Sen. Clayton Hee presented a compromise to his House colleagues Tuesday that could secure the passage of a bill to require a lot more members of boards and commissions to file public financial disclosure statements.

The draft the Senate passed last month would only add the three members of the Public Utilities Commission to the list of state employees who have to disclose their financial ties. 

But the House draft, championed by Rep. Angus McKelvey, added 16 more agencies, including the University of Hawaii Board of Regents, Board of Land and Natural Resources and Hawaii Community Development Authority. 

The conference draft that Hee put forward this afternoon would just snip two boards from that list, the Hawaii Labor Relations Board and the Labor and Industrial Relations Appeals Board.

Members of the LIRA board wrote lawmakers a letter in March that went so far as to suggest that passing the bill might somehow lead to suicide or murder because their decisions are so controversial at times.

The conference committee, co-chaired by Reps. McKelvey and Karl Rhoads and Sens. Hee and Maile Shimabukuro, did not discuss the latest draft Tuesday.

The committee is set to reconvene at 1:30 p.m., Wednesday.

Read past Civil Beat coverage here.

— Nathan Eagle

Photo: Sen. Clayton Hee. (Civil Beat file photo by PF Bentley)