ISLAND VOICES
When one nay trumped five ayes

Sen. Les Ihara Jr. (D-Kaimuki, Palolo) is a 10-year veteran of the Senate.

On Friday, legislative leaders repealed an unfair rule that gave certain legislators more votes than others. This came a few days before a fourth annual attempt to repeal the rule.

The rule applied to House and Senate conference committees that give final approval on major bills. Most chairs of these committees could cast a single negative vote that equaled all votes on the committee.

Imagine one chair voting "nay" while five other members vote "aye." For the last three years, only in Hawai'i, one "nay" outvoted all the "ayes" — because of the chair veto rule.

Citizens should be credited for finally getting the rule repealed. A small group of self-proclaimed "do-gooders" worked for a month to mobilize grass-roots citizen support for repealing the chair veto rule.

Many people signed petitions, groups adopted resolutions, and e-mails were sent to legislators urging its repeal.

Many of these now-active citizens believe the chair veto rule helped scuttle the major campaign reform bill of 2003 by creating abnormal power in the conference committees.

All House and Senate conferees agreed on campaign reform, except one chair, whose controversial demands prevailed. Faced with a possible veto, the committees had to agree; otherwise the bill would die.

In the end, the bill died due to majority opposition on the House and Senate floor. This shows how the rule gave a conference chair dictatorial powers over the committee's majority.

It took pro-democracy forces in Hawai'i three years to persuade legislators to repeal the chair veto rule. Thankfully, legislative leaders heard the public's plea. I applaud the Hawaii Pro-Democracy Initiative for its leadership, and all the people who helped.

Can this new-found citizen activism and success help advance the cause of good government in Hawai'i? I hope so, because in recent years, most ethics, campaign reform and open-government bills have died in the Legislature.

To find out how to help, go to www.newhawaii.org.