Despite a day of closed-door meetings Thursday, Democratic state legislators in the House and Senate were unable to gather support for an override of Governor Ben Cayetano’s veto of a bill to raise the state’s age of sexual consent from 14 to 16.
Hawai’i has the lowest age of consent in the nation.
House Speaker Calvin Say and Senate President Robert Bunda, both Democrats from Oahu, said members still are divided on their next step.
According to Bunda and Say, some lawmakers want to add more vetoed bills to an override list if they hold a July 10 session to again discuss Hawaii’s minimum legal for sex between minors and adults.
Both Say and Bunda said they felt the issue could wait until next year, again.
A legislator from Kaua’i, Rep. Ezra Kanoho (D-13th District), said the bill is finished for this year.
“To override a veto, we would need” a two-thirds of members in both the House and the Senate, he said. “First of all, we don’t have the votes. And many agencies and advocacy groups for youth have expressed a lot of concern and asked us not to override the veto.”
Kanoho specifically mentioned the Honolulu prosecutor and the governor-appointed Status on Women Commission.
Kanoho said another year’s delay might allow for a better bill.
“We can work on a good bill. Maybe 20 years is too much,” he said, referring to the final compromise version of House Bill 0236, which mandated categorizing adults having sex with children as a class A felony, punishable with a maximum prison sentence of 20 years.
“The bottom line: Let’s work with all the groups to come up with something we can all agree with next year,” Kanoho said.
But HB 0236 was already considered by proponents a compromise bill that had been hammered out over the course of the legislative session.
“This bill was an honest compromise,” said state Sen. Jonathan Chun (D-7th District), who advocated an override of Cayetano’s veto.
Republican legislators took advantage of the Democrats’ inability to act.
House Republicans said their 19-member contingent unanimously supported the override, meaning it would take only 15 of 32 democrats to get the two-thirds vote needed.
“The only reason we’re not in special session right now is because Democrats won’t reverse their own governor. How can Democrats be more concerned with offending the governor than protecting our 14 and 15-year-olds? It makes no sense,” said Rep. Colleen Meyer (R-Oahu).
Cayetano said Thursday he hoped legislators would look carefully at his reasons for vetoing the bill before acting.
Cayetano’s major opposition concerned the penalty phase of the legislation. He said if sexual assault of a 14 or 15-year-old was made a Class C felony instead of a Class A felony and thus carry a shorter prison sentence, of five years, he might support the legislation.
There hasn’t been an override of a governor’s veto in Hawai’i since 1957.
Staff writer Dennis Wilken can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 252) and dwilke@pulitzer.net
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
