Tag Archives: Hawaii State Legislature

2010 Legislative session is almost over!

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The Legislature is careening towards a final conclusion. The deadlines for final decking, when bills have to be filed in their final form for third and final reading, are Thursday (4/22) for non-money bills and Friday (4/23) for fiscal bills. So if legislators on sitting on any conference committees with ongoing final negotiations seem a little frantic, there’s good reason.

Trying to assess the session? Here are the progress reports.

Bills that have already passed

All bills that passed 2nd crossover (current status column will show which are still being actively negotiated in conference)

Conference Committee reports (look down the “current status” column for the with scheduled final votes)

Budget Worksheets (get the nitty-gritty details)

And while you’re at it, you can browse the many reports submitted to the Legislature this year. There’s lots of good data and hidden stories tucked away in these.

Groups call for several changes to make the Legislature more “user friendly”

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A coalition of local organizations have asked House and Senate leaders to make the legislative process “more open, inclusive, and ‘user-friendly’ for the public.”

The groups suggested four changes which, they say, “would go a long way towards boosting the public’s confidence and trust in the legislative process.

The suggestions include:

• Increasing the broadcasts of legislative hearings and archiving them on the Internet for later viewing “on demand”. Only Senate hearings are currently made available via the web.

• Providing at least three business days notice of legislative hearings, up from the current two days (House) and three calendar days (Senate).

* Posting proposed amended drafts of complicated bills online so that the public can examine them in a timely fashion.

• Include the names of those organizations and agencies supporting or opposing a bill in the accompanying committee report. The groups say: “Historically, this information was always listed in committee reports, but recently the Senate has dropped this practice.”

Organizations endorsing the suggestions include Common Cause Hawaii, League of Women Voters of Hawaii, Americans for Democratic Action Hawaii, Sierra Club Hawaii Chapter, Blue Planet Foundation, Right to Know Committee, Citizen Voice, and Hawaii Pro-Democracy Initiative.

A copy of the groups’ press release is available.