We’re coming down to the wire.

By the end of this week bills need to have passed out of all the committees to which they’d been assigned, including the money committees, or they are dead for the year. In January, lawmakers introduced about 3,100 bills. As of Friday, 780 remained on the House’s list and 835 in the Senate.

We had about 200 Sunshine bills to watch as the legislative session began and about 60 of those were still alive as of Friday. The Legislature is still interested in some significant government reform measures this year, continuing the work that began in 2023 after the special House Commission to Improve Standards of Conduct got the ball rolling. Before that came years of legislators shrugging off any meaningful improvement to laws governing campaign finance, ethics, elections, open meetings and open records, among other things.

Once bills are resolved either way by Friday, lawmakers have until March 6 — the following Thursday — to vote them up or down in the full House and Senate. That’s called crossover and the surviving legislation switches to the other chamber for action. The session is scheduled to end May 2.

As we near the halfway point, some hoped-for measures to improve government operations and accountability are among the dead. Others are very much alive, some still need to make it through a final committee this week and a few even appear poised to sail through. That is, until they fall into the black hole of conference committees scheduled for late April.

Campaign Finance

House Judiciary Chair David Tarnas is on track to keep his promise to close the loophole that has allowed state contractors and nonprofit organizations who get state money to contribute, sometimes heavily, to lawmakers’ campaigns. It’s a form of pay-to-play politics that has thrived in Hawaiʻi for decades.

Tarnas had studied Connecticut’s campaign contribution rules and had thought they might be adaptable to Hawaiʻi. But after a couple of hearings, he recommended passage of the Campaign Spending Commission’s version of reform because he didn’t think Connecticut’s was quite as adaptable after all.

House Bill 371, which extends the contractor donation ban to political action committees as well, awaits a floor vote and is expected to move to the Senate where Judiciary chair Sen. Karl Rhoads has said he also is committed to passing something this year.

But keep an eye on Senate Bill 809, Rhoads’s version of the same issue. It passed his committee but still needs to get through Ways and Means before it can go to the floor.

It’s not the official companion bill originally introduced at the request of the commission and is different in that it requires contractors and nonprofits who fall under the bill to send a list of owners, officers and immediate family members to the commission. Those names would not be publicly available under this version of the bill.

And the restrictions and reporting requirement would only apply to contracts that involve purchases for goods and services over $100,000 and construction contracts over $250,00. And only to company principles with at least a 5% ownership interest.

The House also seems interested in another Campaign Spending Commission-driven bill that would prohibit contributions to state legislators while they are in session. House Bill 372 would not apply to county elected officials or others who might be running for office.

A similar proposal went nowhere last year in the Senate because Rhoads doesn’t think it’s fair to lawmakers to let everyone else raise money from mid-January through early May, especially people who may be challenging them. This year’s Senate companion bill, Senate Bill 258, did not even get a hearing in Rhoads’ committee.

The Senate Judiciary Committee supports hiring an investigator for the Campaign Spending Commission, an agency that has had the same number of staffers for the past 29 years. And it’s never had an official investigator, even though it can impose penalties for violations that its staff ferrets out.

Senate Bill 118 (there is no House companion) adds an investigator to existing staff but doesn’t provide funding. A committee report suggests the position should pay about $125,000. The bill cleared Judiciary last week and awaits a hearing in Ways and Means.

But there’s also money in Gov. Josh Green’s proposed budget to pay for a couple of new campaign spending positions.

The calls for full public financing of campaigns have ended in defeat the last two years.

Senate Bill 51 is this year’s effort at offering a full financing option, to begin in 2028. Qualified candidates for governor could receive as much as $2.5 million during the primary and general election season, state Senate candidates as much as $100,000, and state representatives up to $50,000

It cleared the Judiciary Committee earlier this month but so far is not scheduled for a hearing in Ways and Means.

But Sen. Donovan Dela Cruz, the WAM chair, has scheduled a hearing Wednesday on Senate Bill 345, which would put more public money into partial public financing through an existing program that not many candidates use because it doesn’t provide enough money. Still, it would be far less than what the full public financing bill might offer.

Dela Cruz has not been a fan of full public financing, citing the cost and the fact it’s not a level playing field because candidates who don’t opt in can still raise larger sums of money privately. He was instrumental in killing proposals the last couple of years.

House Bill 370 also boosts the partial campaign financing program. It passed House Judiciary and a floor vote on second reading (despite Republican opposition) and was referred to House Finance where it’s scheduled for a hearing Tuesday.

Elections

Lawmakers have ignored a number of bills that would require more voter service centers, especially on Oʻahu, and that they be open to in-person voting on Election Day. None of the five measures were even given a hearing despite public outcry just a few months ago when hundreds of voters stood in line for hours to cast their ballots at the only two centers open on Oʻahu.

Lawmakers also showed no interest in making the state insurance commissioner an elected position. It’s now appointed by the governor and longtime commissioner Gordon Ito recently retired.

But there is some interest in reforming the state Elections Commission itself. The nine-member board has become increasingly polarized in recent years, struggling with elections challenges and tedious public fights among its own members. Its meetings typically drag on for hours.

House Bill 141, which passed House Judiciary and is headed for a floor vote, would give the Senate the power to confirm commission members. That bill was opposed by Republicans on the committee as well as on the commission.

Lawmakers seem willing to give some power to the governor to fill legislative vacancies more efficiently. Senate Bill 5 passed two committees — Government Operations and Judiciary — and awaits a floor vote. It would allow the governor to fill a vacant seat for the remainder of the current term plus the next term if the incumbent dies in office or can’t finish the term and the primary election is already underway.

Ethics 

The Hawaiʻi State Ethics Commission has one major bill this session after successfully pushing a number of new requirements in the last two sessions.

House Bill 412 would expand lobbyist registration and reporting requirements to people who advocate for significant projects through the executive branch, meeting with the governor, staff and agency directors. It passed House Judiciary and needs approval by the full House.

Senate Bill 1545 would clear up any doubt that the legislative branch isn’t subject to anti-nepotism policies by repealing the existing exemption from employment-related nepotism in the state ethics code. Legislators themselves seem enthusiastic about strengthening their trust with the public, as many people who submitted testimony in support said this would do. It has already sailed through the Senate and been transmitted to the House for consideration.

Public Records

Perhaps the most interesting and, as it turns out, necessary bill to strengthen Hawaiʻi’s public records law is Senate Bill 1255, which would ensure that records and information produced by contractors working for the state are turned over to the public as required by the Uniform Information Practices Act. That did not happen as part of the recent University of Hawaiʻi search for a new president because UH had inserted a special condition into the contract with the executive search firm. That made information about the candidate collected by the search firm off limits to public records disclosures.

SB 1255 has cleared the Government Operations Committee but needs approval of the Judiciary Committee, which has scheduled a hearing for Wednesday. The bill is supported by good-government organizations but opposed by the Attorney General’s Office and a few state agencies that say it will thwart their ability to withhold records under the catch-all “frustration of a legitimate government function” argument. The agencies worry it might allow for release of trade secrets and other proprietary information but the advocacy organizations have suggested rewording that section would address the issue.

Senate Bill 353 would prohibit the governor from suspending the public records law during a state of emergency, as happened during Gov. David Ige’s administration when it was dealing with the coronavirus pandemic. The bill has passed both the Senate Public Safety and Judiciary committees and needs full Senate approval to move forward.

A House companion bill, House Bill 673, also passed both the Public Safety and Judiciary committees and awaits a floor vote.

A bill seeking to reduce or, in some cases, eliminate the fees state agencies can charge to fulfill a public records request has been put on hold because lawmakers have been assured the state Office of Information Practices will deal with the issue through rule-making later this year.

Sunshine Law

Once again, bills that would have required the Legislature to abide by the state’s open meetings law, called the Sunshine Law, did not get a hearing this session.

But lawmakers have largely resisted tinkering with the law in ways that would make it easier for public boards and commissions to do business behind closed doors. In particular, the Mauna Kea Stewardship and Oversight Authority, which has to come up with a new plan to manage use of the Hawaiʻi island mountain and the clash between telescopes and cultural sensitivities there, had hoped to convince legislators to let it sidestep the law requiring meetings of more than two members to be held in public.

The board wanted to allow all of its members to mingle together more informally as a way to bond and try to work out fundamental disagreements. But House Bill 144 was deferred by the Judiciary Committee after a hearing and Senate Bill 770 didn’t even get a hearing.

Another bill that would have lawmakers address an ongoing Sunshine Law dispute, Senate Bill 381, has passed the Government Operations Committee but hasn’t received a hearing in the Judiciary Committee. The bill makes clear that boards and commissions need to conduct the hiring of high-level agency positions in public and would overturn an OIP opinion that says hiring is a personnel matter and can be done behind closed doors.

But the Hawaiʻi Supreme Court has ruled that hiring, firing and job reviews of top-level agency personnel need to be done openly unless there is proof of a significant privacy interest. The issue is the subject of a lawsuit involving two state agencies.

Another bill, Senate Bill 405, clarifies for Oʻahu’s neighborhood boards that they can discuss information brought up at meetings by government representatives — the police, for instance — who give reports at every meeting even if the exact subject isn’t on the agenda. That bill has passed two committees and awaits a floor vote.

Other Accountability Measures

Even though House Speaker Nadine Nakamura and Senate President Ron Kouchi were behind bills to create a task force to study moving the Legislature to a year-round schedule, the proposals may be stalling. House Bill 1425 passed the Legislative Management Committee but has not been scheduled for a hearing in House Finance. Senate Bill 1514, which Kouchi acknowledged he was introducing because Nakamura asked him to, made it through Senate Judiciary but still has to be heard by Ways and Means.

Several bills that tried to address the fact that there are no fiscal notes on bills as they come up for consideration in committee — so no one knows how much something would cost — failed to gain traction. House Republicans pushed the measures as part of their legislative package and at the time House Finance Chair Kyle Yamashita said the state just doesn’t have the resources to put a system in place. This despite the fact that Hawaiʻi is one of just a few states that doesn’t have a financial analysis component of proposed legislation.

However, a couple of bills aimed at fixing that problem were still alive as the deadline loomed for them to get out of committee.

Yamashita introduced a bill that would create a legislative analyst’s office to bolster the current system, which relies on staff to assist lawmakers with bills. A committee report notes that the Legislature is understaffed when it comes to this function. House Bill 792 passed the Legislative Management Committee and is scheduled for a hearing in Yamashita’s Finance Committee on Tuesday.

Senate Bill 1081, which would create a Legislative Budget Office, passed Government Operations but still needed to get through a joint referral to Judiciary and WAM. Nothing on the schedule for that so far.

House Bill 763 was about the only bill introduced this year covering civic education after several measures failed to get any attention in the past couple years. “Teaching students about the importance of civic engagement through civic education helps develop critical thinking skills that are vital to the functioning of a democratic nation, including how to recognize social problems, evaluate possible solutions to problems, separate evidence-based claims from opinions, and act upon what is learned,” the bill stated.

HB 763 would establish a Hawaiʻi Civic Education Trust Fund that could combine public and private funds to create programs for schools. It also creates new positions within the Department of Education for teaching civic education. It initially requested $200,000 for two positions and another $84,000 for programs. The bill passed the Education and Finance committees but the amount of money and number of positions is now blank (see above item on fiscal notes.)

Meanwhile, both the DOE and UH would get closer scrutiny under bills to create external auditing committees.

Senate Bill 741 establishes that process within UH and Senate Bill 747 would do a similar function for the DOE. Both bills are slated for a hearing before Ways and Means on Tuesday and would go the floor if passed.

There are other transparency and accountability measures still moving along and not all the committees had issued hearing schedules for the coming week when we pulled this roundup together.

So check the Legislature’s very helpful website where the state has made it easy to follow legislation. Go to Events and then click on Upcoming Hearings for updated schedules.