 We're back for a live Five O'Clock Rock. I'm Jay Fidel. Welcome to Life in the Law on Think Tech. Our show today is called Upcoming Issues for the 2017 Legislature. I'm going to talk about how many of them have to do with money. That's important. Our guest for the show is Bob Toyofuku, one of Hawaii's leading lobbyists. Thank you for participating and welcome to the show, Bob. Nice to have you here. Thank you. Thank you for inviting me. So here's some background for our discussion. The legislature opens on January 18th. What is that next week? When the public is welcome to come down and participate in the opening festivities. In the four months that follow, it will consider literally thousands of bills. What will these bills cover? Do they cover the right things and will they have a good effect on our state government and our state? How many of them are money bills and why are money bills important and different? Nobody follows these questions more closely than Bob Toyofuku, who has been a leading lawyer and lobbyist in Hawaii from before many of our listeners were born. Sorry about that, Bob. That's true. We should follow what happens in this legislature, it's physically in the center of Honolulu. Not hard to visit and attend the sessions and hearings where the sausage is being made. On the other hand, let's remember that only 40% of the people in Hawaii vote, sorry about that, even in remarkable elections like the one this past November. What I mean to say is that we need to follow what goes on in our government. Our government is us. We need to satisfy ourselves that our officials are doing the right and prudent thing and not doing the wrong thing. So let's listen carefully why Bob Toyofuku gives us a handle on what's up in this session. Bob, it's great to have you here. Thank you. Thank you for coming down. So give us a handle. What is hot this year? Where is the legislature going to spend time and thought process? What are they going to be considering? Now keep in mind that this is a budget session and so that is always a key issue in this odd number year and because the session really goes 2017, 2018 and they must deal with all of the money issues and basically it is the finance committee in the House and the Ways and Means Committee in the Senate. Currently both committees are having informational briefings where the various departments come before the committees and talk about their particular budget and get questioned. One of the things that recently came up in this morning, Star Advertiser as a Manifect was that it was revealed that the ERS, the retirement system, has ballooned up to about a $12 billion shortfall. It's an unfunded liability because they must have that money that by law they should have that money to pay the retirees. That's right. So they are now saying that maybe they have to put in close to $300 million a year from taxpayer funds, which is the revenue coming into the state, to make up the shortfall. So that's going to be able to catch up. But that's going to be one of the major issues but also they have to look at the budget for the judiciary, the budget for all of the departments. So a lot of the focus will be on the finance and Ways and Means Committee. Are we in decent shape? I mean last year we had a surplus, right? Yes. I think it was a billion dollar surplus. Yes. And the question I was asked in Civil Beat, whatever happened to it, and what do we expect for this year? I understand that tax revenues are not as high this year as they were last year. That's another issue that came up is that the Council of Revenues is projecting a lesser amount coming in of revenues. And so that's a problem together with now they need more money for the unfunded liability. So that's an issue. Plus, you have all of these different groups, organizations, and others that get partially or totally funded by the state that need more money. Do you talk about grants and aid? No, not only grants and aid, but let's assume that you take the judiciary, which is a third branch of government, right? They may need more judges. So what that requires is more money for their budget. So all of these things happen. You know, the Hawaii Tourism Authority is partially funded, right? So they may have different ideas and asking for more funding, you know? I just wonder if anybody comes around, you know, in a given year and says, you know, we got X amount last year, but things have gone really well and you don't need us so much anymore this year. So why don't you give us one quarter of that now? I have never, ever heard of that happening. But they may ask a question. Well, how much did you make last year? I mean, did you save any money? You know, and the legislators may ask that. I've never heard anybody say, you know, I don't think we need any more an increase. We're fine. Yeah. We're fine. We're doing good, you know? And the other thing, Jay, is along the money issue, the county, the city and county of Honolulu is Mayor Caldwell and new council chair, Minor. They're going to come in and try to persuade the legislature to increase, excuse me, not increase, extend the half percent general excise tax. And they're going to say, we need that in order to appropriately fund the rail so we can take the rail to Alamoana, together with the stations that have been planned. Now, I have heard of one alternative plan. I don't know if it's out there. It may have been, but whether in order to stay within the budget that's already been allocated, you know, which was, what, about six billion, no, six point five, whether they rail, for rail, excuse me, whether they state budget in general is like 11 or 12 billion. Oh, yeah. Something like that. Yeah. More than that. Maybe, whether they would stop the rail or consider stopping the rail in downtown at Alamoana Tower, that area, and whether that would allow them to stay within the budget, what it does to some of the stations that have been planned, whether they have to delete some of the stations, I'm not sure, but I've heard about that as a possibility. It's a hard one. Very hard. It pushes against the frontier of whether we can afford this in general. Well, I mean, the concern of the people that opposed the rail to begin with was that down the road, you know, how are we going to afford to maintain it, aside from the construction costs, you know, how are we going to maintain the operation of the rail? And then, you know, we had constant problems come up with this project. And, you know, some people in the legislature, I think, feel it is, it is the city and county of Honolulu's issue and not just the state as a whole. And so even though the legislature had agreed to increase the general excise tax to help pay for the rail, now they're going to consider, do we want to extend? Some people want to make it permanent. Some people want to increase it. So we'll see what happens. Is there any push on the notion of making it statewide and not just in Oahu? I had heard that, but I am sure if there's a push to make the increase you're talking about, right, or the extension statewide, then I am sure the neighbor island legislators would push back pretty hard. And so, and the neighbor island legislators have a lot of clout. And so I don't know if that can happen. Yeah, there's a legal issue about that too. Yes. Whether you can do that, you can take one county, put all the money in one county and charge the other county. Because it's truly not, and people you can argue, well, it's somewhat statewide when somebody from Maui comes to Honolulu, they can take the rail, but where are they going? The other thing I've heard is that we had Randy Roth, you know, professor of the Law School, you know, who has taken positions and written articles about rail and other public issues. And one of the things he mentioned is that where before, when this was originally established, there was an override of something like 10 percent that the state would get 10 percent for collecting and distributing the extra gross excise tax, but now the bill contains a higher percentage or might contain a higher percentage. And that could get pushed back too, no? Yes, yes. And, you know, of course, the city is going to say, we want the 10 percent. You don't need the 10 percent, but I doubt very much that the legislators will say, OK, we'll give up the 10 percent. Of course, of course, you know, when one asks, why isn't this covered on a county property tax basis? Because that's where it's happening at the county level. That's right. Why not just and, you know, when you compare the gross excise, which is regressive, clearly regressive against the property tax increase, you know, property tax seems very reasonable and it's not regressive. So what about that? On the other hand, that's politically hot. Exactly. And you just answered the question. It's political. And for the mayor or the city council to say, you know, we're going to have to fund this with property tax. We're going to increase your property tax by X percent. You know that the property owners will scream. Everybody will start calling the mayor. And start calling the city council, and nobody wants to touch that. So it's easier to raise the gross excise. Easier to say, you know, legislators, please help us, you know. It's political. Yeah. So what about what about the rest of it? I mean, that that would make it sort of revenue neutral in terms of paying for rail. It would help would help pay for rail. And presumably, you know, then the other problems in the budget would remain sort of untouched by rail, I guess. You know, in other words, that would have no effect on the budget in general, it would be the raising money in order to pay for rail at the city level. Right, except, you know, what what the finance and ways it means chairs and the members look at is they look at down the road, the future too, not just, you know, tomorrow, five years. And so they have to gauge, you know, what is the impact of extending it or making it permanent down the road. And so that's that's an issue that that the budget committees really will look at. Yeah, you want to look at the health of the state, the economy of the state, the tax arrangement in the state in general, when you make these decisions. Exactly. And, you know, I'll talk about it again. But, you know, I know that with what's going on on the national level, right, and the possible repeal without a current replacement of the Affordable Care Act, Obamacare, then that could affect Medicaid and Medicare, especially Medicaid, which is partially funded by the state and the federal government. So is that going to increase the amount that the state has to throw in to take care of Medicaid beneficiaries? And so, you know, they have to look at all of this and who knows what's going to happen. That's sort of like we have to see what the Congress is going to do. But I know that certain legislators are already looking at that. Yeah, and this could have this will happen, you know, after the legislative session begins. Yes. And after Trump is is inaugurated, inaugurated, I'm blocking. So it's what will happen in the middle of the session. You don't know exactly what he's going to do or what has to be done to compensate for what he does. Right. And so somebody will have to come up with some ideas in the middle of the session. Right. This is this is you know what they say, the vigilance is. And so, you know, what can happen? You know, as part of the legislative process that let's assume that it something happens negatively that adversely affects the state on Medicaid because of the repeal of Affordable Care Act. Let's assume it happens in April. And they're going to adjourn or scheduled to adjourn on May 4. Then if it's necessary, the governor or two thirds of the legislature can call themselves back into special session to take care of this, to take care of meaning that well, let's assume they have to kick in more money and it's already allocated. It's not enough. Big a big problem that big problem. So looking forward, they have to consider all of these things as to how they allocate the money for the budget. Yeah. And so it's tough. Like, I know that there's certain groups are going in for tax credits or an extension of tax credits. Well, I know they're going to have to look at everything, you know, and that's part of the budget process. That's the hardest part, isn't it? Yes. The money bills and the and trying to keep the the budget square. Let's take a short break. Okay. Bob Toyafuku, white advocates, we're talking about the issues in the 2017 legislature will be right back. Looking to energize your Friday afternoon. Tune in to stand the energy man at 12 noon. Aloha Friday here on Big Tech Hoy. My name is Mark Shklav and I'm the host of law across the sea. And law across the sea is a program that brings attorneys who have traveled across the sea and live in Hawaii or are staying in Hawaii for a time to talk about their travels, where they're from, where they're going and bring it all together because really we're all connected some way, although we travel across the sea. So I hope that you'll tune in and watch our program. Thank you very much. Hello, I'm Marianne Sasaki. Welcome to Think Tech Hawaii where some of the most interesting conversations in Honolulu go on. I have a show on Wednesdays from one to two called Life in the Law where we discuss legal issues, politics, governmental topics, and a whole host of issues. I hope you'll join me with. We're back. We're live with Bob Toyofuku, the premier lobbyist in Hawaii, Hawaii advocates. And he's very familiar with the issues that come up in the legislature and this year, especially 2017. And let's go to some of the other issues. Bob used to be called death with dignity. Now it's called aid in dying. What's that about? The group called Compassion and Choices are going to introduce, have legislation introduced to provide a choice for terminally ill patients to obtain medication at their discretion and their choice to self-administer to hasten their passing. Copy the Oregon bill. It's not quite the Oregon bill, but the Oregon, Oregon was the first state that had the so-called death with dignity. And Washington has it, California passed it, Vermont, Washington, DC just passed it, but it has to be approved and Colorado. So and there are many, many states that are considering introducing legislation to afford terminally ill patients the opportunity to really it's the people that have a very painful last six months or so. And you want to give them the choice to hasten their demise, so to speak, you know, and that's what this bill it all seems like the enlightened way. But it's running through snags over many legislature legislative sessions. Yes. And some people have been trying to get a bill like that through for decades. What's the opposition to it? Well, I mean, you know, certain previously certain members or the medical profession were opposed. I think in California, there was a change where the medical profession stayed neutral. And there are also certain religious groups that feel it's not right. And, you know, I'm sure that there'll be opposition in those sectors. But there there's a reason for this. And it is a choice on the part of the person requesting their safeguards put in. And it's a choice on the part of a physician to participate or not. So but it people that when you listen to to family members that have really, really suffered a very painful death, they all really support this. And a recent poll that the Compassion and Choices took 80 percent of of the population in Hawaii across the board support this. This is definitely one to watch. Yes. So we'll see how this this measure proceeds in the legislature. OK. That's one. Let's talk about Dr. Shortages. Can we talk about Dr. Shortages? You know, Dr. Kelly Withy at the University of Hawaii. She's been on the show. Oh, really, she's great. Yeah. So she has been doing statistical studies on Dr. Shortages in all the different specialties, including internal medicine and family practice. And so one of the problems, I guess, you know, that whether the legislature would get more involved and they have tried. For example, if you forgive a loan to a person, say, from the Big Island, who is from Hilo and agrees to go back to Hilo for five years or so. The educational loan. Yes, the educational loan. That's a forgiveness thing. So that's one method. But one of the things that I've talked to Kelly and also Chris Flanders, the Executive Director of Hawaii Medical Association, to also look at other alternatives. One of the problems is that it's very hard to recruit doctors to the neighbor islands. Various reasons. Nothing wrong with the neighbor islands. We all love the neighbor islands. But it's a matter of economics in certain areas. If you go into a very rural area and you're in a very small specialty, you know, you're not going to have the business. So how do you really make a living? Right. And the other issue is that you need support services. You need not just a cardiac surgeon. You need a cardiologist. You need advanced practice nurses. You need anesthesiologists. You need good hospital equipment, etc. And so all of these factors have to be looked at in how to solve the problem. And so one thing I've always looked at and some doctors told me is that whether the state or or somebody has to get involved in case someone is severely ill or in a crisis situation because of an accident, whether you have a method to immediately fly them in to a trauma unit, which is Queens Hospital here in Honolulu, or when there's a transfer of Maui Memorial to Kaiser and it's going to be a community hospital, whether that evolves into a real trauma hospital, a regional trauma. Regional trauma. So people from the Big Island can just fly to Maui. Yeah, that's easier. Yeah, easier. Yeah. So I'm talking about somebody severely injured in a car accident and they have a severely orthopedic injury. They need to get taken care of right away. So that I look at that personally as how do you solve that problem on a continual basis? What about making it easier to practice medicine? You know, I think a lot of doctors are leaving private practice for one reason or another. Part of it is the paperwork and the administrative hassle of running a small private practice. Is there anything can be done to ease their administrative burdens? You know, I think that to a great extent, you know, it's a matter of the medical profession dealing with the insurers. You know, whether it's HMSA, Kaiser, of course, is an HMO. Their doctors are all basically within the Kaiser family, you know. But the PPO's that are with HMSA that, you know, you have a choice to go to wherever you want to see whether they can work something out and then it's a balancing with HMSA is trying to keep premiums down. I'm saying only HMSA. There are other insurers as well. And so that's one way to do. I don't know if the legislature can can really get involved. There are certain issues that come up that they tackle. But to tell a insurer you have to reduce your paperwork by legislation. Hard to do that. That's hard to do. Hard to do that. And you know, this also connects with what you were talking about originally. That is the the repeal, possible repeal of Obamacare because this is going to have an effect to possibly an effect on the neighbor islands, maybe a disparate effect on the neighbor islands. Yeah, plus, you know, if Obamacare gets repealed and obviously they can't do a replacement as far as I'm concerned within a very short time, right? Then, you know, what happens to the subsidies? And so if certain people can't get subsidies, then and they can't really afford the insurance. And are these people going to lose their insurance? Yeah, because they can't they can't afford it anymore. And so you have all these problems. That could be profoundly damaging to the social structure of the islands. Oh, yes. And you get out, you know, and a lot of the homeless are ordinary middle class people who couldn't afford medical bills one way or another. And we'd have more of them. Right. And, you know, although we have prepaid health, right, you have to be employed to write full time or over 20 hours a week to get to get the employer to pay part of your medical insurance. Yeah, yeah. So that's a that's a safe guide, but not for everybody. Yeah, right. Oh, for the good old days. I know, yeah. And the other issue that we were just talking about a little earlier is, of course, you know that a medical marijuana dispensaries was passed. And I think that talking to some of the legislators involved in health care, I think they're going to tweak a little bit of the existing law. They're constantly trying to fine tune the law. What's the tweak? You know, so I'm not sure what the tweak is going to be. But, you know, as as the dispensaries you know, are starting up, if they have any issues, they'll go and see the legislators and say, you know, we're having this problem. You think we can change the law to do this and that? And I think legislators will listen to that. And of course, one of the big problems is the federal law is still, you know, makes it illegal. So that's not likely to change in the next administration. Yes. And you have the money situation that you can't go to a federally insured bank. So even with when the dispensaries are paying their tax, right, you don't have a bank account. So you're going to have to truck over cash to the tax department. What kind of issues that creates a different set of issues? Yeah. Well, I mean, it was interesting. It was very exciting about a year ago. I I participated in the panel on the subject of law school. But, you know, since then, since all of this process, process, process, not a single joint has been sold. I know. You know, by the way, the people think everybody's going to be go around smoking. I mean, the ones that have a blue card, a lot of them use the medical marijuana to create oils. And other things. So like they have, I talked to this one person who has a blue card and, you know, prior to this grows his own and, you know, makes oil and rubs it on his knee and which is very painful and it was injured. And that's the only thing he said that helps his pain. Yeah. Yeah. And one of the things on the mainland, which is not actually permitted in the current law here, is ingestibles. Oh, yes. And maybe that's a good tweak, actually. Yeah. And it depends. I think the concern on the mainland and even here was raised that, you know, they were selling candy and etc. And so they were saying, gee, what about the kids? You know, can they get access to this? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. They were they looked at that though. Yeah. Yeah. Well, more to come on that. And of course, there's a whole there's a whole scenario out there somewhere along the line. You know, there's going to be a push for recreational marijuana. The question is how much how much time do we need to have the experience and the data to move to that phase? Yeah, I think people have asked me about that. And I said, you know, I think the trend across the country is to move in that direction. Whether that's going to happen, we'll have to wait and see. Right. But I think that the legislators who were in favor of medical marijuana and dispensaries want to have a good deal of history as to how it worked, how the dispensaries work, you know, what's going to happen to all of the money are the feds going to do anything differently? You know, so we just wait and see. Let me jump to one other last issue with you, Bob, and that is energy. Oh, you know, we haven't had a lot of energy legislation. And right now I don't even know of anything that's coming on for this session. But, you know, one never knows till the last minute anyway. Do you know of any energy bills that are coming on? We're having a program, a briefing to the legislature on the 12th next week, around this week. And really, and that's in the Capitol Auditorium, by the way, at 1.30. We have a half a dozen speakers. And the idea is to check up on some of the initiatives that have not happened and then talk about whether they can continue. There will be some energy bills put in several energy bills. And I think Blue Planet, you know, they want to put in certain bills on some specific, some conceptual, like for instance, you know, if you have certain automobile transportation fuel, for instance, all of that, you know, you changed the mindset with transportation, transportation issues so that, you know, energy saving there, etc. And then we, you know, they're going to be bills put in. Well, the stakes are high and we have to keep on moving and the legislature keeps on, it needs to keep on refining and reforming and tuning things up so we can move. And that's very important to show. Bob, thank you so much for coming down. Well, thank you for inviting me. Also enjoying this again. Yeah, the same Aloha and Xin Yen. Quite a happy new year. Thank you.