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IN AND AROUND THE CAPITOL
State government
Term limits present legal dilemma By Richard Borreca
adopting ‘paper-free’
digital access
Star-BulletinAlmost unnoticed, the phrase "shall be available electronically" is being inserted in bill after bill as each leaves the Senate Ways and Means Committee.
The provision signals that Hawaii's government is finally coming to grips with the digital age that has revolutionized business.
"There is going to be a whole new way to do business with government," said Kathryn Matayoshi, director of the state Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs.
It was a signal when Gov. Ben Cayetano put her department in charge of contracting a private firm to run a state Internet site that would allow citizens to do business, file licenses, get permits and form companies electronically without generating any paper.
"When DCCA started to pull people together with the Internet portal, it was a recognition that a portion of the administration was embracing the new technology," explained Sen. Carol Fukunaga, Ways and Means co-chairwoman who has been working for a decade to modernize state government.
The state's Internet portal site (http://www.ehawaiigov.com) will let state government departments put their business up on the Web for citizens to avoid the paperwork and long lines by just sitting down at a computer, says Matayoshi.
"Our strategy is to take the government to the people," she said.
Fukunaga (D, Tantalus-Makiki), the only state legislator on the federal Advisory Council on the National Information Infrastructure, was on Cayetano's trip to California's Silicon Valley last month.
The government officials visited businesses such as Oracle that are saving billions of dollars a year by replacing paperwork with a digital trail.
"Think what we could do with government -- the forms, vouchers, the pre-audit, the post-audit. If government shifts, the savings could be immense," she said.
Aided by Sens. David Ige (D, Pearlridge, Pacific Palisades) and Les Ihara (D, Kapahulu, Kaimuki), Fukunaga has supported bills that would require nearly all political candidates to file their campaign spending reports electronically, permit Internet checks of the database of convicted sex offenders, require reports to the Legislature to be sent in electronic form and also require high-speed Internet access at public libraries.
Coming later this year are plans to charge for special services that the state does not now provide, said Matayoshi. How much will be charged and even how those charges will be levied are still questions under discussion, she said.
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Legislature Bills & Hawaii Revised Statutes
Senate vote in legal
Associated Press
dilemma: Incumbents
entitled to longer
terms than challengersThe state is heading toward a constitutional complication that could result in legal challenges to the 2002 senatorial elections, says Senate Majority Leader Les Ihara.
Unless the state Constitution is amended this year, those incumbents re-elected in 2002 to the 14 Senate seats up for election this year would get four-year terms. But successful challengers would only get two-year terms, Ihara (D, Kaimuki) said.
"No other elective office in our nation gives incumbents a longer term in office than a successful challenger," Ihara said in a letter to his colleagues.
Tomorrow is the deadline to give Gov. Ben Cayetano 10 days' notice of any proposed constitutional amendment, but House Speaker Calvin Say has declined to take up the amendment because there is no time to hold a public hearing, Ihara said.
House Majority Leader Ed Case (D, Manoa), who learned of the conflict Monday, said the House is reviewing the legal questions, "but it seems like an impossible task to develop and prepare a constitutional amendment in just two days."
The issue arises because the state Constitution requires a reapportionment of legislative districts in 2001. To accomplish that, the 14 candidates winning this year will only get two-year terms. In 2002 all 25 Senate seats will be up for election.
According to the Constitution, senators elected this year to a two-year term can run for a four-year term in 2002. On the other hand, those senators elected in 1998 will only get a two-year term if re-elected in 2002. That would re-establish the staggered-term system, under which half of the 25 senators run every two years.
Legislature Directory
Legislature Bills & Hawaii Revised Statutes
