I received a request to give a little visibility to a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee scheduled for Friday, February 1, at 2 p.m. (Room 325). On the agenda are three bills put forward by the State Ethics Commission, as well as a couple by the Campaign Spending Commission as part of their respective legislative packages.

I give these higher priority because they’ve already been vetted by the commissions, and deserve a closer look than bills submitted by legislators that have not already had similar scrutiny.

These three bills are part of the Ethics Commission package:

HB 171
Status
RELATING TO LOBBYISTS.
Removes statutory remnants from when violations of the lobbyist law resulted in criminal penalties. Allows the state ethics commission to assess an administrative fine pursuant to a settlement agreement.
Referral: JUD, FIN

HB 170
Status
RELATING TO ETHICS.
Restores statutory protection for legislators when carrying out a legislative function. Clarifies public disclosure requirements for task force members.
Referral: JUD

HB 169
Status
RELATING TO THE STATE ETHICS CODE.
Clarifies the State Ethics Code by clarifying provisions regarding gift disclosure statements, retention of financial disclosure statements, and ethics training.
Referral: JUD

And from the Campaign Spending Commission:

HB 164
Status
RELATING TO ELECTIONEERING COMMUNICATIONS.
Amends the definition of “disclosure date” in section 11-341(d), HRS, to mean the date when the electioneering communication is publicly distributed. Expands the definition of “electioneering communication” in section 11-341(d), HRS, to apply to advertisements sent by any mail rate and those that are expenditures of an organization. Repeals section 11-341(e), HRS.
Referral: JUD

HB 162
Status
RELATING TO VIOLATIONS OF CAMPAIGN FINANCE LAW.
Increases the fine that may be assessed, for campaign spending law violations, against a noncandidate committee making only independent expenditures and that has received at least 1 contribution of more than $10,000, or spent more than $10,000 in an election period. Allows the Campaign Spending Commission to order that payment of a fine assessed against a noncandidate committee, or any portion thereof, be paid from the personal funds of an officer of the noncandidate committee.
Referral: JUD, FIN

There are, of course, other bills that will be heard at the same time.

• HB 1280, lowering the voting age to 16.

• HB1381, extending the period during which former legislators and executive appointees who were confirmed by the Senate are not allowed to serve as lobbyists to two years (24 months) after they leave government service.

• HB 627, a grandly terrible bill with two provisions (thanks to Natalie, a.k.a. Bike Mom, for calling specific attention to this one). One provision would allow the Campaign Spending Commission to fine a candidate’s campaign or a political action committee $1,000 if they use a photograph of a person in campaign materials without their authorization. And to track such matters, it would assign an arbitrary $1 value to any photograph and require that it be treated as an in-kind campaign contribution that would have to be tracked by the campaign. If the person donated another $100, their contributions (including the photo) would have to be publicly disclosed.

It sounds a lot like one of the bill’s sponsors, or one of their friends, faced an opponent whose campaign used one of those implied endorsement photos without permission. Typically, it’s the kind of error that costs the candidate using the photo and, therefore, is pretty much self-correcting. It’s never good for a candidate to appear to be ginning up fake endorsements. But I guess if you’ve got legislative power, any little thing that gets your attention seems like a reason to draft new legislation. For the rest of us, though, it just seems silly.

And the bill has an additional provision that’s even worse. It provides that if an independent committee campaigns in a candidate’s favor, without having any connection to the candidate, then the candidate must include the value of the independent expenditures in their own campaign reports. And if the expenditures are against a candidate, the value would have to be divided up and reported by each of their opponents. Again, since independent committees are prohibited from coordinating with campaigns, it’s hard to figure how they would be able to report those expenditures.

It just goes to show that there are a whole lot of ideas stuffed into bills each legislative session, and some of them deserve to be quickly killed.

Testimony can be submitted online (for or against each bill).

WEB: For testimony less than 20MB in size, transmit from http://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/submittestimony.aspx.