Posted on: Wednesday, April 30, 2008
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VOLCANIC ASH
Tongue in cheek — Legislature in review
By
David Shapiro
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Oh, the rhetoric, the tortured logic, the mangled sentences...
The 2008 Legislature is scheduled to adjourn tomorrow, so it's time for our annual review of the session — culled from the "flASHback" items in my Friday blog.
Place tongue in cheek and let's begin:
University of Hawai'i football players were honored by lawmakers on opening day. Warriors in attendance planned to perform their traditional pre-game ha'a, but after listening to the rhetoric they couldn't get further than ha-ha-ha.
The session began with Rep. Jon Riki Karamatsu resigning as vice speaker of the House because of a DUI and ended with Sen. Ron Menor arrested for driving under the influence. If this keeps up, we'll have to change the seat of government to a bar stool.
Senate Republican leader Fred Hemmings fended off a challenge for his job by other members of the GOP caucus that controls only four of the 25 Senate seats. This fight gave new meaning to the word "undercard."
State agencies asked the Legislature for a $1 million emergency appropriation to pay increased power costs. It's amazing how our government can spend so much on electricity and still operate so much in the dark.
The Legislature voted to give away Hawai'i's electoral votes to whoever wins the national popular vote for president, even if the candidate was soundly rejected by local voters. So goes democracy in Hawai'i: One state, no vote.
Legislators dropped a bill that would have banned drivers from text messaging and e-mailing in traffic, raising an interesting chicken-and-egg riddle: Do you need a brain to recognize a no-brainer when you see one?
Lawmakers refused to audit the Department of Education to find out why kids aren't learning, but they want to audit an Arizona prison to make sure our convicts there are well-treated. I suppose that's another way of planning for our children's future.
Rep. Josh Green, a doctor, backed off accusations that Rep. Tommy Waters, a lawyer, was settling a score over medical malpractice reform with an ethics bill that would have barred Green from working in state hospitals. Green couldn't get anyone to believe Waters was that clever.
Lawmakers passed a three-year prohibition against publicly urinating and defecating in Downtown Honolulu. What, do they expect self-flushing sidewalks will be invented by 2012?
Gov. Linda Lingle asked the Legislature to buy the Turtle Bay Resort for open space. By session's end, it wasn't clear if she had enough political capital to get the Democrats to buy her a pond turtle at Petland.
Legislators cut $22 million from programs to help people who are already poor to save it for people who may or may not become poor in the future. That kind of logic certainly justifies the 54-percent raises they're paying themselves over the next five years.
Sen. Rosalyn Baker insisted "we're not stupid" when critics said the Legislature would endanger public safety with its bill to limit the governor's emergency powers. I wonder where the smart money is on that one.
And my favorite quote ... from Gov. Linda Lingle on her relationship with the Legislature: "We have not, in my recollection — and this will be my sixth time going downstairs in this capacity — we have not veered off and gotten distracted on one issue the way I'd watched previously where it would be gambling for the whole session or it would be same-sex marriage for the whole session."
It would have been more convincing if she hadn't veered off and gotten distracted so many times in this one sentence.
David Shapiro, a veteran Hawai'i journalist, can be reached by e-mail at dave@volcanicash.net. His columns are archived at www.volcanicash.net. Read his daily blog at blogs.honoluluadvertiser.com.
