Legislative Bypass Issues Recently in the News

 

A state constitutional convention is uniquely suited to propose amendments that the State Legislature wouldn’t find it in its institutional self interest to propose. That is, it bypasses the gatekeeping power the State Legislature otherwise would have over constitutional amendment.

Listed below is a sample of potential legislative bypass issues recently in the news in Hawaii and other states.  Note that the issues mentioned in the news are only a very small portion of the potential legislative bypass issues, as they are only issues recently in the news. However, the headings below under which the articles are placed provide a general overview of the types of legislative bypass issues a state constitutional convention could address.

For the article announcing the launch of this page, including a discussion of the politics of legislative bypass issues, see Snider, J.H., Why Con-Con Opponents Willfully Ignore Legislative Bypass Issues, Hawai’i Free Press, October 13, 2018.

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Legislature Bypass Issue Summaries

 

*Support The ConCon — 10 Years Is Too Long To Wait For Another Chance, Civil Beat, October 24, 2018. This is the most comprehensive summary of legislative bypass issues a convention could address.

If We Want To Fix Hawaii Government We Have To Do It Ourselves, Civil Beat, October 18, 2018.

 ConCon Might Be The Way To Finally Get Election Reform, Civil Beat, October 2, 2018.

Adler, Peter, and Jenna Leigh Saito, Political Volatility Could Affect Hawaii Constitutional Convention Question, Civil Beat, June 8, 2018.

State Constitutional Convention: Let’s Have The Conversation, Civil Beat, September 18, 2018.

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Incumbent Legislator Entrenchment

 

Legislative Term Limits

Snider, J.H., Want Term Limits? A Con Con Is Your Only Hope, Civil Beat, September 21, 2018.

Blair, Chad, Civil Beat Poll: Hawaii Voters Seem Ready For A Constitutional Convention, Civil Beat, May 25, 2018.

Editorial, Constitutional Convention: It May Be Time To Go Over Legislators’ Heads, Civil Beat, December 18, 2017

*Blair, Chad, Civil Beat Poll: Power To The People — Voters Want More Control, Civil Beat, December 12, 2017,

Blair, Chad, Civil Beat Poll: Let’s Have A Constitutional Convention, Civil Beat, December 11, 2017,

For a recent out-of-state perspective on elected officials’ opposition to term limits, see Jacob, Paul, When Local Lawmakers Won’t Take No for an Answer, Wall Street Journal, November 3, 2018.

 

Legislative Transparency

If We Want To Fix Hawaii Government We Have To Do It Ourselves, Civil Beat, October 18, 2018.

Groups sue to stop ‘gut and replace’ at Hawaii Legislature, Honolulu Star-Advertiser, September 6, 2018.

McAvoy, Audrey, Groups sue to stop ‘gut-and-replace’ at Hawaii legislature, Hawaii News Now, September 6, 2018.

Gut and Replace Complaint, Civil Beat Law Center for the Public Interest, Common Cause, and League of Women Voters, September 5, 2018.

Epler, Patti, Hawaii Supreme Court To Fine-Tune Open Meetings Law, Civil Beat, August 30, 2018.

SB2858 Fails to Meet Constitutional Requirement, Hawaii Free Press, May 22, 2018. Reprint of a Hawaii Common Cause and Hawaii League of Women Voters press release.

*Eagel, Nathan, What’s Up With All The Gut-And-Replace Trickery At The Legislature This Year?, Civil Beat, April 5, 2018.

Akina, Keli’i, How much privacy for public employees?, Grassroots Institute of Hawaii, April 3, 2018.

Yamachika, Tom, Mighty Morphin Power Bills! , Civil Beat, April 22, 2018.  See also Yamchika’s Legislature Wants To Jack Up Estate Taxes, Civil Beat, April 15, 2018.

Akina, Keli’i, State should speed up responses to information requests, Grassroot Institute of Hawaii, Feb. 23, 2018.

Editorial, State Public Records Agency Needs A Hard 6-Month Deadline, Civil Beat, Feb. 20, 2018.

Black, Brian, Law Center: Timely Access To Public Information Is Vital, Civil Beat, Feb. 16, 2018.

Eagle, Nathan, Report: Public Is Being Shut Out On Critical State Information, Civil Beat, Feb. 12, 2018.

 

Legislative Voting Systems

Ranked Choice Voting

Teague, Courtney, Should Hawaii Convert To Ranked Choice Voting?, Civil Beat, August 20, 2018.

Palmer, Jesse, How To Fix Hawaii’s Broken Democracy, Civil Beat, May 21, 2018.

*Palmer, Jesse, Let’s Stop Voting For The Lesser Of Two Evils, Civic Beat, December 8, 2017.

For a national or multi-state perspective on ranked choice voting, see Ranked Choice Voting in 2018: A Mid-Year Report, Fairvote,July 2018; a recent national conference on the subject; and stories published in NBC News, USA Today, The Atlantic, Washington Post, and New York Times.

For a sample article touching on the legislative bypass nature of the issue with regard to the Maine State Legislature, see Editorial: For better elections, give ranked-choice voting a chance, Boston Globe, August 7, 2018; Cousins, Christopher, Maine again backs ranked-choice voting, Bangor Daily News, June 13, 2018; Shepherd, Michael, Maine’s top court clears way for ranked-choice voting in June, Bangor Daily News, April 17, 2018; and Lawrence Jennifer, Yes on #1: Protect Rank Choice Voting in Maine, Represent.US, June 5, 2018.

Top-Two Primary (similar to ranked choice voting in the problems it seeks to solve)

Teague, Courtney, Want To Run For Office In Hawaii Without Joining A Political Party? Good Luck, Civil Beat, August  9,  2018.

Shapiro, David, Top-two system offers better choices than party primaries, Honolulu Star-Advertiser, June 10, 2018.

 

Legislative Redistricting

*Ward, Gene, Democracy Soon To Be Gutted By Gerrymandering, Civil Beat, March 9, 2018.

For a national or multi-state perspective, see Silver, Josh, Ohioans Just Voted to End Gerrymandering – And More States Are Lining Up Behind Them, Represent.US. May 8, 2018; Drutman, Lee, The Best Way to Fix Gerrymandering Is to Make It Useless, New York Times, June 19, 2018; Editorial, Do-It-Yourself Legislative Redistricting, New York Times, July 21, 2018; Levitt, Justin, “Who Draws the Lines?,” Web page available at http://redistricting.lls.edu/who.php; Draper, Robert, The League of Dangerous Mapmakers, The Atlantic, October 2012.

 

Legislative Ethics

Walden, Andrew, Hawaii House Rules Prohibit Staff from Revealing “Illegal or Improper Conduct”, Hawaii Free Press, November 27, 2017.

For a national perspective, see Shaub, Walter, 13 Proposals for Ethics, Campaign Legal Center, May 2018. This summarizes an earlier report. These proposals were for the federal government, but they could also apply at a state level. See also Shaub, Walter, Principles for Designing an Independent Ethics Commission, Campaign Legal Center, May 2018.

 

Legislative Ballot Access

Lovell, Blaze, The Primary Turnout Was Low — But Not As Low As 2016, Civil Beat, August  12,  2018.

Teague, Courtney, Want To Run For Office In Hawaii Without Joining A Political Party? Good Luck, Civil Beat, August  9,  2018.

Snider, J.H., Needed: Fresh Eyes to Improve New York’s Constitution–Part 2, Gotham Gazette, March 10, 2017.

 

Legislative Campaign Finance

Ryan, Tracy, How To Really Fix Hawaii’s Elections, Civil Beat, August 21, 2018.

For a national or multi-state perspective, see Ackerman, Bruce, and Ro Kanna, Here’s a campaign finance law that would take democracy back from the 1 Percent, Sacramento Bee, January 29, 2018.

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The Power of the Legislature vs.
Other Government Units

 

The Citizen Initiative (allows citizens to propose laws independent of the State Legislature)

Blair, Chad, Here’s What Residents Of Other States Will Get A Chance To Vote On, Civil Beat, October 30, 2018.

Editorial, If We Want To Fix Hawaii Government We Have To Do It Ourselves, Civil Beat, October 18, 2018.

Editorial, Citizen Initiative: A Tool Hawaii Could Really Use, Civil Beat, September 25, 2018.

Editorial, Constitutional Convention: It May Be Time To Go Over Legislators’ Heads, Civil Beat, December 18, 2017.

Blair, Chad, Civil Beat Poll: Power To The People — Voters Want More Control, Civil Beat, December 12, 2017.

Blair, Chad, Civil Beat Poll: Let’s Have A Constitutional Convention, Civil Beat, December 11, 2017.

Hawaii’s minority leaders push for more power for the people, Hawaii Reporter, January 29, 2014.

Initiative and Referendum Revisited, League of Women Voters of Hawaii, 2003. Not recent but worthy of note.

Proponents of Initiative Face Uphill Battle, Honolulu Star-Bulletin, July 21, 1978. Not recent but worthy of note.

For a national or multi-state perspective, see Ritchie, Rob, and Kevin Johnson, Will voters lead on electoral reform?, Fairvote Blog, November 1, 2018; Carney, Eliza Newlin, Democracy Is on the Ballot, The American Prospect, October 18, 2018; Williams, Timothy, First Came a Flood of Ballot Measures From Voters. Then Politicians Pushed Back, New York Times, October 15, 2018; Wines, Michael, Drive Against Gerrymandering Finds New Life in Ballot Initiatives, New York Times, July 23, 2018; Editorial, Do-It-Yourself Legislative Redistricting, New York Times, July 21, 2018; and scholarly paper, Matsusaka, John, Special Interest Influence Under Direct Versus Representative Democracy, SSRN, June 11, 2018.

Here is a video provided by the Campaign Legal Center about citizen initiatives focused on democratic reform. The text accompany the video can be found at Democracy on the 2018 Ballot: Voters Take on Reform in Their States and Towns, Campaign Legal Center, October 3, 2018.

 

Citizens Take Charge: 2018 State Ballot Initiatives & Democracy Reform at the local level, Campaign Legal Center Webinar, October 2, 2018. Discusses using the citizen initiative to address many legislative bypass issues, including campaign finance, redistricting, transparency, and voting systems.  Speakers:

• Nancy Abudu, Legal Director, ACLU of Florida
• Heather Ferguson, Common Cause New Mexico, Executive Director
• Catherine Hinckley Kelley, Director, Policy & State Programs, CLC
• Dana Laurent, Director of Strategic Initiatives, Ballot Initiative Strategy Center
• Dan Krassner, Political Director, RepresentUs

Constitutional Convention

Note: This website, The Hawai`i State Constitutional Convention Clearinghouse, contains more than 100 links to press coverage of this issue. Of special note are the following:

Blair, Chad, Civil Beat Poll: Hawaii Voters Seem Ready For A Constitutional Convention, Civil Beat, May 25, 2018.

Blair, Chad, Civil Beat Poll: Let’s Have A Constitutional Convention, Honolulu Civic Beat, December 11, 2017.

Snider, J.H., The Best Delegate Election Process for a New York Constitutional Convention, Gotham Gazette, November 17, 2016.

 

Home Rule (the power of the State Legislature v. the counties)

Note: Some of these issues are implicated in the property tax constitutional amendment on the Nov. 6 ballot.  See the references regarding that amendment under the “other” menu and “property tax” submenu on this website.  The Civil Beat survey of legislative candidate positions in the 2018 elections include many statements regarding the decentralization of Hawaii’s public school governance; e.g., see David Tarnas’s statement.

Constitutional Convention – To Hold Or Not To Hold?, Community Forums, September 20, 2018.  See David Tarnas’s presentation beginning about 57 minutes.

 

Unicameral Legislature (eliminate one of the two existing legislative branches)

Some legislative candidates have addressed this issue; for example, see Civil Beat’s 2018 election profile of Kika Bukowki.

Blair, Chad, An Initiative Process Would Give More Power to the People, Civil Beat, February 2, 2014.

Blair, Chad, Should Hawaii Consider a Unicameral Legislature?, Civil Beat, May 25, 2011.

 

The Judiciary

Lind, Ian, Hawaii Lawmakers Needlessly Renew Assault On The Judiciary, Civil Beat, January 26, 2017.

 

The Bipartisan Elections and Reapportionment Commissions

Under Hawaii law, these commissions are supposed to be bi-partisan, including an appointee from the Senate Minority leader.  But there is currently no senate minority leader.  See Office of Elections Reapportionment Commission and Elections Commission. The problem could be rectified if a Republican won a State Legislature seat on Nov. 6, but that is unlikely.

Enabling Law

Reapportionment Commission: Hawaii’s Constitution, Article IV.

Elections Commission: statute (Act 57; Bill No. HB 267, 2004).