A column on Sunday by the Civil Beat Editorial Board highlights the lack of information the public is provided about the origin of bills introduced on behalf of publicly unidentified special interests (“Hawaii Lawmakers Should Identify The People Asking For Legislation“).

…it’s puzzling, then, that lawmakers continue to allow for the anonymous introduction of hundreds of bills each year.

A search shows that, out of the more than 2,300 bills introduced in the Hawaii House of Representative in the 2021-2022 biennium, more than 100 where “introduced by request of another party” without actually identifying who or what that party is.

The same goes for the Hawaii Senate, where, of the more than 2,600 bills introduced during that same period, nearly 100 have anonymous authorship.

Civil Beat suggests that the solution would involve tweaks to legislative rules and procedures on bill introduction.

I have another solution, which is to require lobbyists to disclose specific bills they draft, introduce, or which they support or oppose in their lobbying rounds.

Right now, the state law which regulates lobbyists (Chapter 97, Hawaii Revised Statutes) requires only the vaguest identification of what specific issues each lobbyist will be working on.

The categories are so general and broad that they are essentially meaningless, and tell little about what the lobbyist is actually interested in. Here are the subjects that currently appear in lobbyist registrations. This happens to be from the registration for the 2019-2020 period filed by Ross Yamasaki, who was employed by Capitol Consultants of Hawaii to lobby on behalf of Airbnb.

This is simply not adequate to inform the public of any lobbyist’s interests.

I would suggest that the lobbyists law be amended to require each lobbyist to disclose as part of their registration the name, bill number, or brief description of any measure they will be lobbying on that hasn’t yet been given a number, along with a checkbox to indicate whether they have submitted a draft bill to any legislator or legislative officer with a request that it be introduced “by request.” And lobbyists should be required to update this information as part of their required periodic disclosures of contributions and expenditures.

In terms of transparency, Hawaii should follow the several states that also require lobbyists to submit a recent passport-type photo as part of their lobbyist registration, which would aid the public in recognizing lobbyists at work in the hallways and offices of the capitol.

These likely aren’t the only tweaks that the lobbyists law needs, but they would address the issue raised by today’s Civil Beat editorial.

Also see:

“Monthly public disclosure by lobbyists? Yes, it can be done,” iLind.net, July 23, 2021.

“It’s time to shine some light on special interests lobbying the Ige administration during this pandemic,” iLind.net, August 12, 2020.

The Silence from the Fifth Floor: Is This the Transparency We Were Promised? Ililani Media, February 4, 2015

Ian Lind: Lawsuit Exposes Blind Spot in Hawaii Lobbyist Law, Civil Beat, September 9, 2015.

“Regulating executive branch lobbying”, iLind.net, February 25, 2016.

Ian Lind: Lawsuit Exposes Blind Spot in Hawaii Lobbyist Law, Civil Beat, September 9, 2015.