Category Archives: Legislature

Bill on executive branch lobbying up for hearing Thursday a.m.

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I was just alerted that a bill to expand the state’s lobbyist law to include lobbying the executive branch as well as the Legislature, is set for a public hearing in the tomorrow morning.

I’ve written about this issue in the past, and you can refer to these for more background.

See: “Lawsuit Exposes Blind Spot in Hawaii Lobbyist Law,” Civil Beat.

“More back and forth on executive branch lobbying.” iLind.net

Here’s the hearing notice. Click on the agenda to see more about SB653.

And click here if you would like to submit testimony.

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Reports to the Legislature

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Every year, state agencies and departments are required to file reports prior to the opening of the annual legislative session on a myriad of topics.

You can find a list of all these reports. From the main capitol website, click on the link for “Reports and Lists,” and then search down the list to find “Reports to the Legislature.”

Here’s the problem.

Although it is described as a list of reports, it actually is a list of the letters of transmittal when the reports were submitted to the legislature. There are no links to the actual reports. The links take you to the list of Departmental Communications (DC), consisting of pdf versions of the transmittal letters. And these letters do contain links that get tantalizingly close to the reports themselves.

More problems.

First, I tried several times to copy the provided links and paste them into a browser. None of these attempts succeeded. All produced error messages.

And, second, many of these links–if typed in by hand–go to another long list of reports done by the agency for submission to the legislature.

So what appears at first glance to be a timesaving list of reports posted on the capitol website, turns out to be quite frustrating. You will undoubtedly find reports of interest, but getting to any one of them takes several additional steps.

I did eventually find an copy links to reports from certain agencies.

University of Hawaii

Department of Land and Natural Resources

Office of the Auditor

Dept. of Business, Economic Development, and Tourism

Board of Education

There’s plenty of reports here to dig into, depending on your interests.

Please share your experience, and any interesting tidbits that you come across.

Will a lottery or other form of legalized gambling get more traction in the legislature this year?

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I really don’t know why there’s so much concern about legalizing some form of gambling in Hawaii.

Gambling is already pretty well established without benefit of legalization. Some gamble here in quasi-public game rooms that aren’t much of a secret. Others head to Vegas.

This morning I scanned the Travel section in the Sunday Star-Advertiser, and there’s a large ad pitching tours to UH football games on the mainland.

Fly to Detroit for a game against Michigan, including Detroit tours, a tailgate party, etc. And after four nights, fly to Las Vegas for another three nights. Game against Arizona? Same drill. Go to the game, take a few tours, then return via several nights in Vegas. Perhaps some of those people just go to Vegas for the shows. But let’s face it, a lot of them are gambling. Why? They enjoy it.

There are a lot of ways to throw away your money. Gambling is just one of the many available ways, legal or not.

I don’t give much weight to the claims that gambling is somehow immoral, especially since so much of it goes on every day in so many forms. Social impact? Maybe, but since we already tolerate widespread illegal gambling, it’s hard to make the case that there will be a vastly different impact if it is legalized.

Personally, I’m not a gambler. But I don’t think the state should be arbitrarily prohibiting legalized gambling.

Several bills to establish a state lottery have been introduced this year (HB1830, HB2536, SB2626. I’ll be interested to see if they get more traction this time around.

Legislature again considering bill to make consumer complaints secret

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Rep. Isaac Choy is at it again, this time with a bill that would amend the state’s public records law to totally remove complaints about those holding state professional and vocational licenses from the public record.

Choy’s bill, HB 1565, is scheduled to be heard by the House Committee on Consumer Protection and Commerce on Monday afternoon, February 1, at 2 p.m.

State law currently provides that “record of complaints” about “an individual’s fitness to be granted or to retain a license” is a public record, “including all dispositions.”

Choy’s bill would simply delete this provision from the law, making all information about consumer complaints, including their existence, state secrets.

So what complaints are we talking about?

The state’s Professional and Vocational Licensing office lists the following categories of licensed professionals and activities.

Accountancy
Acupuncture
Barbering and Cosmetology
Boxing
Chiropractor
Contractor
Dentist and Dental Hygienist
Electrician and Plumber
Elevator Mechanic
Engineer, Architect, Surveyor and Landscape Architect
Massage Therapy
Medical and Osteopathy (MD, DO, EMT-Basic, EMT-Paramedic, Physician Assistant, and Podiatrist)
Motor Vehicle Industry
Motor Vehicle Repair
Naturopathic Medicine
Nursing
Optometry
Pest Control
Pharmacy and Pharmacist
Physical Therapy
Private Detective and Guard
Psychology
Real Estate
Speech Pathology and Audiology
Veterinary

Activity Desk
Athletic Trainers
Behavior Analysts
Cemetery and Pre-Need Funeral Authority
Collection Agency
Condominium Property Regimes
Dispensing Optician
Electrologist
Employment Agency
Hearing Aid Dealer and Fitter
Marriage and Family Therapist
Mental Health Counselor
Mixed Martial Arts Contests
Nurse Aide
Nursing Home Administrator
Occupational Therapist
Port Pilot
Real Estate Appraiser
Respiratory Therapist
Social Worker
Subdivision
Time Share
Travel Agency
Uniform Athlete Agents

You get the idea. Complaints filed against licensees provide an early warning to consumers of possible problems, and are one of the most important types of information used to protect consumers.

These are people who affect many different parts of our lives. Avoiding the occasional “bad apple” is often very important to individual consumers. And tracking how complaints are handled gives us a chance to evaluate how well the government agencies are going their jobs of protecting the public.

Losing access to such information would mark a return to the dark ages, back when consumers had no rights.

Choy has been on this secrecy kick for years, and has repeatedly sought to block the public from information about complaints filed against the service providers we rely on.

I wrote about Choy’s role in passage of a similar (but less sweeping) bill back in 2010 (“Bill to limit consumer’s rights makes last-minute stealth move“).

Here’s what I wrote at that time. The 2010 bill would only have allowed the public to know about a complaint if the complaint were finally upheld by state regulators. Choy’s current bill would block disclosure of any and all information about consumer complaints, even if multiple complaints were found to be valid.

Under current law, information concerning “an individual’s fitness to be granted or to retain a license” is considered private and confidential, except for records of complaints resulting in disciplinary action, and the “record of complaints including all dispositions.”

This bill, in its current form, would strip the “record of complaints” from the public record.

The problem here is that complaints take months, sometimes years to be investigated, so someone can rack up a long list of complaints before the first disciplinary action is finally taken. And a short list of complaints that result in actual disciplinary action may mask a much longer list of outstanding consumer complaints. Under the terms of this bill, the public would be left to fend for themselves without access to this key bit of consumer background.

Testimony on HB1565 can be submitted online. The system requires you to register and create an account in order to submit online testimony. Click here for the instructions for this simple process.