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Gathering Place
James R. "Duke" Aiona Jr. |
Petty politics get in way
of fight against drug useIn their rush to demonstrate that they have the votes to override vetoes, the Democrats in the Legislature have saddled the people of our state with a grossly flawed "ice" bill. It is a bill so flawed that almost no one supported it except the Democrats who actually wrote it; hardly a formula for good legislating. Groups and individuals with as far-ranging views as the Honolulu city prosecutor and the state public defender, as well as Mayor Jeremy Harris, urged a veto, not because the bill was not well intentioned, but because it was neither well written nor well thought out.
If the Democrats had taken more time with this bill instead of rushing to pass it, the Constitution would have given them the ability to fix the flaws and send it back to the governor to sign. We repeatedly tried to meet with the Senate and House Joint Ice Task Force to address these flaws in a bipartisan manner. Unfortunately, Sen. Colleen Hanabusa and Rep. Eric Hamakawa stonewalled our attempts. The Democrats were more interested in showing who's got the votes than who's got the sense. Just a few provisions of the bill clearly demonstrate this.
In a laudable attempt to facilitate the availability of drug rehabilitation homes ("clean and sober homes") the Legislature overrode both the counties' home rule and common sense, and by state law provided that any such home, housing as many as 10 people, would be allowed in any residential area and would need "no conditional use, permit, variance, or special exception" of any kind whatsoever. This seems to mean no building permit, no electrical permit, no nothing. An informational meeting is required, but county government can do nothing to stop a project no matter how many citizens protest, no matter how inappropriate the placement is and no matter how many of these houses are being placed in the same small neighborhood.
While talking about getting local control to the schools, the Democrats repealed much of the Department of Education's "zero tolerance for drugs" policy and mandated that DOE could not discipline a student selling (or using) drugs on campus without first referring the child to a substance abuse counselor to see if treatment is needed. Treatment is important, but if a child is selling (or using) drugs at school, the school needs to be able to impose discipline, too. The bill actually forbids discipline in many cases even if the student is a second, third or fourth offender; if the student does not need treatment, he or she can be disciplined. This sends the message that if you are going to sell, make sure you're using, too.
The Democrats, while talking about the dangers of ice, significantly reduced penalties for the most dangerous crime: manufacturing ice. They reduced to a Class "B" felony the crime of manufacturing small quantities of ice, while leaving the manufacture of small quantities of all other "dangerous drugs" a Class "A" felony. They reduced the mandatory minimum penalty for manufacturing large quantities of ice. This was either bad drafting, bad policy or both, but again, because the Democrats were so intent on giving themselves the ability to override a veto during the regular session, they have denied themselves the ability to fix this problem.
The final flaw in this bill I will discuss here (there are many more) is that the Democrats chose to provide felony drug offenders who have multiple prior felonies, who would otherwise face mandatory minimum sentences, the possibility of probation, even though no other criminals would get this benefit. This makes no sense. Offenders with many prior convictions should go to jail.
To me it is clear that 1) the ice bill will do some good and a great deal of harm, and the governor's veto should not have been overridden; 2) legislative Democrats acted hastily because of public relations and politics and not in an effort to set good policy; and 3) the people of Hawaii should demand thoughtful, conscientious legislators who are above petty politics.
James R. "Duke" Aiona is the lieutenant governor of Hawaii.