Senate’s fiscal
committee loses
another chief clerk

A lack of stability continues to plague the Senate Ways and Means Committee, which handles all fiscal-related bills and which Sen. Carol Fukunaga has led for the past three years.

Barbara Kim Stanton, who was hired in late December, has been axed as the panel's chief clerk who supervised the committee staff. Stanton, a former deputy director of the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism, is the third chief clerk to depart the money panel during Fukunaga's tenure.

Stanton and Fukunaga could not be reached for comment.

Fukunaga's name has also been at the center of reorganization talks that continue to swirl through the Senate. During this year's legislative session, a group of senators came close to staging a coup to topple Fukunaga, Senate Majority Leader Les Ihara Jr. and Senate Vice President Avery Chumbley -- but retain Norman Mizuguchi as Senate president.

Now, however, there appears to be stronger talk of removing Mizuguchi, too.

But the major stumbling block, say Capitol insiders, is getting a majority of senators to agree on all lineup changes that might be made.

PARTY SWITCHING: When state Republican Party Chairwoman Linda Lingle declared last week that there will be high-profile Democrats defecting to the GOP, it ignited speculation since Lingle refused to identify who the party switchers would be.

Some folks thought Sen. Colleen Hanabusa of Waianae might be one of those bolting. They even called her to ask if she was joining the GOP.

Their reasoning: The same day Lingle announced that there would be Democratic defections, she attacked former Attorney General Margery Bronster and cited Hanabusa as a state senator who was justified in voting to deny Bronster another term in office.

Laughing, Hanabusa says, "No, I'm not switching to the Republican Party."