Thursday, February 11, 2016
Shenanigans continue—House waives 48 hour notice, to heck with the public
by Larry Geller
The purpose of the 48-hour notice rule is so that the public may participate meaningfully in the legislative process. If you wanted to attend a hearing or give testimony, shortening the notice cheats you of your opportunity to be heard.
Yes, the rule may be waived. Rep. Angus McKelvey (Chair, CPC Committee) requested a waiver for bills heard yesterday at 2:10 p.m. for decision making today at 5:00 p.m.
I just found out about it. No, I don’t want to attend the decision making that will take place in just a few minutes from now, but if I did, I couldn’t get there on time.
The Speaker should ideally “just say no” to these requests. But don’t hold your breath.
There was another.
EDB Chair Derek Kawakami asked for a waiver of the 48 hour notice to hear HB1588 and HB2160 tomorrow at 10:30 a.m.
Why do I post pictures of the committee chairs? It’s too easy, should a reporter cover any of these bills, to write that “decision making on these bills was deferred until…”, for example. The passive voice hides the information that someone did something. In this case, a committee chair decided to disregard the public interest. That should be documented.
Perhaps one day the shenanigans will stop.
I'm sorry, but notices of EVERY SINGLE bill is made public and accessible to the people the first week of session opening. People need to be responsibl and follow their bill(s) of interest and submit his/her testimony as soon as they are able. The 48 hour notice is a COURTESY.
Tracy, it's not a courtesy, it's a rule:
11.5. Committee Meetings.
(1) Meetings, including decision-making sessions, of standing committees shall be public. Notice shall be publicly posted or announced on the House floor at least forty-eight hours prior to the meeting. Except for notices posted by the Committee on Finance, notice shall be posted before 4:30 p.m. on the last day of the work week for a hearing to be held on the following Monday or Tuesday. Notice of meetings may be shortened at the discretion of the Speaker upon request on the House floor by a chair or vice-chair and upon good cause shown.
Clearly, a person can't follow a bill that has as little as a couple of hours notice (that has happened). You might not be staring at the computer screen at just that time in order to catch it.
Exactly! We live in Hawaii...we're all working one or two jobs just to make ends meet and we're not sitting around staring at our computers. The notice gives us time to find out what is going to hearing, what has been killed, etc so we have time to send emails and make calls (which I usually wait and do during my lunch breaks).
So how many bills come out per week ? And how much pages per bill ? And week is ample ? If all the public has is a week then the making of a bill should have a dead line of a half a week ! Thats their job so if we the public has a deadline then so shall it be for bill presenters! Another bill that should be brought foward ! Deadlines on a bill will not preceed a week as it is required for the public only a week to acess all bills ! So shall all bills be concluded ! Accountability !
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