LIHUE — Kauai is the only county in Hawaii that doesn’t have an ordinance governing lobbying. On Wednesday, the county will be taking a first look at a draft for an ordinance doing just that. The bill is being introduced
LIHUE — Kauai is the only county in Hawaii that doesn’t have an ordinance governing lobbying. On Wednesday, the county will be taking a first look at a draft for an ordinance doing just that.
The bill is being introduced by Councilman Gary Hooser with the theme full disclosure being at its heart.
“(This law wouldn’t) prevent anyone from lobbying, it just says if you’re a lobbyist, you have to disclose it and you have to disclose how much money you spend,” Hooser said.
Hawaii constitution requires every county to have an ordinance regulating the actions of lobbyists and Hooser said he and his staff modeled the proposal after the ordinances for Maui, the Big Island and the ordinance that governs lobbyists at the Legislature.
There are a few differences.
The bill requires lobbyists to register annually to a list that will be kept by the county clerk.
“Right now, there’s no way to know who is a lobbyist and who isn’t,” Hooser said. “There’s no list, there’s no way to know except to ask them.”
It also requires those lobbyists to annually report the money they’ve spent on lobbying activities, and what it was spent on.
“Their job is to influence the legislative action of the government, so the council or the mayor, and they can do it through testimony or taking them out to lunch, or taking trips,” Hooser said. “This law would require those people to disclose who they are and how much they spent and on what.”
That would apply to newspaper advertisements and things like handbags promoting a specific vote on an issue.
In addition to an annual disclosure of their lobbying status, the bill in its current form also requires lobbyists to announce their status before making public testimonies. The law would require full disclosure every time they testify.
“We usually know who the lobbyists are because we’ve been here for a couple of years, but the public doesn’t know who they are,” Hooser said. “The public is watching John Smith on TV, they don’t know whether he’s a lobbyist or not, and it’s important for them to know also.”
Other communities across the nation require lobbyists to wear name tags identifying them and the company for which they are lobbying, but Hooser said he thought that was taking it too far on Kauai.
“I considered it in my brain, but in a small community that would probably be considered over the top,” Hooser said.
The bill also puts a strict ban on gift-giving if you are a lobbyist — even those ever popular gifts of aloha, which are things like flower lei and boxes of cookies or a cheese platter.
“Right now, the law says nobody can give council members or the mayor gifts intended to influence their actions,” Hooser said, “so what does that mean? What are lobbyists doing giving gifts in the first place and why are you giving it to me?”
Hooser said as he and his staff constructed the draft, they considered limiting the gifts to anything under a certain dollar amount, or excluding gifts of aloha, but in the end the decision was just to get rid of gift-giving by lobbyists entirely.
“We may end up excluding gifts of aloha (from the bill),” Hooser said. “That’ll be debated, but we’re starting with no gifts.”
This is the first draft of the new proposal and the bill will have to go through several hearings before it’s finalized in a second reading at the council and then, if passed, sent to the mayor’s office for a signature.
It will be introduced on Wednesday at the regular council meeting in the Historic County Building beginning at 8:30 a.m.
