Posted on: Thursday, July 10, 2003

EDITORIAL
Two-party system appears viable for now

Like or hate the results, the just-concluded special session of the Legislature demonstrates something approaching equilibrium between its two major political parties.

Democrats showed they could still line up a two-thirds vote in each house to override six of Gov. Linda Lingle's vetoes.

Republican power in the Legislature showed when Democrats didn't even try to override Lingle's 44 other vetoes.

The most momentous change wrought by the special session, one showing continuing union clout in Hawai'i, was the override of Lingle's veto of a bill restoring binding arbitration in labor disputes involving about 25,000 public workers represented by the HGEA.

The public now benefits by not being subjected to disruptive strikes. But our experience has been that arbitrators have awarded pay raises without adequate consideration of the state's overall financial condition.

Arbitrators aren't obliged to consider that when one union wins a raise, the other public unions feel equally deserving — even though the total expense may force cuts in social programs and education.

If Republicans remained the weaker party in the Legislature, their power was greatly enhanced by the powers of the governor. This is clearly shown in the Democratic override of the governor's line-item vetoes in a social services spending bill, Senate Bill 1305. Even though the spending is now restored, Lingle can still refuse to release any of the appropriations in the bill.

Override of her veto on this bill, however, may help her to rescind, without legal mess, her line-item veto of funding for Kahuku Hospital, over which she experienced a change of heart.

Cynics who say the special session was all about partisan politics must not have witnessed Sen. Suzanne Chun Oakland's tearful and impassioned defense of funding for the social safety net.

The appearance of two healthy parties in Hawai'i signals a debate over the state's approach to the most vulnerable in society. Lingle has said the state can't afford to help these people with money from the state's rainy-day fund. Democrats disagreed, and succeeded in restoring some of that funding — but Lingle isn't obliged to spend it.