Gripes increase between
Lingle and Legislature
Several weeks ago, the director of the Department of Human Services walked onto the Senate floor during a short recess in the debate on the state budget bill to protest the Democrats' elimination of vacant federally funded positions.
Lillian Koller's lecture to Senate Human Services Committee Chairwoman Suzanne Chun Oakland (D, Kalihi-Liliha) probably violated some separation-of-powers protocol.
Star-Bulletin Legislature Database
Star-Bulletin Legislature Guide
(PDF, 2.4 MB)
State Legislature: Bills
& Hawaii Revised Statutes
But it's symbolic of the growing animosity between the first Republican administration in 40 years and the Legislature, under Democratic control for the past half century.
Last week, Georgina Kawamura, the usually polite director of the Department of Budget and Finance, and Democratic Sen. Brian Taniguchi, the usually mild-mannered chairman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee, traded verbal barbs over sharing budget information.
Leaders of House and Senate committees aren't used to backtalk from administration officials, who for decades have come from the same political party and kept any raised voices behind closed doors.
When Sen. Donna Mercado Kim, during a hearing, pressed Attorney General Mark Bennett for a legal opinion on the issue of funding state worker pay raises, he told her to put the request in writing.
Bennett flatly refused to tell Kim (D, Kalihi Valley-Halawa) what legal advice he had given the governor, citing attorney-client privilege.
In a later House Finance Committee meeting, Chairman Dwight Takamine (D, Hawi-Hilo) continued the confrontational attitude, telling Kawamura she couldn't read her statement. He wanted to go straight to the Q-and-A.
There's a growing list of sore points between the Democrats and Lingle.
The backdrop is an election year in which the popular governor has vowed to use her political muscle to shift the balance of power in the Legislature toward the GOP. That's making Democratic incumbents reluctant to be cooperative.
Taniguchi (D, Moilili-Manoa) spelled it out back in early March when things were still somewhat cordial.
"I think the fact that (Lingle) has said she is going to go after Democrats and all this kind of stuff, target people and raise money to get people out, to me that really has set the tone," he said. "She would like to collaborate, but when you have somebody who is saying we're going to try to get you out of office, it makes it difficult."
Just what the public, and more importantly the voters, think of all this give and take will be hashed out over the next six months of political campaigning for the Nov. 2 general election.
The most significant showdown is over the $3.8 billion supplemental budget bill now on Lingle's desk, which becomes law if she doesn't veto it by midnight Friday. Because the budget was passed three weeks sooner than normal, the Democrats have time to counter a veto with an override before the regular session ends May 6.
Next to it is the $32 million binding arbitration pay raises for the state's white-collar workers and the potential for similar settlements for teachers and certain blue-collar workers -- amounts Lingle says the state can't afford. The same veto and veto override scenario is in play.
The Democrats are holding hostage the first pay raises in 14 years for top state executives in exchange for the white-collar pay raises won by the Hawaii Government Employees Association.
An apparent innocent bystander could be a bill granting pay raises for state judges, although they wouldn't begin until July 1, 2005.
Both raises were recommended by commissions created by lawmakers last year.
