[ OUR OPINION ]
Give Spending Commission
real independenceTHE state Campaign Spending Commission calls itself an "independent agency," and it has all the trappings of such an entity, except one: Like similar agencies, its members and director must get the permission of the state's chief accountant before communicating with the governor or Legislature. The requirement needs to be eliminated to provide these commissions true independence.
THE ISSUE
The state comptroller has given permission for the Campaign Spending Commission director to testify before the Legislature.
Bob Watada, the commission's executive director, learned of the potential gag order after state Comptroller Russ Saito granted him permission to testify to the Senate Judiciary Committee against a campaign-spending measure proposed by the Lingle administration. Sen. Suzanne Chun Oakland says she learned of the requirement last year when officials from the Executive Office on Aging were denied permission to testify before Oakland's Health Committee.
A peculiar state law requires that when a board or commission is attached to a department for administrative purposes, the department head "shall represent the board or commission in communications with the governor and with the Legislature." The purpose of such a requirement is puzzling, and Watada is right in describing the result as "chilling."
The Spending Commission's five members are appointed by the governor from a list of 10 names recommended by the Judicial Council, an advisory panel appointed by the state Supreme Court. The commission members serve four-year terms staggered so that some overlap gubernatorial terms. The commission hires its director.
The Office on Aging is less detached. While the law places the office under Saito's Department of Accounting and General Services for administrative purposes only, the governor hires the director and appoints the 21 to 29 members of its "policy advisory board" to four-year terms. Although the terms are staggered, the office is clearly a creature of the sitting governor.
In either case, state law should not prescribe a hierarchy of accountability based on administrative lines. The Office of Aging's director is not about to disagree with the governor's position on legislation dealing with Hawaii's senior citizens, and doesn't need to be told that by the comptroller. Watada should answer to the commission that hired him, not the comptroller or even the governor, whose campaign activities are subject to his purview.
Senate Judiciary Chairman Colleen Hanabusa says she has "major concerns that a department head would tell someone like the head of the Campaign Spending Commission that he has no right to speak" unless the state comptroller gives permission to do so. However, Saito is merely choosing whether to exercise the authority that the law gives him.
Saito says he is "perplexed" by the fuss, since he gave Watada permission to testify. The situation would be less perplexing if the Legislature simply repealed this absurd law.
