Political power in our democracy resides with the people, and election law ensures compliance with the democratic principle of “one person, one vote.” But that democratic principle is not being followed in the Hawaii State Legislature.

The Legislature determines to a large extent how it operates. The House and Senate adopt their own rules because the Hawaii Constitution contains very few requirements.

For example, both the House and Senate have adopted rules that give committee chairs the power to decide which bills referred to their committees receive hearings and which do not.

Common practice is that most bills are referred sequentially to two committees in each chamber. Both the House and Senate have more than a dozen committees, and bills are referred to the two committees based upon their subject matter.

To stay alive, a bill introduced in the House, for example, must pass the first House committee, and if that happens, then pass the second House committee, and if that happens, then pass a vote by the entire House. Then the bill moves to the Senate, where a similar process occurs.

The chairs of committees have inordinate power because they can decide which of the bills that have been referred to their committees receive hearings and which do not. Every bill has a public constituency that wants it passed. But without a hearing, a bill will die because it cannot proceed.

In this example, any one of the four chairs (two in the House, and two in the Senate) can stop a bill unilaterally by not scheduling a hearing. They don’t even have to give a reason, and typically they don’t.

A few committee chairs have even more power than others because most bills are typically referred to three particular committees in the House and three particular committees in the Senate. These committee chairs control what gets stopped and what can move on.

In the House these committees are the Finance Committee, the Consumer Protection and Commerce Committee and the Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs Committee. In the Senate these committees are the Ways and Means Committee, the Commerce and Consumer Protection Committee and the Judiciary Committee.

When a committee chair doesn’t schedule a bill for a hearing, there’s usually lots of complaining among public supporters of the bill, and many of them blame the chair. However, the chairs of all of the committees in the House and Senate have come and gone many times over decades, and the problem persists.

A Structural Problem

Individual legislators are not the problem. Rather, the problem is systemic — a structural problem resulting from the rules of the House and Senate.

These rules have changed very little over decades because, like most people, legislators are creatures of habit. It is likely that many legislators, especially those who have been in their positions for years, do not even recognize the problem.

As a result, the Legislature has been ailing from a deficiency of democracy, and it has become largely unresponsive to community needs. Many community advocates in various areas, such as housing, environment, social justice, health care and education, are frustrated with the dearth of effective legislative action.

Efforts have been made in recent years to reform the Legislature, but the results have been disappointing.

For example, the Commission to Improve Standards of Conduct (also known as the Foley commission) was created to address “a loss of public trust in governmental institutions and their officers and the resultant threats posed to an orderly, effective government.”

The commission issued a report on Dec. 1, 2022, noting “deep-rooted systemic and institutional problems and lapses in moral judgment or integrity in the character of certain individuals.”

The commission made many substantial recommendations, including those that would improve transparency and openness at the Legislature, improving ethics and reduce the power of money in politics. However, very few of the recommendations have been adopted.

In addition, Civil Beat recently reported in its series on sunshine that the Legislature has adopted only two of the seven recommendations made a year ago to improve transparency and accountability.

The few legislators in positions of power seem to be more concerned about their own political well-being than the well-being of Hawaii’s communities.

The Legislature needs to be reformed, but there’s a conundrum. Those who are in power are the ones who can reform the legislature by changing the rules of the House and Senate.

But in doing so, they would lose much of their power, which very few politicians are willing to give up.