Posted on: Thursday, May 1, 2003

EDITORIAL
Lawmakers incapable of self-regulation

The Legislature's repeated failure to pass meaningful campaign finance reform suggests it may simply not be humanly possible for lawmakers to write successful laws governing their own behavior.

So may we suggest a different approach? Why not set up an independent commission to study and draft proposals concerning issues where there is a direct potential legislative conflict of interest, such as ethics rules and campaign contribution limits.

It would be akin to the federal Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission, which grew out of congressional failure to close unnecessary military bases.

In this case, Hawai'i lawmakers could accept or reject the commission's package, but they couldn't tweak it.

The appointment of commission members would be up to various state leaders, such as the governor, the House speaker, the Senate president, the Hawai'i Supreme Court chief justice.

Of course, we can't guarantee such a commission would be entirely free of political meddling, but at least its members won't have a personal stake in the legislation they create. Because at this rate, if we leave the fate of campaign finance reform in the hands of the Legislature, we may never see any real change.