By Lee Cataluna
Advertiser Columnist

The legislative session came to a close yesterday with a lackluster rendition of "Hawai'i Aloha" where the traditional singing and swaying became more like mumbling and wobbling.

Sigh.

But we learned something this session. They showed us their weak spot.

Perhaps the most telling proposal of the 2004 session was the infamous "vexatious requester" bill.

Senate Bill 3185 would have allowed the state Office of Information Practices to proclaim someone an official troublemaker and thus limit that person's requests for government documents.

A committee report reads:

". . . this measure will alleviate pressure on government agency personnel to respond to unnecessarily burdensome requests that are made for purposes other than those for which the Uniform Information Practices Act was enacted. This measure will allow government agencies to make timely responses to legitimate requests for government records."

And it would allow government agencies to put the cold freeze on anyone they thought was asking for too many copies of records, tying up fax and copy machines for hours and generally getting in the way of productive government office work.

The House killed the bill on Monday.

The whole exercise, though, reveals what our beloved bureaucrats are most afraid of: They fear people who won't leave stuff alone. They don't like people who won't give up.

Granted, there's tenacious, then there's vexatious, then there's full-blown nuts. But this bill had the potential to blur the lines between diagnosable obsessive and just really determined. Vexatiousness is a subjective judgment on the part of the vexed. Supporters of the bill said it would have potentially affected only a handful of people, but if that's true, why need legislation? Why not a face-to-face ho'oponopono? Or ho'omalimali, as the case may be.

Testimony in support of this measure was submitted by the Office of the Lieutenant Governor; Department of the Attorney General; Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism; Department of Human Services; Department of Public Safety; and the Senate majority attorney.

It would seem that they feel there are members of the public who ask too much of them. They don't want to deal with them. They don't want to talk to them. They don't even want to ignore them. They want legislation to banish these badgerers who force them to ... do stuff!

So now we know the bureaucratic kryptonite. It's tenacity. It's asking questions and demanding a response.

While watching the glazed-over lawmakers bobbing and humming through "Hawai'i Aloha," it seemed to be that they could stand to be vexed.

Lee Cataluna's column runs Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at 535-8172 or lcataluna@honoluluadvertiser.com.