A legislator who has been following my use of Hawaii’s Uniform Information Practices Act to obtain emails from the governor’s office asked nervously whether the same law could be used to seek public access to legislative emails. I answered that it probably does. But on reflection, that answer was probably wrong.

Hawaii’s law clearly applies to email. Here’s the definition of a government record as defined by the statute:

“Government record” means information maintained by an agency in written, auditory, visual, electronic, or other physical form.

And the Legislature is certainly a state agency.

Agency” means any unit of government in this State, any county, or any combination of counties; department; institution; board; commission; district; council; bureau; office; governing authority; other instrumentality of state or county government; or corporation or other establishment owned, operated, or managed by or on behalf of this State or any county, but does not include the nonadministrative functions of the courts of this State.

Generally, government records are considered public.

All government records are open to public inspection unless access is restricted or closed by law.

So far, it looks like legislative email would be subject to disclosure.

BUT…now we come to the exceptions laid out in Section 92F-13, one of which specifically apples to certain legislative records. The following are among the records that would not have to be disclosed:

(5) Inchoate and draft working papers of legislative committees including budget worksheets and unfiled committee reports; work product; records or transcripts of an investigating committee of the legislature which are closed by rules adopted pursuant to section 21-4 and the personal files of members of the legislature.

That last clause, “and the personal files of members of the legislature”, clearly means that a legislator’s own email, along with other personal files, would not have to be disclosed. Staff email might have to be made public, although I can see a legislator arguing that these emails are among their personal records.

Two other exemptions might also be relied on to avoid disclosure. One exempts records that would be a “clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy”, and the second that exempts records which “must be confidential in order for the government to avoid the frustration of a legitimate government function.”

The Office of Information Practices issued an opinion in April 2000 concerning legislative records.

The OIP advised that a government agency has the discretion to withhold from public disclosure information that it maintains as part of its decision-making function pursuant to the deliberative process privilege under section 92F-13(3), Hawaii Revised Statutes, so long as the information is not mandated to be disclosed under section 92F-12, HRS. To qualify for this privilege, the deliberative material must have been created before the adoption of an agency policy and must be “a direct part of the deliberative process in that it makes recommendations or expresses opinions on legal policy matters.”

So I expect to hear a collective sigh of relief when I arrive at the capitol later today.

Most eyes yesterday were on the all-day hearing of the House Committee on Agriculture on SB 958, which would establish a 10-year moratorium on research on genetically modified taro.

But I was checking out SB 3203 SD1, “Relating to animal hoarding”, which is scheduled for a public hearing this afternoon before the House Judiciary Committee.

It sets up a three part test to define the offense of animal hoarding. The first part of the test:

A person commits the offense of animal hoarding if the person: (a) Negligently possesses more than a typical number of pet animals…”

But what is “a typical number”? And does our current count of nine cats exceed that magic number?

Here’s the answer from Senate Standing Committee Report 2704:

Your Committee notes that a 1999 research study of fifty-four hoarding cases found that the median number of animals hoarded was thirty-nine per case. In contrast, the American Veterinary Medical Association reported that among the different kinds of pet-owning households in the United States in 2001, Americans owned an average of 1.6 dogs, 2.1 cats, 2.1 birds, and 2.9 horses.

Uh-oh.

Last week I missed Feline Friday, but I hope to be prepared tomorrow. In the meantime, I gathered up a few of the individual cat photos that I’ve used recently and put them together in an easy to browse collection.  We may have more than the alloted 2.1 cats, but not a single one has been “negligently” adopted or possessed.