Lawmakers forgot something
By Lee Cataluna
Advertiser Staff Writer
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"We nixed those bad traffic cams! We heard your cries!
"We tangled with the big oil companies. We'll fight for the little guy!
"We stood up to the drug companies and the beverage industry! We're not afraid!
"And most of all, we did all these things in an election year! We didn't play it safe! No political games here!"
Except in the end, very little was actually accomplished. Same game, just slightly different rules. Instead of do-nothing, it was "do something, but put it off so far into the future that we it'll never see the light of day."
Bottle bill? Sure. In 2005. That'll give the beverage industry and the supermarkets lots of time to convince us to throw out the law. And in the meantime, they'll be handing out healthy campaign donations.
Gas cap? Not until 2004. That'll be more than enough time for the oil companies to sic their lawyers on the state.
Hawai'i prescription drug program? Sounds good, but there's all that time up until January 2005 to point out all the holes that will make it impossible to implement.
But the worst thing of all is not that lawmakers passed headline-making measures without truly committing to them. The worst thing of all isn't even all the wasted time, energy and money over the traffic cam lunacy. The worst thing of all is that, once again, these people we elected did nothing for the schools.
They established a joint Senate-House educational governance task force to look into how to make education more community-centered. More bureaucracy to figure out how to make less bureaucracy. Great.
They set up a tuition reimbursement program for teachers with a Joel Fleischman Northern Exposure-type requirement. Teachers who graduate from UH have to work six consecutive years for the DOE to get their student loan forgiven. Six years as a teacher in a state that underpays its teachers so you can pay for your degree. Some incentive.
Did we get whammied with mass amnesia or something? Wasn't this legislative session supposed to be about education? Wasn't that the big rallying cry as lawmakers dusted off their navy blue polyester suits, their reverse-print aloha shirts and American flag lapel pins and headed into session? Wasn't this the year that all those good people with their bright ideas and best intentions were going to fix Hawai'i's public schools, or at least give them a fighting chance?
What happened?
They did nothing.
Lee Cataluna's column runs Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at 535-8172 or lcataluna@honoluluadvertiser.com.
