House Standing Committee on Legislative Management

Good afternoon. Welcome to our Legislative Management Committee hearing today in room 430 at 2:45pm for those on Zoom, please keep yourself muted and video off while waiting to testify and after your testimony is complete.

The Zoom chat function is only for the technical staff and if you are kicked off, we'll try to get you back on as soon as we can. So first up on our agenda today, we have SB 5 first testifier, Deputy Attorney General Reese Nakamura in opposition.

Good afternoon, Chair Holt, Representative Quinlan and Representative Morikawa. Reese Nakamura from the Department of the Attorney General. The department is in opposition of this bill because of a conflict within two sections of the Constitution, which we've noted in our written- written opposition. I'll be here to answer any questions if you'd like. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Next person we have that said they would be here to testify on Zoom is Gregory Misakian, in opposition.

Chair, vice chair, members of the committee. First, I'd like to point out I think there was a comment just made about the testimony, but the testimony isn't available online yet, so not to admonish the legislation, the legislature, but I don't see it posted for this hearing.

I know I submitted testimony and I do not see that testimony as I submitted it, so I do. Fortunately, I saved a copy of it. I don't always do it when I use the short form, but I have it here and I'm going to read it if I could.

So I do not support SB 5 SD1 elections of our representatives be by the people, not one person. Especially not where there's one party involved.

Also, in the past, a long time ago, Hawaii had a special election to replace an empty seat, which is what many states do throughout the US Then when those in power realized they could influence elections or legislative seats and do it right in front of the public as they watched, the laws were changed and then changed again.

I urge the committee to not pass SB 5 SD1 and ensure that we have a fair and honest democracy. Another bill needs to be introduced in 2026 to address the need for special elections. With that, I just will add. I currently serve as the first Vice President of the Kakua Council and Elder Advocacy Organization.

I'm a Director of the Hawaii Alliance for Retired Americans and I serve on the Waikiki Neighborhood Board. And I'm speaking as an individual, but I'm very concerned for our residents of Hawaii and I hope that our legislators listen. Thank you.

Thank you very much. That's all that signed up. Anybody else here to testify in person or on zoom? Seeing none. Members, any questions? See none. We'll move on to our next bill, Senate Bill 1545. And our first testifier is State Ethics Commission Robert Harris.

Aloha chair, vice chair, members of the committee, the Ethics Commission. My name is Robert Harris on behalf of the Ethics Commission, we are in support of this bill. To be clear, this is not our bill.

We appreciate the efforts that the legislature has already made in trying to create a bright line rule on nepotism across the all branches other than the legislature and the judicial branch.

The commission did meet and express support for this concept and I think some of the benefits of doing this would be having one central location for good cause exceptions in a public, transparent way.

So anybody who has concerns about the perception of favoritism or nepotism can find you know, why that that good cause exception was allowed in one central location. That has worked to date. I think we have considered 10 good cause exceptions. That's all publicly filed. Happy to have answer any questions you might have.

Thank you for the opportunity to testify.

Thank you very much. And next we have Gregory Misakian on Zoom and sorry about the testimony. We'll get that up asap.

Oh, no, no worries. Fortunately, I had a copy because when I do short form, I usually do long form. But this, this legislative session I've been doing many builds. So I go into the short form, the online portion and I just type in. But.

But I appreciate that it's the first time I've seen it where it's not been there when we go into this session. It's been late a few times, but it's been a little bit better this year. With that said on this one, let me just with me for one second.

My testimony is there for this one and it's simple. I absolutely support this bill. I'm happy that the State Ethics Commission supports it. I'll actually be reaching out to them later for another concern with the state Legislature for something that I'm concerned about. Very serious concerns I do support.

But I want to ask and just or comment why the judiciary is excluded from this. It appeared that they're excluded and if I'm wrong on that, I'm wrong. But I believe it did exclude the judiciary. So I'm not sure if there's someone that could just comment on that. Thank you.

We don't take questions from testifiers, but we will take that into consideration as we move forward. Thank you. Anybody else wishing to testify on this measure see none. We will take a brief recession. Gavin back in for decision. Making. So our first measure on the agenda, Senate Bill 5.

We'll be taking the advice of the deputy Attorney General and deferring this measure as it is unconstitutional. Next measure, Senate Bill 1545. We will also be taking a recommendation from testimony of Mr. Gregory Masakian. And we will be striking the entire section so that the Legislature and the judiciary will not have an exemption from the nepotism law.

And we are going to defect the date to the House. Defective date. Members, any questions? Concerns? Seeing none. Vice Chair, Senate Bill 1545, with amendments.

Voting on SB 1545. Chair's recommendation is to pass with amendments. Chair and Vice Chair vote aye. Representative Ichiyama. Representative Morikawa. Representative Matsumoto is excused. Chair, your recommendation is adopted. We're adjourned.