Common Cause Hawaii is urging supporters to contact the Senate Judiciary chair and ask for him to schedule public hearings on several bills, including SB 653.

This bill would change the due date for annual personal disclosure statements for the prior year filed by legislators. It seems like a simple thing. Require financial disclosures to be filed when they will do the most public good in allowing the public to be assured that personal financial interests are not driving legislative action.

According to Common Cause:

Some lobbying entities also have business relationships with legislators, but surprisingly, legislators are not required to disclose their financial interests until after adjournment of the legislative session. Senate Bill 653 would require legislators to report their finances by the “first crossover” deadline in early March, so that potential conflicts of interest can’t be kept secret while legislation is being finalized.

Is this a problem? Well, according to the State Ethics Commission web site, only a handful of legislators have filed their financial disclosures covering the 2009 calendar year.

In the Senate, first to file honors go to Sen. Clarence Nishihara, who filed his report on January 14.
Senate. Others filing promptly were Josh Green and Fred Hemmings (Jan. 20), and Norman Sakamoto (Jan. 25).

First to file in the House were Finance Committee chair Marcus Oshiro and Republican Cynthia Thielen (both on Jan. 19). Also completing their disclosures early in the year were Marilyn Lee (Jan. 25), Ken Ito (Jan. 26), and Denny Coffman (Feb. 1).

Under current law, legislators (and state officials) do not have to disclose their financial interests until May 31, which this year will be over a month after the legislature adjourns.

Even SB 653 provides too much leeway. Financial disclosures should be due within 30 days of the end of the year or other reporting period. There’s really no reason to keep the public in the dark for so long after the close of the reporting period.

But SB 653 didn’t get a hearing last year, and isn’t yet scheduled for a hearing this year. If it isn’t heard and passed out of the Senate Judiciary Committee by Friday’s First Decking deadline, it’s dead. A companion bill in the House, HB 785, is already dead after failing to be passed by the first committee before the deadline for lateral movement.

Another bill calling for a change in disclosure timing is on the Common Cause agenda. S.B. 2321 would speed up disclosure of campaign contributions and expenditures in elections run by mail. Currently, the deadline for campaign spending reports falls after ballots are mailed and voting is already underway in an election conducted by mail. This happened during the special City Council elections last year.

Check out the fate of the bills in the Good Government Package. If my quick count is correct, there were 20 GoodGov bills referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Only three even got public hearings, all of those were killed.