Disappeared News

by Larry Geller

You’ve read about “gut and replace” here, at Civil Beat, and in the Honolulu Weekly. It’s a deplorable practice that enables the Legislature to get rid of bills that advance but that the leadership doesn’t like, or to sneakily introduce language into a bill that has not been heard by prior committees. Common Cause has just issued a press statement on transparency in government that mentions this practice. We’ll get to it in a minute.

“Gut and replace” is often accompanied by falsification of the public record. For example, at issue in two of the Honolulu Weekly articles was whether former state senator Carol Fukunaga was the introducer of a certain bill or not. She introduced a bill, but the text was hijacked. Her name was still on it as introducer. She had nothing to do with the bill after the language was changed, so the record was false. But without keeping the names of introducers, the “gut and replace” could not stand, so she’s stuck as the introducer of the gutted language.

Another example that hurt: in 2006, SB1061, which called for the prohibition of contributions during the legislative session (which is exactly what I’ve been writing about these past couple of days!) advanced with unanimous support in the Senate, only to be gutted and replaced in the House with evil language that attacked Hawaii’s Sunshine Law. Oh, the caper took place during Sunshine Week, which began again in Hawaii and elsewhere today!

The evil language attracted some testimony from those who knew about it, and so SB1061 was defeated. But the public record shows that the original SB1061 was defeated, which was not true.

“Gut and replace” cannot be managed without the connivance of legislative leadership. That was the case in 2006 and it is the case now.

Ok, on to the Common Cause statement. I know, I should write something myself. You’ve heard enough from me, and their statement is better anyway.

Honolulu, HI -In light of Sunshine Week - a week dedicated to promoting access to government information -- the League of Women Voters of Hawaii (LWVHI) and Common Cause Hawaii (CCHI) are releasing their observations of the first half of the 2013 Legislative Session. "We want to call attention to the State House and Senate performance in the areas of openness and transparency of their legislative process," said LWVHI President Beppie Shapiro.

The citizen groups have been tracking the number of "gut and replace" bills and waivers of public hearing notice requirements for each chamber.

"Gut and replace" is a much-deplored practice by which a bill which has been progressing in the Legislature is hi-jacked by Legislative leaders to serve a different purpose. The number and title of the bill are left unchanged, but without public notice the original content of the bill is gutted and replaced by new content. Often the public and even some legislators are unaware of the change until it's too late to do anything about it.

The House had no "gut and replace bills" this session, compared to seven in 2012. Janet Mason, League of Women Voters of Hawaii legislative chair, stated: "We commend the House for using short form bills instead of resorting to gutting and replacing the contents of other bills. I'm sure the public appreciates this, as well as limiting its waivers of House hearing notice requirements."

The Senate had eight gut and replace bills this session, the same as in 2012, even though short form bills could have been used instead of other senators' bill with different contents. Additionally, the Senate invited testimony only on proposed bill drafts, and not on the bills scheduled for hearing. "We must call out the unnecessary practice of gut and replace, which denies the public the opportunity to testify on bills scheduled for hearing," stated Carmille Lim, Common Cause Hawaii executive director.

As in last session, the House waived its 48-hour hearing notice requirement (designed to let the public submit testimony and/or plan to attend a hearing) one time, but the hearing involved eight bills, and the waiver allowed only one hour and 45 minutes' notice for receiving testimony on these bills. In 2012 the Senate waived its 72-hour hearing notice requirement six times, but so far this session, the Senate had no such waivers. "We thank the Senate for its perfect record of no waivers of its 72-hour hearing notice requirement" said Janet Mason, LWVHI Legislative Chair.

The League of Women Voters of Hawaii, and Common Cause Hawaii appreciate the efforts of the new House and Senate leaders to increase transparency in the legislative process, and support them in making additional improvements as the Session continues.

The League of Women Voters is a nonpartisan organization to encourage informed citizen participation in government and politics. www.lwv-hawaii.com

Common Cause is a nonpartisan, grassroots organization dedicated to reinventing an open, honest and accountable government that serves the public interest and empowering ordinary people to make their voices heard in the political process. www.commoncause.org/HI

Permalink posted by Larry @ 3/11/2013 04:39:00 PM