Gathering Places
Gathering Places
Government can regain
credibility by whittling
down rules and regsThe state of Hawaii is governed by more than 20,000 pages of rules and regulations. Many local businesses are overburdened with regulations so layered and complex that it has become nearly impossible to reach compliance with the law.
Part of the reason for this legal mountain of do's and don'ts is that the Legislature seems to love to empower the state government's executive branch to make rules. Rules are potentially dangerous because they have the force of law, but no lawmaker ever makes them. They are made by department deputies and their co-workers, all of them earnest and intelligent, but none of them elected.
Let me give you an example: Let's say I pass a bill relating to transportation, and the Department of Transportation makes rules to implement that legislation. Let's further suppose that the Legislature repeals the law five years later.
Guess what happens to the rules? They're still in place! Can you believe that? I will push to mandate that if a law gets repealed, so do the rules related to it. It sounds so sensible that it's surprising legislators didn't fix it earlier.
Additionally, there is no requirement that the rule being made by a state department has anything to do with the law it is designed to implement. I will be pushing to mandate that all rules have a rational connection with the law requiring the rule.
The pressure that businesses feel from government regulations is not imaginary, and it does more than increase the cost of doing business, it reduces the overall respect for sensible regulation and for the role of government in people's lives. When one of the primary daily activities of a business becomes complying with rules for which there is no obvious justification, it's not just a waste of time; it drives a damaging and unnecessary wedge between the public and private sectors.
Most of Hawaii's citizens know that many rules are good, and we should maintain protections for workers and the environment. But businesses need simplicity, predictability and clarity. The idea that the Legislature can repeal a law and yet the rules will remain is an affront to common sense.
Government can and should be an instrument for positive change in communities and in our economy, but first it has to regain its credibility. We have to get rid of policies that hurt our friends and neighbors who are trying to build a stronger economy.
I have no interest in bashing our state government, but I am passionately committed to fixing it.
Brain Schatz, D-Makiki, Tantalus, Manoa, is chairman of the House Economic Development Committee.