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‘Lateral’ bill
By Crystal Kua
deadline passes; Cayetano
plans see defeat
Star-BulletinBills still alive at the Legislature are now headed to their final committees following yesterday's internal "lateral" deadline, the date by which bills that crossed between the House and Senate two weeks ago must get out of their initial committees.
The second lateral deadline capped a week that also saw defeat before the same Senate committee of a couple of initiatives proposed by Gov. Ben Cayetano's administration.
Big Island Sen. Lorraine Inouye's Economic Development Committee yesterday killed a major part of Cayetano's high-technology coordination plan that would have created the High Technology Development Corp., headed by Cayetano's assistant, Joe Blanco.
On Wednesday, Inouye's committee also killed a House bill that would have allowed commercialization of the Ala Wai and Keehi boat harbors to generate revenues. The plan was opposed by Republican Sen. Sam Slom and Rep. Galen Fox as well as Ala Wai boat owners.
The opposition prompted Cayetano to describe the the Ala Wai boaters as "rabid" and "demanding" and to call Slom and Fox "hypocrites" for supporting privatization in general but not in this case.
Slom said the issue was really about being respectful to the people in the area where the state wants to take action. Boat residents said the state had not talked to them before developing its plan.
Inouye said she had problems with both the high-tech and the harbor plans that came before her committee.
In other events at the state Capitol:
RECIPROCAL BENEFICIARIES:
Two House committees restored yesterday a requirement that Hawaii insurance companies and health maintenance organizations provide coverage to "reciprocal beneficiaries," including gay couples.But the vote was split as the bill moved from the Consumer Protection and Commerce and Judiciary committees to the Finance Committee.
During a floor debate on the bill last night, Rep. Bob McDermott (R, Aliamanu-Halawa) called the measure a "steaming, stinkin' pile of political correctness."
STREET NAMES:
A resolution offered Thursday by a House committee calls for a committee of military, Hawaiian representatives and other affected parties to decide whether to change the street names at the former Barbers Point Naval Air Station in West Oahu.Native Hawaiians and others want the street names -- now named after U.S. war heroes and battleships -- converted to Hawaiian names now that the area has been renamed Kalaeloa, the name it had before the base was built.
CLEAN ELECTIONS: Representatives from Advocates for Consumer Rights, Hawaii Clean Elections and the American Civil LIberties Union confronted Sen. Cal Kawamoto at his state Capitol office yesterday demanding that he act on a measure that would use public money to fund the next round of City Council elections.
The majority of members on Kawamoto's Transportation and Intergovernmental Affairs Committee oppose the measure.
GUN CONTROL:
A gun-control bill that calls for mental-health history and criminal-record checks on a staggered basis every five years moved out of the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday.
PAY RAISE:
A bill that would have given the state Ethics Commission executive director a pay raise and also set up a formula so that he would make more than his second-in-command, which is not the case now, is dead this session because the House Judiciary Committee decided not to schedule a hearing on the bill.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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