A legislative insider passed along this comment via email in response to the entry here on Friday.

I totally agree with your assessment of the floor amendment yesterday. It is baffling why the dissidents proposed a floor amendment that, in essence, would have killed the bill if the amendment passed.

It would make more sense if they felt the bill was a terrible one, to simply make a motion to recall the bill to committee. The motion would have failed but at least you would have your opportunity to point out the flaws in the bill itself.

I happen to think that the bill was a positive one. Was it perfect? Did it have everything that is needed for better accountability? No. But does it move the issue of campaign spending reform forward? The answer is yes.

Another reader, though, left a comment with a different take:

What the JUD chair and Majority Leader proposed was campaign finance regression, not reform. I understand and respect your position, but at this point I believe that the best thing to do is to either maintain the law in its current state and await the Tavares decision, or clarify the law so that the circumstances surrounding the Tavares case don’t occur again. On the one hand, it’s certainly true that our legislators in fact were NOT progressive and did NOT mean to impose the currently unenforced cap on themselves. OTOH by being incompetent they managed to pass good legislation anyway. Should we allow them to go back on that? Intent and purpose aside, I believe the Campaign Spending Commission’s interpretation of the law was correct, for four years now opponents of the cap have had the opportunity, and failed, to have it repealed. Why the continued cheer leading for those reps (JUD chair and otherwise) who have relentlessly tried to make Hawaii a more Pay-for-Play place? While I remain a daily reader of your excellent blog I think that your read on this is off.

But if the Intermediate Court of Appeals end up rejecting the Campaign Spending Commission’s interpretation of the law, we’ll have no limits on corporate money during next year’s election. I think we’ll look back view the $25,000 cap as a missed opportunity.

Enough on that.

The Kohala Blog makes the good point that Gov. Lingle actually suspended negotiations with the public employee unions during most of the legislative session rather than trying to reach settlements that could be built into the budget. There’s also a good discussion of contrasting views towards the tax bill vetoes by two Big Island bloggers.

Good reading there at the Kohala Blog. I’ll be adding it to my Blogroll.

I shouldn’t worry about things like this, but…Here’s a headline for a story in today’s Honolulu Advertiser:

Honolulu homicide rate remains stable

But the story itself never mentions the homicide rate, only the number of homicides recorded here.

I don’t think it’s nit-picking to expect the largest daily newspaper in the state to distinguish properly between absolute numbers and rates. It’s one of those basic concepts.

Reporting absolute numbers is simple. Just count up the number of events. Rates are a different matter.

The top dictionary definition of “rate” goes like this:

A quantity measured with respect to another measured quantity: a rate of speed of 60 miles an hour.

In the case of crime reporting, officially reported rates are usually calculated as crimes per 100,000 or 10,000 population.

Two different measures, two different purposes.

Interesting to see that the state is proposing a two-year nonbid deal with the U.S. Army to join in a contract for helicopter medical evacuation services for Oahu provided by Evergreen Helicopters of McMinnville, Oregon.

According to the justification submitted by the state Department of Defense, there were no bidders when the state tried to contact directly for helicopter services.

No companies submitted bids when the IFB was published last year. In talking with the two companies that had shown some interest in the project it became obvious that the State could not afford a stand alone contract with a helicopter company.

But the state has now gotten an agreement with the U.S. Army to piggyback on its contract with Evergreen in which the state “will only pay for the blade time and supplies used…”

Washington is laying off teachers in many districts due to budget cuts, according to this story in the Seattle Times.

Districts across the state are either slashing teaching jobs or planning to put a freeze on hiring to deal with $800 million in public-school money cut by the Washington Legislature in the session that just ended. Most of that money was cut from Initiative 728, the class-size reduction initiative passed by voters in 2000.

Between 3,000 and 5,000 public-school teachers in Washington could be out of a job by this fall, at a time when many economists expect the unemployment rate to still be climbing.

By comparison, I suppose Hawaii’s situation is relatively stable.

There was an interesting travel story in yesterday’s NY Times on traveling cheaply in Portland, Oregon. It caught my eye both because we enjoy Portland and because of the keen eye of the writer:

What this Frugal Traveler loved more than the free suds, however, was the utter normality. No one seemed surprised that drinks would be given away, let alone that they’d actually be worth drinking. And in that casual acceptance, I discerned a characteristic of Portland that would enchant me over the course of a week, as I explored restaurants and bars, artisanal cafes and mushrooming food carts, funky neighborhoods and weird little museums. Amid economic catastrophe — Oregon has the country’s second-highest unemployment rate — there was a general indifference to wealth. In its place was a dedication to the things that really matter: hearty food and drink, cultural pursuits both high and low, days in the outdoors and evenings out with friends. It’s the good life, and in Portland it still comes cheap.

Maybe that’s just the reaction of an east coast writer running in northwest culture, but I think there is probably more, that “dedication to the things that really matter.” It’s a sensibility we should be better at cultivating as well.