You don’t have to live in Sen. Laura Thielen’s district, which stretches from Kailua to Portlock, in order to find her blog interesting and sometimes provocative. The blog is part of Thielen’s official Senate website, so campaign-related topics are off limits.
Thielen started her online presence last year, and it has developed nicely. The blog addresses a variety of subjects.
In one recent post, she called attention to two bills take different approaches to restoring Hawaii’s journalists’ shield law.
Another explains how the legislative process looks from the perspective of a relative newcomer to the legislature.
“In the Legislature, you can try to amend bills,” she writes. “But in reality, very few legislators have the ability to make substantive changes to a bill.”
At the end of the day, Thielen says you have to confront that tough reality. You have to choices–vote yes, or vote no.
And that’s a hard decision when you support parts of a bill but oppose others.
So where does that leave a freshman legislator like myself? What would you do if you agree with 50% of a bill, but disagree with 50%?
Last year I tried to raise my concerns on the floor of the Senate, during the Second Reading of bills. I figured that’s the time to influence amendments. Third Reading is just up or down – no opportunity to amend.
The first time I spoke on Second Reading, Senator Hee took the mike and asked the Senate President if this was Third Reading. When she said “no,” Hee basically replied: well, this is the Senate, we reserve our remarks for Third Reading.
While Hee is more outspoken than most, I can tell that my floor remarks puzzle or annoy many Senators. While House members routinely debate issues during Second Reading, some Senators seem to take pride in the fact that we don’t.
Elected officials don’t usually take the time to explain how the process looks from the inside. That in itself makes Thielen’s blog worth a regular read.
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Thanks for this. My folks live in the HK and will find Thielen’s blog interesting. I sent them a link.
The site is very smart (well done). I’ve been waiting for something like this for awhile.
The important thing to note is that Thielen’s political stature in the Senate hierarchy (or lack thereof) provides her with the opportunity to do this. A senator entrenched in factional skirmishes over political parity would not dare provide this type of perspective for fear of angering leadership.
Thank you for the link.
She also puts up useful flags when less than savory dealings like “gut and replace” happens to key legislation. Helpful in focusing limited citizen lobbying on important issues.
More legislators should be doing this.
I thanked Sen. Thielen for her explanations, understandable by laypersons like me. She said she’s still trying to understand legislative stuff herself — so i guess in her blog she’s trying to share her own understating, not talking down from a superior know-it-all position.