House Standing Committee on Legislative Management

Good afternoon, everybody. This is our 02:30 committee hearing on legislative management. We are here in Conference Room 430 at the state capital to have hear one bill. Senate Bill 2661 SD1 relating to nepotism. First off, we have testimony from Hawaii State Ethics Commission.

Aloha, Vice Chair, Members of the committee. I appreciate you guys coming in to hear this, and I know there's a lot of other things going on. So, again, appreciate the moment to testify. I know we've also heard a bill very similar to this, which did not move forward. You don't mind.

I'm just gonna briefly address reason why this might be better than the current status quo. This measure would create a uniform state standard, which would apply to members of the judiciary or staff or employees of the judiciary, as well as members of the legislative branches including, for example, the ombudsman's office, the auditor's office, the state ethics commission, just to make sure that we have an nepotism law and and, in effect, it applies to us.

It also establishes a good cause exception, which is a transparent public means to recognize there may be unique circumstances where this may be needed, particularly in rural districts, rural areas, and it creates that as a standard for the entire state. I recognize there may be some pragmatic concerns. And so if there needs to be other things added to do this, you know, we're very open to those discussions.

But we do see the benefit of having a consistent standard for the public, if nothing else, to be able to say that this is a standard applies to everybody. Thank you for the opportunity to testify. Obviously, happy to answer any questions.

Hang out right there. Just hang out. Okay. Anybody else wishing to testify? Anybody on Zoom?

Okay. I had a quick question for you. Thank you so much for being here, mister Harris. Would this law apply prospectively? And if so, how would it affect existing employees?

So it would apply prospectively. And so it does apply to the supervision of existing employees who may be related or a household member. And so they would have an obligation to either do a good cause exception or we'd have to do something specifically like a grandfathering clause. When this law first went in effect to the executive branch, we actually, did not do enforcement for a period of time. Just as an opportunity to kinda work through the situations.

So I think pragmatically, we don't wanna lose a good employee, but also the law does prohibit the ongoing supervision as as written currently.

So is there a grandfathered clause in the current bill?

There is not a grandfathering clause in the current bill. And so in the circumstances that we dealt with on the executive branch, usually, we would switch supervision with someone else or try to arrange for that to happen.

Okay. Is there any other questions? Okay. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Thank you.

I'll go straight into decision making since we got everybody here. Recommendation is to pass out Senate Bill 2661 SD1 relating to nepotism with amendment. Members are gonna defect the date to July 1, 3000. Any questions, comments? Seeing none, Vice Chair.

That's me, Vice Chair.

Thank you, acting Chair. Voting on SB 2,661 SD1. Acting Chair's recommendation is to pass with amendments. Both acting Chair and Vice Chair vote Aye. [Roll Call] Chair your recommendation is adopted.

Thank you members. We're adjourned.