COMMENTARY
More access needed to budget bill
By Rep. Lynn Finnegan and Rep. Mark Moses
As Hawai'i state legislators and as advocates of increasing government transparency, we have been reading with great interest the recent articles and commentary related to the "sunshine law." One commentary that particularly rang true was Sen. Les Ihara's piece, "Lift veil between Legislature, citizens." He accurately pointed out how the Legislature has a less-than-stellar record on open government and how there remains a chasm between lawmakers and the public.
Sunshine laws — or access laws — are mandated, in some form, in every state in the country. These laws define a legal process by which government information is available to the public. Hawai'i's sunshine law is intended to allow the public to be informed and participate in state and county board meetings — but Hawai'i's sunshine law does not apply to the Legislature. Consequently, as Ihara suggests, much of the public is disconnected from the legislative process and feels that lawmakers are "operating under a cloak of secrecy."
Rather than reiterate the points in his article, we wanted to flesh out some points with recent examples of government practices. Let's look at the House procedures for amending the state budget, the most important bill every year.
It's a physically large bill, over 200 pages, and it covers all of the departments and has many appropriations. It doesn't include sums and certainly doesn't include details. If we gave you a copy of the budget bill and let you read it over for two days, we would challenge you to answer some presumably basic questions:
You could not, because the budget bill needs to be read in conjunction with something we call "budget worksheets" to understand some of the details. These "worksheets" are more than 600 pages and are specifically excluded from the scope of the Uniform Information Practices Act, or Hawai'i's Open Record Law.
If you were an employee of a particular department in need of funding, the state budget might interest you. If you wanted, you could view the budget online, because the bill is posted on the Internet for 48 hours between the first two floor votes, in accordance with the state constitution.
The first floor vote was Friday, March 10, and the draft and worksheets were filed and posted on the Internet later that day, when we were in session. The second vote was on Monday at noon. So the public had that weekend to review the budget bill.
One weekend is not enough time for those concerned to discuss the bill with affected departments, because department employees are not available on the weekends.
We wonder how many members of the public who were interested in the budget knew the bill was posted online that weekend? How many knew that the "budget worksheets" were posted online and took the time to print out a 600-plus page document, along with the 200-plus page amended budget, and pored through it? I know that we did. It was not the most fun way to spend a weekend, but it comes along with the job.
But the state budget is not only important to us, because it's our job, it is important to the people — because it affects everybody. The public should have been given more warning and notice that the budget bill was going to be online and there should have been a longer window for people to view it. If you were one of those who did not know you could have viewed the bill, you are probably wondering what discrepancy the Legislature overlooked that will impact you.
So, while House leadership met the technical requirements of the law by posting the budget bill for 48 hours, the procedure certainly did not come close to the spirit of the sunshine law.
These are the types of actions that cause people to "feel disconnected from the Legislature and left out of the process," as Ihara so eloquently stated.
As Rep. Colleen Meyer recently said: "The critical balance of access to information and the ability to move forward in government will create a more meaningful and fruitful democracy."
We hope our colleague Sen. Ihara will not have to go through the same machinations when the Senate prepares its draft of the budget. But the sun is setting fast in the square building.
Rep. Lynn Finnegan, R-32nd ('Aliamanu, Airport, Mapunapuna), and Rep. Mark Moses, R-40th (Makakilo, Kapolei, Royal Kunia), wrote this commentary for The Advertiser.
