Since my first legislative session in 2003, I created bills that coincided with future news-making events. However, some people who have worked with me on legislation or know me, feel my bills seem to eerily foretell future events. I laugh at the thought that my bills can predict the future. I just think they are coincidences. Below are some of these “coincidences”:
1. In January 2003, Senator Will Espero and I had a meeting. He suggested I introduce a campanion bill to his Senate Bill mandating state officials to undergo mandatory ethics training. I was 28 years old at the time and I thought it was a bill worth introducing in the House. I read the ethics laws and found out how gray it was to interpret them. For example, one can use one’s state office to help non-profit organizations such as the Blood Bank and the Food Bank. However, one can violate the ethics laws if you help other non-profit organizations depending on how the Ethics Commission interprets the relationship between you and the organization. Everything is basically case by case according to the Ethics Commission. Therefore, I thought, there needs to be a dialogue between state officials and the Ethics Commission. However, looking back, a mandatory ethics training put into law wasn’t necessary because we could have placed it into our Senate and House rules.
By July 2003, criticism was mounted over how KITV 4, a local television news station accepted a trip to Japan paid for by the Hawaii Visitors & Convention Bureau, with the blessing of Governor Linda Lingle’s office. The station was allegedly asked by the governor’s office to take this free trip paid by the state in order to cover the governor in Japan.
In the 2004 legislative session, the governor was accused of violating ethics rules on a couple of occasions in the media. At that time, she was advocating for local school boards. To get the pressure on the legislature, she created a non-profit group called CARE or Citizens Achieving Reform in Education, a private nonprofit corporation that raised $80,000 in donations as of April 11, 2004 to promote her education initiatives. CARE allegedly operated from her state offices using state workers, which was an apparent violation of Hawaii’s ethics laws. Also, CARE was a lobbying organization allegedly operating from the governor’s office, another violation of Hawaii’s ethics laws.
After the 2003 Legislative Session, my House bill passed the House and remained in the Senate. In the 2004 Legislative Session, with the second allegation of ethics violations (Non profit lobbying organization being coordinated out of Governor Lingle’s office) on Governor Lingle in the media, my bill got attention and coverage by the media. The governor accused the Democrats of creating the mandatory ethics bill in reaction to the allegations of ethics violations against her. In response, a person who worked with me on the bill told the media that this bill was created before any of the alleged ethics violations were done by the governor.
Senator Cal Kawamoto moved the mandatory ethics bill out of his committee and the rest is history. The bill passed the legislature and Governor Lingle signed it into law at the end of the 2004 Legislative Session.
2. In the 2003 Legislative Session, I created a bill to open up the contracts of the Hawaii Tourism Authority and Hawaii Convention and Visitors Bureau (HVCB) to see how efficiently the agencies were spending. The bill was held in the House. By June 2003, the media reported on a state audit that revealed bad financial management, state funds spent on self-serving purposes, conflict of interest, and inflated reimbursement requests. By July 2003, changes in management at HVCB began and the marketing contract with HVCB was split up. HVCB retained marketing to North America. Dentsu Inc. got the contract for marketing to Japan, Marketing Garden for the rest of Asia, The Mangum Group for Europe, and The Walshe Group for Oceania.
3. In the 2004 Legislative Session, I drafted a bill to creat a science, technology, business, and art magnet school called the Academy of Hawaii. This school would be a collaboration of the Department of Education and the University of Hawaii West Oahu. The bill did not move out of the House Education Committee, therefore, I re-introduced the bill again in the 2005, 2006, and 2007 legislative sessions. Similarly, in January 2007, Governor Linda Lingle announced in the media her proposal for her science, technology, and math magnet schools. These schools would be a collaboration between the Department of Education and the University of Hawaii’s community colleges. Her magnet school proposal coninues to make the news.
4. In 2003, I bumped into Hoku Scientific CEO Dustin Shindo (a constituent) at a local hangout one evening. We talked about ideas on how to strengthen Hawaii’s technology industry. In 2004, we decided to draft a bill to float $10 million in Special Purpose Revenue Bonds for Hoku Scientific to be used in building their facility in Kapolei. In 2005, the bill passed the legislature and was signed into law by Governor Linda Lingle. In August 2005, Hoku Scientific made an IPO (Initial Public Offering). On October 16, 2005, Hoku Scientific’s new Kapolei facility was unveiled where I made a speech along with Mayor Mufi Hanneman. The company continued to expand and make news in 2006 and 2007. Hoku Scientic, IPO, need I say more?!
5. In 2005, I drafted a state land banking bill for the Kunia area to help buy and protect valuable agricultural land for farmers. The Kunia area described in the bill went below the freeway into the Ewa plains because I feared one day the farmers operating below the freeway would be squeezed out by their landowners once their leases ends.
I introduced this bill in the 2006 Legislative Session. In February 2006, Del Monte announced it was closing down its pineapple operation affecting about 700 International Longshore and Warehouse Union employees, as well as an undetermined number of nonunion positions. My bill passed the House, but died in the Senate.
For this 2007 Legislative Session, I re-introduced my bill and my gut feeling in 2005 came true. The landowner of the farmers sold their land to a developer who will eventually kick out the farmers when their leases run out.
6. On May 29, 2005, I had a conversation with a constituent who told me to look into why the governor of Hawaii has no access to a state plane when most of the governors in our country does. I told him I would follow up on his suggestion.
In the 2006 Legislative Session, I created a bill for a $1.9 million state aircraft to be under the direction of the governor. The governor could have the plane be used by state workers for various state services. For example, the governor could utilize the plane for various government employees, equipment, and services for our island state such as engineers, medical services, psychiatrists, researchers, law enforcement, shipping prisoners, etc. I found out that according to StateLine.org, in 2001, 42 of the 50 govenors in the U.S. had access to a state plane. The cost of some of the other governors’ planes ranged from $3.8 million to $6 million, which is much higher than my bill’s $1.9 million budget. I also learned that it is cheaper to fly a group in one plane than to send them off in a commercial plane. It costs about $250 an hour to fly 13 people in a small plane to a neighbor island, which includes pilot, fuel, and landing fee costs. In contrast, it costs $650 or more to fly the same amount of people in a commercial plane. However, the cost factor will depend on how reliable the plane is, which would affect maintenance costs. In addition,we must consider insurance costs.
The bill did not move in the 2006 Legislative Session so I decided to re-introduce it in the 2007 Legislative Session. I never forgot my constituent’s request and I agreed with him that the issue should be discussed. After all, the state executive branch spent $12 million in fiscal year 2006 on commercial flights. On February 2, 2007, the Senate Transportation Committee announced that they would hear it on February 7, 2007. In the week of February 4, 2007, KITV 4 and Star Bulletin misled the public by saying that lawmakers would have a free ride. They forgot to read the bill because it was written so that the governor has authority over the plane, not the lawmakers. They didn’t know who introduced the bill because they didn’t look for the introducer in the House. Instead, KITV 4 and Star Bulletin called it stupid without even doing any work discussing the merits. I was very disappointed. During that same week Speaker of the U.S. House Nancy Pelosi was criticized for having a federal plane that was assigned to former U.S. Speaker Dennis Hastert. This national news is the coincidence to my bill.
This state plane bill is not included in any of my top priorities, but it makes news over my business, renewable energy, and sex assault prevention bills.
In the end, I suggested that this bill was premature and that maybe there should be a study on how the other 42 states manage their state airplanes under the direction of their governors and do a cost analysis?
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These are some of my bills that were followed by events related to the bill. Did my bills predict a future news-making event like some of my friends suggested? I don’t think so, but it is something interesting to talk about. More to come.
JON RIKI KARAMATSU 