[ OUR OPINION ]
Voters will evaluate session’s
merits at ballot boxLAWMAKERS spread pay raises all around this year -- to teachers, white-collar public workers, college professors and instructors, judges, state executives and even their chief antagonist, Governor Lingle.
THE ISSUE
Legislators and the governor have differing assessments of success and failures this year.
Hearts and minds focused on what is likely to be a red-hot election year with half the seats in the Senate and all in the House on the ballot, legislators hoped to cover in green as many bases as they could before session's end Thursday.
Whether there will be enough money to pay the bills depends, predictably, on whom you ask.
Democrats in the Legislature say the big numbers in the state budget add up. The Republican governor says they don't and ordered state agencies to leave off discretionary spending after lawmakers bounced her veto of arbitrated wage increases for members of the Hawaii Government Employees Association. The real answer hangs largely on a roll of the economic dice: Whether revenue collections will match or exceed predictions.
Money matters aside, the session was somewhat productive. Again, good or bad reflects point of view.
Democrats outmaneuvered Lingle and her polished lobby on education reform, fending off their effort to decentralize public school operations and assembling a respectable package of changes that counts as a start toward improvements. Work remains, however, on expanding neighbor island representation in school affairs and on principal accountability, which Lingle is sure to press.
Lingle defended the public's right to information when she turned away a bill to allow convention center bookings to remain secret until 10 days after renters go home. Her veto, oddly, ran counter to the wishes of her tourism chiefs, but she should be commended for staying true to her promise of transparent government. Lawmakers probably avoided another veto when they decided not to approve the so-called "vexatious requesters" bill that would have put limits on documents a citizen could seek from state agencies.
Lawmakers did better on environmental issues, resisting persistent pressure from beverage, retail and bottling lobbyists to clear housekeeping details of the bottle-deposit law so that it can go into effect on time Jan. 1. The battle against invasive species will have a small but permanent force of workers on the ground. Hawaii's $3 billion-a-year fossil fuel-addiction will be eased with a renewable energy plan, mandating electric companies to produce power through wind, solar, ocean, geothermal and other resources.
Unfortunately, a host of other overhauls were left undone. Among them, transit and traffic safety, comprehensive campaign spending reform, taxing authority for counties, workers compensation and the troubled, elusive cap on gasoline prices.
Legislators declared the session a success, Lingle a session of "missed opportunities." Voters will be the judges come November.
