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Superferry hearings held in virtual lockdown condition
When this website was created there were certain reforms that looked urgent. Life goes on, of course, even at the Legislature. At this writing legislative leadership has locked down the facility, oops, I mean the State Capitol. They are excluding the public from the decisionmaking process around creating an exemption to Hawaii's protective environmental laws for one company--the Hawaii Superferry.
Working with the Lingle administration's secret draft bill, they are poised to steamroll a new law through a special session. Current news reports are that hearings originally planned for the Neighbor Islands will not be held after all.
For more information on this and related Superferry articles, see Disappeared News.
It's clear that additional reforms are needed. Besides reforms requiring the Legislature to be at least partially subject to the Sunshine Law, we should consider that committee chairs should not be allowed to kill any bills that have substantial testimony or other indication of public support. This was an issue in the current Superferry fiasco but has affected much more, especially controversial issues such as domestic partnerships and death with dignity bills. Letting one person override the will of hundreds of testifiers is a denial of democracy in Hawaii.
Will legislators reform themselves? Not bloody likely. Getting the corporate lobbiests out of legislators' offices last session was a long, hard slog. They seem to be enjoying themselves this week as they get press attention for standing up for the Superferry. It will no doubt take a constitutional convention to bring about meaningful reform.
I don't know if I would support holding a constitutional convention because of all the damage that could be done, but if it turns out that one is to be held (voters decide), then we should be prepared to fight for Sunshine and meaningful legislative reform.
posted by Larry @ 12:06 PM
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