Editorials

[ OUR OPINION ]

Campaign reform, gas prices
dominate contentious session

Caps on gasoline prices were not on the agenda as this year's Legislature began meeting in January, but evidence emanating from the settlement of the state's price-fixing lawsuit against the oil industry gave urgency to the issue. Legislators acted promptly, firmly and responsibly in controlling a market that the industry itself admitted is devoid of competition.

Some legislators called for further study of the issue, but information compiled in the lawsuit was comprehensive. It showed that gas prices in Hawaii have hovered above mainland prices and have not reflected the same market forces. The evidence also made clear that so-called "price of paradise" costs are nonexistent, allowing oil companies to make obscene profits from Hawaii sales.

The system of price caps is not arbitrary. Instead, they will be pegged to West Coast prices, which are presumed to be competitive. A congressional committee report this week accused the industry of manipulating the supply nationally to drive up prices, but the mainland market retains a semblance of competitiveness.

Opponents of price caps argued that they would stifle competition. However, they refused to acknowledge what the oil industry, through its attorney, admitted in court: The industry in Hawaii amounts to an oligopoly, resulting in "the phenomenon of the high prices, the high margins, the high profits, the lack of vigorous price competition."

The price caps are not scheduled to take effect until 2004. That will give opponents plenty of time to understand the problem and come up with an alternative solution.

Campaign law reforms will fight corruption

Neither state nor federal campaign-reform measures enacted during the past three months will affect this year's elections, but that does not diminish the importance of the most significant changes in election law at both levels since the post-Watergate era. The Hawaii legislation should interrupt the cozy and potentially corrupt relationship between state and county governments and contractors.

The state bill, which Governor Cayetano has said he will sign into law, will forbid contributions from state and county contractors to candidates for offices at those respective levels of government in the two years preceding the election. People who contributed during that period and received contracts in the two years following the election would receive refunds for their contributions.

The prohibition is similar to existing federal law. Honolulu City Councilman John Henry Felix this week introduced a proposed ordinance that would replicate the prohibition at the city level. Felix says his proposal does not contain provisions of the state measure that he expects will encounter constitutional challenges.

The state bill also will ban contributions to state and county candidates by large corporations and labor unions. New federal rules forbid the distribution of "soft money," the unregulated contributions to political parties from corporations, unions and wealthy people. However, industry and labor contributions will continue to be allowed through political action committees.

Physician-assisted suicide bill defeated

Hawaii nearly became the second state in the nation to allow terminally ill people facing unbearable pain to die with dignity with help from their physicians. Moral and religious opposition led to the measure's narrow defeat in the state Senate after it had been approved in the House. The proposal should be considered by future legislatures.

State Sen. David Matsuura, chairman of the Senate Health Committee, obstructed the process for much of the legislative session after the bill's House approval. Finally, senators dragged it to the Senate floor in the final days of the session, surprising some legislators who seemed uneasy and unprepared to consider the issue. Four senators changed sides in a two-day period.

More than 90 patients, most of them suffering from cancer, have used Oregon's Death With Dignity Act since it took effect in 1997. Attorney General John Ashcroft's attempt to nullify the law has been rejected in federal court, but the law allowing physician-assisted suicide continues to be controversial.

The Hawaii proposal was drafted in 1998 by Governor Cayetano's Blue Ribbon Panel on Living and Dying with Dignity. A.A. Smyser, the Star-Bulletin's contributing editor until his death in March 2001, was a member of the panel and a leading advocate of the legislation.

BACK TO TOP

---

Published by Oahu Publications Inc., a subsidiary of Black Press.

Don Kendall, Publisher

Frank Bridgewater, Editor 529-4791; fbridgewater@starbulletin.com
Michael Rovner, Assistant Editor 529-4768; mrovner@starbulletin.com
Lucy Young-Oda, Assistant Editor 529-4762; lyoungoda@starbulletin.com

Mary Poole, Editorial Page Editor, 529-4790; mpoole@starbulletin.com
John Flanagan, Contributing Editor 294-3533; jflanagan@starbulletin.com

The Honolulu Star-Bulletin (USPS 249460) is published daily by
Oahu Publications at 500 Ala Moana Blvd., Suite 7-500, Honolulu, Hawaii 96813.
Periodicals postage paid at Honolulu, Hawaii. Postmaster: Send address changes to
Star-Bulletin, P.O. Box 3080, Honolulu, Hawaii 96802.