Advocates renew push for Hawaii legislative reforms

A coalition of local community organizations pushing for reform at the Hawaii Legislature has some new backing inside the state Capitol.

Ten members of the state House of Representatives led by onetime majority leader Rep. Della Au Belatti (D, Makiki-Punchbowl) have convened a bipartisan Good Government Caucus.

“We want to be able to focus on open-government issues, public access, ethics, elections and campaign reforms that help to promote greater public trust and confidence in our democracy,” Belatti said Thursday in the rotunda of the Capitol during a news conference organized by community organizations advocating for reforms.

“We have seen over the last election cycle, after the last several legislative cycles, an erosion of public trust,” Belatti continued.

The news conference followed the delivery Monday of a letter and petition with about 1,600 signatures to House and Senate lawmakers asking for five rule changes to legislative procedures and five new laws in the wake of high- profile corruption scandals and reduced voter participation that the letter writers said lead people to question whether engaging with Hawaii’s legislative system even matters at all.

A coalition of 19 mainly community organizations authored the letter, including Common Cause Hawai‘i, Clean Elections Hawai‘i, the Hawai‘i Alliance for Progressive Action, the Hawai‘i Appleseed Center for Law & Economic Justice, Hawai‘i Workers Center and Lahaina Strong.

The five requested rule changes propose to:

• Have written testimony on bills available for public review at least 22 hours before a hearing on the bill.

• Not allow a committee that hears a bill to defer action on the bill without a vote.

• Require that all lawmakers on a committee possess draft amendments to a bill before voting to advance an amended version of the bill.

• Not have bills referred to the House Finance Committee or Senate Ways and Means Committee unless the bills create or expend funds.

• Enact term limits on committee chair and leadership positions.

“Our communities are frustrated with the process of trying to get bills passed,” said Aria Juliet Castillo, the reclaiming democracy program director at the Hawai‘i Alliance for Progressive Action. “Our priorities don’t seem to have a fighting chance. No matter the subjects advocates are working on, roadblocks can derail months of progress with just a single committee deferral.”

More than 70 House rule changes are being considered by an advisory committee made up of House members, according to Belatti, who is on the committee.

House Speaker Nadine Nakamura, who was elevated to the top leadership position this year after serving as majority leader in 2024, was not available to comment on the five rule changes sought by the coalition.

Castillo said she’s encouraged that meaningful improvements to legislative rules will be adopted in part because 27 new members joined the 51-member House during the past two elections.

Several of those new members are on the recently formed Good Government Caucus, which Belatti said had existed from the 1980s until 2003.

First-term members of the caucus are Reps. Ikaika Hussey (D, Kamehameha Heights-Kalihi Valley), Kim Coco Iwamoto (D, Ala Moana-Kakaako-Downtown), Julie Reyes Oda (R, Ewa Beach-Iroquois Point) and Tina Grandinetti (D, Kahala- Kaimuki-Kapahulu).

Rep. Kanani Souza (R, Kapolei-Makakilo) is serving her second two-year term and convened the caucus with Belatti.

Other caucus members include veteran minority leader Rep. Lauren Matsumoto (R, Mililani-Waipio Acres-Mililani Mauka) and Reps. Amy Perruso (D, Wahiawa-Whitmore Village- Mokuleia), Jeanne Kapela (D, Volcano-Hawaiian Ocean View) and Terez Amato (D, Kihei-Wailea).

The five changes to Hawaii laws that the coalition of community advocates want to see made are automatic voter registration, more funding for the state Campaign Spending Commission, full publicly financed elections, a ban on candidates transferring campaign contributions to other candidates and a ban on campaign contributions made by government contractors and immediate family members.

“The corporate interests that permeate these halls is very sickening,” Sergio Alcubilla, executive director of the Hawai‘i Workers Center, said at the news conference at the Capitol. “It is time that we get big money out of politics.”

Evan Webber, co-founder of Our Hawai‘i, said having all elections financed publicly instead of through private campaign contributions would level the playing field and end what he called a pay-to-play system.

“Government contractors can literally hand out envelopes and wads of cash to people in this building and then go ahead and turn around and basically win those government contracts,” he said. “That’s pay-to-play if I’ve ever heard it, and it’s got to end.”

Camron Hurt, program manager for Common Cause Hawai‘i, said the Campaign Spending Commission is critically underfunded and has the same number of positions as it did when Hawaii became a state in 1959.

“This is abominable,” he said, suggesting that $1 million would be a big help and noting that $200,000 would add two positions.

Proponents of “clean government” have been demanding election and campaign spending reform following 31 recommendations proposed more than two years ago by the Commission to Improve Standards of Conduct after the February 2022 guilty pleas of disgraced former Senate Majority Leader J. Kalani English and former Rep. Ty J.K. Cullen.

They pleaded guilty in federal court to accepting bribes to support and kill legislation on behalf of Milton J. Choy, owner and manager of a company called H2O Process Systems. Choy was sentenced to more than three years in prison.

Some commission recommendations were enacted but some were not.

The 2025 session of the Legislature begins Wednesday.