for being so personally conflicted that their decisions have to apply to themselves, necessitating twisted logic in clearing county officials and employees even when a child could see the ethical violations.

And of course they are appointed by the mayor and confirmed by the council- the very people upon whom they could potentially sit in judgment.

That would change if House Bill HB468 becomes law.

In proposing the law the bill explains that”

Article XIV of the Constitution of the State of Hawaii provides in pertinent part: "Ethics commissioners shall be selected in a manner which assures their independence and impartiality." Each member of the state ethics commission is appointed by the governor from a list of two persons nominated by the judicial council. The Hawaii supreme court appoints members of the judicial council, which does not include legislators. In contrast, members of the Honolulu ethics commission are appointed by the mayor and confirmed by the Honolulu city council, both of which are subject to oversight by the county ethics commission.

The legislature further finds that, in order to effectuate article XIV of the Hawaii State Constitution, the process for selecting members of county ethics commissions should not involve persons who are subject to regulation by ethics commissions.

The purpose of this Act is to provide standards for the selection of county ethics commissioners to ensure their impartiality and independence.

The bill “provides standards for the selection of county ethics commission members to ensure their impartiality and independence” by creating an independent body to select BOE nominees.

It proposes amending Chapter 46 of Hawaii Revised Statutes to say

(a) Each county shall cause to be adopted a charter amendment for the creation of an independent body that shall select members of the county ethics commission. Members of the independent body shall not be subject to confirmation by the county legislative body and shall not be subject to the jurisdiction of the ethics commission of their county. To ensure minimal involvement in the process by persons over which the commission has oversight, members of each county ethics commission shall be appointed:

(1) From a list of nominees selected by the independent body; or

(2) In accordance with comparable alternative selection methods as provided by county ordinance.

(b) Each county shall have a selection process in place that meets the criteria for any appointment made after the effective date of this part.

It also includes criteria for the independent body to use in their selections:

Character of county ethics commissioners. A county ethics commissioner shall be selected on the basis of integrity, impartiality, and independence, as reflected by, among other things, the background and experiences of the person and the absence of potential conflicts of interest; provided that county ordinance may provide for additional criteria.

While it won’t change who ultimately selects the board members- it’s kind of hard or even impossible to have appointment processes that fully omit elected officials- it will make the list of prospective nominees subject to public scrutiny and independent selection.

We are kind of concerned about the line that provides for a “comparable alternative selection methods as provided by county ordinance” and would like to see it, if not deleted, at least clarified so as to make it clear what “comparable” means.

Please take the time to send testimony even if it’s just one line saying “I support this bill.” Though you may not think so, they really do listen sometimes. And they certainly won’t if no one sends in any testimony.

Time is of the essence. Testimony should be emailed to JUDtestimony@capitol.hawaii.gov

Use the subject line: Testimony on HB 468, 2/1/11, 2 p.m., JUD Committee hearing

As with all House testimony make sure you include:
The testifier's name with position/title and organization;
The committee the comments are directed to;
The date and time of the hearing;
The measure number.

Few have forgotten the BOE and the KC Lum fiasco where a complaint by the chair of the council was used to railroad a police commissioner resulting in Lum’s departure.

And many remember what happened to Rolf Bieber who was refused re-appointment after trying to bring some ethical standards to the BOE.

Although this bill won’t solve all the problems with the BOE it would strengthen the independence of the board members and provide for public input on the selection as well as set standards for the independent body to use in their picks.

The companion Senate Bill SB214, has not yet scheduled for a hearing.

Also on the agenda for tomorrow’s meeting are two other bills of note that we whole-heartedly support.

HB 638 (Status) Relating To Elections:
Provides for instant runoff voting for all elections in which no primary election is held; authorizes the chief election officer or the county clerk to use the instant runoff voting method in special elections that would normally require a separate runoff election if no candidate received a majority of votes.

And one more, near and dear to our heart.

HB 640 (Status) Relating To Public Agency Meetings
Requires any action taken in an executive meeting be reported when the board reconvenes at the open meeting.

Testimony on these two can go to the same address, substituting the bill number in the subject line.

A PERMANENT TIME OUT

A PERMANENT TIME OUT: Our foaming rant last week suggesting that the actions of those that want to shove their devout delusions down our throats have ripened the time for the rest of us to convince our legislators to remove those 10 little marriage defining words (“which shall be only between a man and a woman”) didn’t mean to suggest that true homophobia was the sole domain of religious fanatics.

There are plenty of fear-gripped family folks whose insecurities over their own sexuality make them think they have the right to tell the rest of the world how and who to “love honor and cherish”.

These are the bozos who, though they can’t seem to articulate why, think that somehow allowing same sex couples to marry will devalue their own mom-dad-sis-bub, white-picket-fence-and-a-mortgage, child-abusing bickerfests.

We’re under no delusions that suddenly a majority of legislators and our new avowed anti-same-sex-marriage governor will suddenly see the absurdity of their “separate but equal” solution contained in last session’s HB 444.

But what they may do could, in the end, turn out to be the ultimate irony for these sociopaths who want to make sure that BTLG folks remain second-class citizen.

We were reminded again today of a “solution” that had traction among many if not most civil unions proponents and political pundits during the 2010 Legislature.

As a letter to the editor of the local Kaua`i newspaper suggested,

the government should get out of the marriage business all together and not issue marriage licenses to anyone. Instead, all couples would be issued a civil-union license. Couples who felt the need for the sacrament of marriage could go to their church. It would be up to the individual churches whether or not to perform the marriage ceremony. This way all couples would be in the same boat. We would all have equal standing under the law and the issue of how the Bible defines marriage would be in the hands of the churches where it belongs.

As a matter of fact, at one point last session there was a version of HB 444 that would have done just that. It was only nixed due to circumstances surrounding the last minute political process needed to bring the committee-withheld version of the bill to the floor for a house vote on the last day.

Wouldn’t it be deliciously ironic if these childish little cry-babies got their comeuppance for refusing to share their “right” to marry by having mommy and daddy essentially say “if you’re going to fight over it we’re going to take it away from both of you”?

We have no love lost over the demise of an institution that has been used simply to oppress since time immemorial... an institution whose time has been “up” for decades.

Funny, it’s these same types who want to government out of their lives. In this case, we say “gladly”.

WHY SAY YOU WILL WHEN YOU WON’T?

WHY SAY YOU WILL WHEN YOU WON’T?: What a difference a year makes.

As the ’09 legislative session approached, the bigot community was whipping up a frenzy among assorted churchies, causing legislators to quake in their flip flops at the prospect of being voted out of office if they dared slap same-gendered couples in the face by granting them all the same rights as marriage but reminding them they were still to be dehumanized with denial of marriage itself.

But guess what. Not only did all but one legislator (and he had other problems) who voted for the HB 444 civil unions bill get reelected but a slew of those who either voted against or opposed the bill were tossed aside on their biblically-bridled butts.

This year a new civil unions bill will be introduced and, most likely, dispatched and signed into law post haste. But despite the fact that since 2004, five states- Connecticut, Iowa, New Hampshire, Vermont and Massachusetts- and the District of Columbia have legalized gay marriage, we still continue to enshrine intolerance and parochialism in our laws.

Ever since the constitutional amendment passed in the narrow-minded frenzy of fear in 1998 the legislature been allowed to perpetuate the denial of human rights to same gender couples.

Now, the real shame of Hawai`i resides in Chapter 572 of Hawai`i Revised Statute which begins with the words:

§572-1 Requisites of valid marriage contract. In order to make valid the marriage contract, which shall be only between a man and a woman, it shall be necessary that: (emphasis added)

Ten words. That’s all that stands between real civil rights and the pseudo civility of civil unions.

The question is whether there is one legislator who has the fortitude and the temerity to introduce a bill striking those 10 words from HRS.

A year ago it was hard to find legislators who weren’t fearful of being tossed out if they voted for civil unions. But in the wake of last week’s vote only creed-clouded cretins can be as delusional as to think that things haven’t changed 180 degrees since 1998.

The only question now is whether the 76 normally gutless wonders will take real action to establish the “civil rights” they claim to support.

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We’re taking tomorrow off. Be back Friday.