Poinography!

If you take a look at the latest version of the document index you’ll find that I made a lot of progress in the past week. I’d estimate I’m now only about halfway through the box of records. Whew.

So, what’s in this batch of records pertaining to legislation that passed the 2009 regular session? Among the more notable subjects: mortgage broker regulation, renewable energy matters, increasing cigarette taxation (to include messages from Grover Norquist reminding the Governor of her anti-tax pledge), increasing conveyance taxation for properties valued over $2M, increasing transient accommodations taxation, a hugely popular bill to protect manta rays, various special purpose revenue bonds, and timeshare regulation. Also of note is that many of the cigarette tax bill opponents were sent hand-signed responses from the Governor [and a waffling response, at that], which made that bill unique among all the other legislation (or at least among all the records I’ve scanned so far).

As ever, to look at any particular document, point your browser to
http://poinography.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009uipa/poi****.pdf
[substituting the asterisks with the four-digit document number you want, using leading zeros as needed]. For example, here is the link to view the first page of this latest batch of public comments. REMINDER: all of the contents of this site (to include the uploaded documents) are published under a Creative Commons license. Please, respect the terms of that license.

META: The Senate Clerk has politely declined my request for these records to be hosted at the Capitol.hawaii.gov website. Disappointing. They choose to limit their site to “created by the legislature” documents, rejecting a more-expansive “relating to legislation documents” context. Or so I’m told. I believe that they are afraid these records are somehow “more political” than the testimony already available on their website. In rejecting me, they suggest that I ask the Governor to host these records. As if she’d ever agree to that after fighting with me tooth and nail for over a year…

According to the Hawaii Tribune-Herald, a nonpartisan candidate for House District 4 has complained to the Office of Elections about the primary election process and the burdens it places on nonpartisan candidates in order to advance to the general election. It’s an interesting story, especially this:

[In a letter to the Chief Elections Officer the candidate] says that no nonpartisan candidate in Hawaii’s history has ever advanced to public office in a partisan race.

However, that is not the same as arguing that “no nonpartisan candidate in Hawaii’s history has ever advanced to the general election,” which, in my opinion, more accurately describes the crux of the candidate’s complaint. I was unsure if that had ever happened, so I started looking through the general election results from the Office of Elections.

As it turns out, in 2006, at the General Election there was a nonpartisan candidate on the ballot for House District 30. That candidate received only 3.0% of the votes cast, trailing the Republican, the Democrat, and “blank votes.” (But beating the Green Party candidate.) What is more interesting, however, is that in reviewing the 2006 primary election you’ll find that the nonpartisan candidate only got 6(!) votes. According to the law, in failing to get at least 10% of the votes cast at the primary election for that race or, alternatively, failing to get at least as many votes as any partisan candidate in that primary race, that nonpartisan candidate should not have advanced to the general election. Weird. UPDATE: Actually, not so weird. See the comment from Dave Smith.

Those oddities aside, I am sympathetic to the argument that the process is too burdensome for nonpartisan candidates. I’m not so sure what legal argument the complainant intends to make for a claim of the process being unconstitutional, though. The “case notes” in the HRS section cited above don’t bode well for that…

This disparity partially explains the “Free Energy,” “Natural Law,” “Best Party,” and other fringe parties we occasionally seen on the ballot. All it takes to start a political party is a petition, at least for the first time out. After that “free ride” election, such parties face disqualification if they don’t field candidates and get enough votes. But, at least for the first election, candidates of such fringe parties are guaranteed a spot on the general election ballot.

A few fun observations I made while working tonight to catalog more records:

Rule 1. If you’re going to redact an email address, then try to use a marker that is truly opaque. Especially true if this redaction is intended to obscure the Governor’s personal email address. Ooops!

Rule 2. If you’re going to redact information from a letterhead and/or a signature block, such redaction is more effective if the same information is not disclosed in another part of the same record.

Rule 3. Printing emails on the back side of other documents to conserve paper within the office is all well and good, but … printing those emails on the back of a random crackpot right-wing conspiracy theory and then making double-sided copies in response to a record request is poor form.

I noticed after I was already several hours into working on this batch that I am not following the plan I had made to deal first with all the bills that were approved, then the veto overrides, and then the vetoed measures not overridden. It turns out that I collated the veto overrides along with the approved bills (the records had been bundled by Act number, and I forgot that veto overrides are also numbered (re-)starting at one). It’s really not a big deal, so I am continuing with that organization scheme. Besides, the newly-updated document index still reflects the nature of each record; my document numbering system is purely arbitrary, of course.

So, what’s in this batch of records pertaining to legislation that passed the 2009 regular session? Among the more notable subjects: the so-called “card check” legislation (with, hard to believe, zero public comments received in support?), medical marijuana, naturopathy regulation, and workers compensation. Dig in! Leave a comment if any of this is useful or interesting to you, please.

As ever, to look at any particular document, point your browser to
http://poinography.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009uipa/poi****.pdf
[substituting the asterisks with the four-digit document number you want, using leading zeros as needed]. For example, here is the link to view the first page of public comments. REMINDER: all of the contents of this site (to include the uploaded documents) are published under a Creative Commons license. Please, respect the terms of that license.

META: Senator Ihara told me six days ago that the Senate Clerk would contact me regarding hosting these records at the Capitol website. So far, I haven’t heard a peep from her, though. I’ve completed over 1000 records, and there are at least that many more to be catalogued, scanned, and uploaded. I have spare time to only do a few hundred records per week. Have patience, please.

Okay, it was mildly interesting when Larry Geller first raised the topic. I submitted a few comments on his post and, honestly, I thought it was a non-issue. It became slightly more interesting when a lawsuit was filed. And soon (if not already) it will be in the mainstream media, since it has already appeared in the Star-Advertiser’s blog twice.

The question is, did Senator Bunda resign from the Senate before filing to run for Lieutenant Governor? As reported by Geller, Senator Bunda submitted a letter July 14th where he described his “intent” to resign. According to DePledge’s blog, Bunda has vacated his office, initiated his retirement, turned in his keys, etc. The lawsuit, however, argues that without an (unspecified) explicit act of resignation , Bunda is not resigned and, thus, he is ineligible to run for LG. Implicitly, then, the argument is that Bunda is still a member of the Senate.

Allow me to gently point out that the Legislature is a co-equal branch of government. This matters greatly here.

In the Caldwell fiasco, the Office of Elections was answering a question of whether Caldwell had properly withdrawn as a candidate for re-election to the House before filing as a candidate for election to the Honolulu City Council, the Office of Elections was not addressing a question regarding resignation from elected office. The Office of Elections has no authority to decide if a candidate is in fact resigned from office. If the candidate affirms that he or she is eligible to be a candidate, then the Office of Elections has no statutory means to dispute the affirmation.

Likewise, the Judiciary is not (nor should it be) empowered to resolve what is essentially a question of Senate resignation policy, i.e. a “rule of [Senate] proceedings.” Not to put too fine a tip on it, but the Senate runs its own shop and the Judiciary does not have to like it.

Therefore, the President of the Senate (not a judge, and not the Chief Elections Officer) should rule whether any Senate rule was violated, and/or if Bunda’s resignation was in effect on July 16. So far as I can tell, the Senate rules do not proscribe any official resignation procedure, leaving the Senate President with wide latitude to rule on the matter. Whatever is decided by the President, if the Senate then wished to challenge that ruling, regular parliamentary procedure would allow for a majority vote.

That is it for the more banal of the records I received. Next up: the actual comments about legislation that passed the 2009 legislature which were received and sent by the Governor’s office! For lack of any better strategy, I reckon I’ll attack those in numerical order by Act; regular session measures first, then special session.

I followed the same routine for this batch of privilege logs: to assist in your browsing, the document index has been updated to reflect the latest uploads. That spreadsheet is closing in on 3000(!) rows already, and I have not even begun with the bulk of the records. Wow.

As ever, to look at any particular document, point your browser to
http://poinography.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009uipa/poi****.pdf
[substituting the asterisks with the four-digit document number you want, using leading zeros as needed]. For example, here is the link to view the first page of the newest batch of uploads. REMINDER: all of the contents of this site (to include the uploaded documents) are published under a Creative Commons license. Please, respect the terms of that license.

Okay, that completes the indexing, scanning, and uploading of the privilege logs for bills from the 2009 regular session which became law with the Governor’s signature. What’s left are the privilege logs from the veto overrides, and the privilege logs from the vetoed measures not overridden. I’ll try to get those final privilege logs done this weekend. Then it will be on to the actual public comments!

One interesting record popped out as I chugged my way through these documents. Take a look at the last entry on document 658. The sender information for that document is not disclosed, and the document description reads “executive summary and presentation material, market and economic impact analysis, two casinos on the island of Oahu (working draft, not for publication).” Although the sender is not disclosed, a government agency created that document. Because if the document came from a non-government source it would have (legally, anyway) been released among the non-privileged documents. Hmmmm…. I have followed up with a request for this document and/or for more information about it.

There are probably additional interesting nuggets, but my eyes glaze over after a few hours. Once everything is indexed and uploaded I can take a much more thorough pass through the documents.

To assist in your browsing, the document index has been updated to reflect the latest uploads.

As ever, to look at any particular document, point your browser to
http://poinography.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009uipa/poi****.pdf
[substituting the asterisks with the four-digit document number you want, using leading zeros as needed]. For example, here is the link to view the first page of the newest batch of uploads. REMINDER: all of the contents of this site (to include the uploaded documents) are published under a Creative Commons license. Please, respect the terms of that license.

META: I have yet to hear back from Senator Ihara and/or the Senate Clerk about hosting these documents on the Capitol.hawaii.gov website. I suppose the Senate has bigger fish (and judicial nominees) to fry…

Whew! I am discovering that keeping the document index up to date is a major hassle, but without the index readers would be forced to browse the records one-by-one. Sigh. The work makes me feel like I am a graduate student again, actually…

Anyway, I have added another column on the document index to differentiate between the comment solicitations previously uploaded, and the various privilege log records that I have added to the cache today. You’ll notice on the spreadsheet that many of the same people appear over and over, namely the Governor’s Policy Office staff, various Deputy Attorneys General, Linda Smith and, for some strange reason, Department of Budget and Finance Director, Georgina Kawamura. So far, Director Kawamura appears to have had her fingers in nearly every bill considered for approval or veto in 2009! Not sure what to make of that… It makes me wish I could see those records to see if Kawamura makes substantive comments every time, or only a cursory review and boilerplate commentary.

Also, I should point out that the Governor’s Policy Office staff listed above are typically summarizing comments submitted by various executive branch entities. I considered showing those entities in the “sender” column of the spreadsheet, but took the easier way out. However, if you want to know those entities badly enough, then you can look at the PDF document(s) to see exactly who participated. For the most part those entities reflect the comment solicitation recipients.

I reckon it will take me at least two more long sessions of cataloging and uploading to finish with the privilege logs. Then I will begin cataloging and uploading the records that are actual comments on the legislation from the public. Have patience.

Just like last time, to look at any particular document, point your browser to
http://poinography.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009uipa/poi****.pdf
[substituting the asterisks with the four-digit document number you want, using leading zeros as needed]. For example, here is the link to view the first page of the privilege log. REMINDER: all of the contents of this site (to include the uploaded documents) are published under a Creative Commons license. Please, respect the terms of that license.

Comments on anything you find notable within the privilege logs (or among the comment solicitations previously uploaded) are welcome.

I never listen to KSSK, so I can only wonder if there has been any mention on the air of Senator Sam Slom’s opponent for District 8? Check it out, Slom’s opponent is a Democrat named … Larry Price. Heh.

Oh, and by the way, that better-known “guy on the right” made a blunder in his latest MidWeek column where he notes that Representatives Ward, Marumoto, and Thielen are running unopposed—and then says he can’t remember the last time the Democrats let that happen in a major race. To refresh his memory, then, Representative Thielen ran unopposed in 2008 and 2006, too.

At long last, I am able to provide a taste of what sort of records I had been fighting for over the last year. Publishing this takes me a lot more time than you might expect for just scanning documents, because I have decided to make an Excel spreadsheet to catalog the documents. For your reference, since not even the biggest wonk would recall by memory year-old bill numbers, the spreadsheet also has a tab that describes the legislation (mahalo to the Capitol website for the information in that tab).

This batch of records consists of the forms used by the Governor’s Policy Office to keep track of who had been contacted to solicit comments on legislation pending the Governor’s approval or veto. The forms were filled out by hand, and sometimes the handwriting is illegible and/or does not scan well—but I believe I have done a fairly accurate job of transcribing the data into the spreadsheet. Anyone who finds an error is, of course, urged to point it out. For these documents the odd-numbered records show the fronts of the forms, the even-numbered records are the back sides. The government agencies contacted are recorded on the front, the non-government contacts on the back. Some legislation did not have a two-sided form, so I inserted a “filler” page to preserve my odd/even document numbering scheme.

As this project advances, each document I scan will have a unique document number and the spreadsheet will be updated to reflect uploads as they happen. To look at any particular document, point your browser to
http://poinography.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009uipa/poi****.pdf
[substituting the asterisks with the four-digit document number you want, using leading zeros as needed]. For example, here is the link to view the first document. REMINDER: all of the contents of this site (to include the uploaded documents) are published under a Creative Commons license. Please, respect the terms of that license.

So, what does this first batch show? Well, it suggests that the opinions of some people seem to matter much more to the Governor than those of others. Play around with the document index spreadsheet and you can sort the records however you like. One thing that struck me, especially with the campaign for Governor underway, is that as the 2009 legislation was being considered for approval or veto Lieutenant Governor Aiona was asked to comment only once — and that was to solicit his comments on the bill that included the budget for the LG office. However, there was no response to that solicitation, according to the records and privilege logs provided to me. Go figure. Seriously, it’s hard for Mr. Aiona to claim (based on 2009) that he was a key player in the policy arena. It’s possible that Aiona provided a lot of (unsolicited) commentary, but I have not seen any in the privilege logs (where it would appear if there were any). Those privilege logs will be scanned and uploaded next, by the way.

Happy browsing. Leave a comment when you find something notable!

Here’s the link again for the document index.

One last thing, I am making another plea to the powers-that-be: The capitol.hawaii.gov website should be the host of these records. They truly belong with the public bill testimony in an “official” government archive, not on an obscure blog. But, until I hear otherwise, I’ll keep plugging away…

UPDATE July 26, 2010: According to Andrew Walden of the Hawaii Free Press, without my realizing it, these records provide

a list which shows the Lingle/Aiona “adult supervision” model in action. Compare the broadly inclusive [sic!] list of people asked to submit comments to the list which might come from a highly factional administration such a Abercrombie or Hannemann.

Heh. It’s pretty easy to defend Lingle by contrasting her with a completely hypothetical list. Nevertheless, Walden should ask himself, why did the Lingle administration fight so hard for so long to withhold these records, if the records truly show the administration in a positive light?

Back in June, 2009, I wrote a post inspired by comments made by Governor Lingle alleging that the Legislature works in secrecy. As a former legislative staffer, I knew that the public can learn far more about what happens to legislation while it is under consideration at the Lege than is possible once the bills go to the Governor for consideration (i.e. approval or veto).

To illustrate the extent of that contrast, on June 28, 2009, I promptly sent the Governor a UIPA request for records, thinking I might get the records in time to analyze how she came to approve or veto those bills. Boy, was I wrong…

Make yourself comfortable, this is a very long post.

(more…)

Can you believe that I waited just over ONE YEAR for the Governor to provide me the records I asked for about the 2009 legislation sent to her for approval or veto?!

Well, believe it.  The saga of why it took so long will make an interesting meta post, which is in the works.

At last, I do have the records, and a new scanner, and OCR software, and the latest version of WordPress (3.0).  It is going to be a lot of work to get all of this online, that’s for sure.

Did anybody miss me?

Long time, no posting. Sorry. This post has been on my back burner for quite some time, and now it is finally time for me to act.

Back in early May, the Governor issued a press release seeking public comment and input on the bills transmitted to her by the 2009 legislature.

As she has done in prior years, the Governor is seeking comments on bills from the public, including individuals, businesses, industry and professional associations, nonprofit groups, and community organizations statewide. In addition, the Administration is soliciting input from the counties, law enforcement agencies and state boards and commissions.

“I am asking the public to stay engaged in the process,” said Governor Lingle. “My Administration values the public’s input regarding the impact the proposed laws will have on residents, businesses and the future of our state.”

Engaged? That’s me, in spades!

Days earlier, in her veto of a few tax increases, the Governor chided the Legislature for its lack of transparency, suggesting a contrast with herself:

The Governor plans to issue her vetoes in a public forum with the opportunity for members of the community to fully see and understand the basis for her decisions. This compares to the practice of the Legislature who render their decisions late at night, frequently behind closed doors, and without the opportunity for public scrutiny.

A few weeks later, in the Honolulu Weekly wrap-up of the completed regular session, Governor Lingle wrote:

The general public may not be aware of how many critical decisions by the Legislature are made behind closed doors during conference committees, instead out in the open during public hearings. This means that when a bill fails to pass at the last minute, we often have the same questions as the public: “What happened? How come?” Several innovative measures introduced by our Administration, and which had broad bipartisan support, suffered this fate this past legislative session, and were killed during secret sessions and with no explanation. Until this process is improved and made more transparent, I fear that the Hawaii public will continue to be kept in the dark on issues that affect their quality of life.

A few chinks in the Governor’s “transparency” armor have appeared since then. Before her speech about the budget crisis, the Governor and her administration engaged in closed-door meetings all weekend. Hmmmm.

Is the Lingle administration on or off the transparency wagon at this time? June 29 is the last day for the Governor to signal if she intends to veto any of the still-pending legislation.

UPDATED: Here is the list of measures the Governor intends to veto.

So, here’s where I go to work. I have made a UIPA request to obtain all the incoming and outgoing communication and records related to the veto (or approval) of the still-pending legislation. If the Lingle administration is as good as her word [wink], then with this information we will know, “What happened? How come?” If individuals, businesses, industry and professional associations, nonprofit groups, community organizations, counties, law enforcement agencies and state boards and commissions actually participated in the process as she requested, then there should be plenty of records to disclose. I’m sure the Lingle administration will respond promptly, but even if a response takes the entire 10 days allowed by law we’ll have the information before any veto may be carried out.

RELATED: If she does not sign the budget bill by Wednesday, then what? Automatic furlough?

It’s been a while since I have used the science category (not surprisingly, since it’s been a while since I have done any scientific work), but the Saipan Tribune reports on a research expedition from the R/V Kilo Moana, a UH-operated ship that used to take me to sea regularly. If you’re a science dork, it’s exciting news. The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, partnered with a UH geologist, has made several dives to explore and to gather data from the Mariana Trench with the Nereus, a remotely operated submersible.

It has been a few years (after the loss of a Japanese unmanned submersible in 2003) since a machine capable of reaching these depths has been in operation. It’s amazing how little we know about the bottoms of the sea…

Oh, and I also use the Hawaii Media tag on this post because I’ve seen no mention of this locally. [Did I miss it somewhere?] Get with it, UH flacks!

META: The last I heard of my former co-worker, Akel Sterling, was that he piloted ROVs for WHOI. I wonder if he’s part of this effort?

Thanks to the Hawaii House Majority for this blog post that provides two opinions sent from the Attorney General’s office to Speaker Say in response to a series of questions about furloughs. The first opinion, dated February 17, told the Speaker that furloughs would need to be part of the collective bargaining process. On May 29, however, a second opinion now claims that the Governor may unilaterally impose furloughs.

The first opinion took pains to note areas of the HRS where furloughs are conspicuously absent, but at that time the Deputy AG inferred that furloughs would need to be negotiated with the employee unions. The second opinion does a rather thorough job of dismantling the arguments presented in the first. So, why the change? The cynical no-brainer answer is that opinion number two serves the Governor’s interests at this time. However, I think the same answer applied to the February opinion, which also served the Governor’s interests at that time. Here’s why: In February, had the AG noted the HRS’ lack of clarity yet somehow concluded that the Governor could go ahead with furloughs, there would have been ample time for the Lege to amend HRS 89 to make it clear if furloughs were to be a part of collective bargaining, or, less likely, to make it clear that the Governor is indeed free to impose furloughs unilaterally. On May 29, however, with the collective bargaining contracts expiring in a few weeks and the Lege no longer in regular session, it is too late for HRS 89 to be clarified before any legal challenge to her furloughs (which she intends to begin in July).

Pretty devious, yeah? Lull them into complacency, then spring the trap.

Of course, the Lege could take up the matter of amending HRS 89 in the now almost-inevitable veto override special session this July. Everyone remembers that legislators were too-wiling to haphazardly bail out the Hawaii Super Ferry for very little obvious political benefit, so perhaps legislators would be just as quick to, at a minimum, require the Governor to negotiate furloughs with the public employee unions, i.e. a constituency that wields much more political influence than the pro-ferry folks.

Hmmm. The Hawaii Supreme Court has not (so far as I know) responded to the Lingle administration’s motion to reconsider the Superferry ruling. More than ten days have elapsed since her motion and the Senate’s amicus brief were submitted nearly a month ago.

According to the procedure Charley Foster helpfully wrote about earlier, the decision invalidating Act 2 still holds. “Neener, neener, neener,” says the Court. Okay, the justices say that through only by inference through their inaction, but still…

Nothing overt “happened,” but this is clearly news. Did I overlook a mention of this development by the media? I don’t think so, but lemme know if I did.

From a KGMB story:

[T]he governor could veto the entire budget. She has asked for guidance from her advisors about that option.

“If she vetoes the budget,” said Sen. Donna Mercado Kim, “come July 1st, when the new budget is supposed to take effect, then they wouldn’t have a budget, and I’m not sure how she’s going to operate because they can’t spend any money.”

If the override doesn’t work [note: the overrides worked], the governor’s vetoes would stand and she would have to make up the money gaps. She’s suggested furloughing public workers to cut costs or having state employees pay more for health care. The governor’s staff says, she is still working with the labor unions to reach an agreement.

The Governor has a few weeks between the beginning of a new fiscal year (July 1) and the deadline to veto legislation (July 15). If Lingle vetoes the budget at the last minute (she’d have to notify the Lege 10 days beforehand, but legislators could not vote to override until she actually returns the bill), or even if Lingle allows the budget to become law without her signature on July 15, there would be a period of time with no spending bill in effect. My best guess, then, is that would mean that the “non-essential” functions of state government would be shut down, those workers would not report to work, and those workers would not be paid. i.e. That looks like 10 or 11 days of furlough. How much money would that equal? I dunno.

Hmmm. It is getting more weird. Since last week, when Borreca had a seemingly throw-away comment in a Q & A with Speaker Say, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and some checking. To that end, I decided to compare the transfer language in past budgets to the transfer language that is in the current budget about to be passed. The transfer language in the latest draft of the budget seems fairly typical in that regard, so I don’t see any reason for a veto of the new budget over the transfer of funds. Next, I reviewed the testimony submitted on the budget this year. [META: Given the importance of the document, it's amazingly sparse on testimony. Odd.] None of the testifiers raised any concern about transferring funds.

Meanwhile, a reliable source in the Capitol suggested that this bill, and not the budget bill, is the one facing a potential veto. I doubt it. Going into conference committee SB 387 would have required the Lege to approve any transfers of funds from one budget item to another. Indeed, there was testimony from the administration saying that it was unconstitutional and unworkable for those transfers to require legislative approval—which is not-so-subtle code for “we will veto this bill.” However, at this point the conference draft only requires the Governor to submit quarterly reports detailing any such transfers. That’s not unconstitutional, and it’s not very onerous, so I highly doubt she’d veto it in this form.

On the off chance that he’d respond to a blogger, I have sent an email to Russel Pang of the Governor’s press office, asking if he would like to explain or clarify what is going on. No response yet, but it’s only been a few hours…

Then, while eating my dinner I was reading Larry Price’s latest Midweek column:

First, can you remember when a governor has vetoed the entire state budget? I can’t, but it still remains a possibility. If that happens, the state of Hawaii would be literally shut down on July 1. The ramifications would be immense. Emotions would be pushed to the breaking point.

Price does not provide, nor does he even attempt to offer, an explanation of what is behind this veto “possibility.” Of course, every bill passed by the Lege faces the “possibility” of a veto, but Price clearly thinks the budget is in a uniquely risky position. Finally, after a few paragraphs of thoroughly cryptic rambling about “unholy coalitions” and “dirty tricks,” Price adds,

Hopefully, the governor won’t be forced [sic!] to veto the entire budget, although it appears clear that there are forces in the legislature pushing for that outcome.

Wha?! Which “forces” in the Lege favor a veto of the budget? Why be coy, Mr. Price? Sheesh. If you know who, then name names!

I think there is something queer about the way in which this whole meme has been propogated. Why the media are not pursuing the administration for comment is baffling and frustrating. For now, the Lingle regime appears to have been given a pass. I guess a budget being vetoed is not considered newsworthy. ??

After a night of rest and a workout to brood on my previous post, I have a simple hypothesis that might explain why the Governor told Speaker Say that she may veto the budget bill:

So long as the budget bill is not law, Governor Lingle has more leverage during the ongoing collective bargaining talks with the public workers.

Part I of II in a Poli-Sci-themed day of posts.

Embedded in this Star-Bulletin story is a very intriguing passage that is offered without further comment:

[Speaker] Say said [Governor] Lingle stopped by his office Tuesday morning to discuss the state budget and let him know she might veto the budget because of her concern with provisions in the bill that would limit her ability to transfer funds between programs.

Before I go on, there’s no way that a veto of the budget would not be overturned or (less likely) amended to a form that the Governor would not veto. So, with that established, her veto threat is best viewed as a political stunt.

Still, what if the budget were vetoed and the Lege did not override or amend the vetoed budget? Would the government shut down on July 1 when the new fiscal year begins? Would there be some sort of continuance of the previous budget? The Constitution doesn’t address the scenario explicitly, so my non-lawyer guess is that means no spending of state money (or, more specifically, no spending except what is authorized by non-vetoed legislation) could occur.

Going back to the Governor’s threat, what exactly is it about the fund transfer provisions in the budget that rises to the level of provoking a potential veto? I did a quick scan of the appearances of the verb “transfer” in the House and Senate drafts of the budget, but those appearances read more like permissive than restrictive language. Maybe something has happened at the ongoing budget conference meetings that is not reflected in those drafts. ??