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They like to keep
things in the dark

I have a file drawer stuffed with surveys of local voters. Here's what they say about the 76 state legislators: Voters don't know them, they don't like them and they don't trust the whole pack of them.

Although not held in public respect, most legislators are not dumb. They know there is a disconnect. While they might have the smarts to realize they have a public confidence flameout, they need the insight to understand the source of the discontent.

So far the House and Senate have attempted to buy away their problems by hiring a variety of public-relations assistants to handle the news media, write speeches and fluff up their Web sites. Of course, during an election a whole new cadre of PR workers are hired to handle the image-polishing.

But just as the public wisely mistrusts public servants meeting and working behind closed doors, the public knows to appreciate what it can see and understand.

For the last five years a citizens group, Hawaii Clean Elections, has lobbied to have the public pay the expenses for a politician's campaign, if they promise not to take outside money. The idea is to get special interests out of politics.

Special interests will always be part of the Legislature because one person's special interest is another's First Amendment right, but the belief that the Legislature is packed with crooks and layabouts and must be scrubbed clean refuses to die.

Now the Senate is toying with starting a bipartisan ethics committee. The Legislature needs more than a timid special committee. Lingle has proposed a series of ethics reforms along with criminal sanctions. If the public buys laws that are tough on drug dealers and sex abusers, why wouldn't it also welcome laws that are tough on legislative scofflaws?

At the same time, anyone who thinks the Legislature is a transparent organization must have X-ray vision.

Legislators' notes, files and correspondence are private, not public; state government notes, files and correspondence are public -- the difference being that the Legislature writes the rules.

The House leadership has taken pains to wall itself off from the few members of the news media that still cover the Legislature, by limiting access to legislators on the House floor and before and after sessions.

While the Legislature has shown more maturity in holding public conference committees and taking public votes on bills, the legislative tracking system has not been improved in a decade.

If even a legislator can see more clearly with the lights on, imagine how the public would respond to a Legislature with the stomach for open government.