EDITORIAL
Failed legislation often adds up to a positive
There are many ways to measure a legislative session. One is to take stock of the bills that passed through the arduous process.
Another, and in some ways equally significant, is to look at legislation that failed to pass. Oftentimes, significant failures and successes are judged by the ideas that fail to make it to the governor's desk.
That is certainly true with the 2004 session of the Hawai'i Legislature. Herewith is a look at handful of issues that failed to win legislative approval in 2004.
Bills that deserved to fail:
• Vexatious requesters. This would have allowed the Office of Information Practices to put limits on people who overburden the office with requests for public information. While everyone sympathizes with the plight of bureaucrats who are plagued by folks whose sole purpose in life appears to be make a nuisance of themselves, this idea would have closed the door slightly to free and full access to public information.
• Convention Center. This proposal would have allowed the state-financed and -supported Hawai'i Convention Center to keep secret the identities of groups who book the center for meetings. While the secrecy proposal may have had some commercial advantages, it was inappropriate for a public facility.
• Campaign spending. There was serious talk about putting the state Campaign Spending Commission under the control of the state Senate. This ill-considered bill would have signaled that lawmakers are unwilling to see their spending and fund-raising practices reviewed by anyone outside of their control.
• Student drug testing. While the entire community is concerned about drug use by young people, this proposal for random drug testing would have created an atmosphere of distrust among students, parents and school officials.
• Compliance resolution. Lawmakers tinkered with the idea of taking the money paid into the Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs through licensing fees, fines and the like and placing it in the general fund. This would have wiped out the fact that this department is completely self-supporting, posing no direct burden on the taxpayers.
The attempt did have one positive element, however: The department has pledged to return excess collections to local businesses through the reduction of fees.
