 Welcome back to Talk Story with John Waihe. We have a special show for you this afternoon. We are going to be on the air for an hour instead of the usual half an hour. And the reason is that the topic of our conversation this afternoon will be the Governor's power to veto legislation. And as we all know and as we all were taught from our first grade classes, the Governor has the ability to veto any bill that the legislature passes, a subject of course to the legislature not taking a vote of two-thirds vote, two-thirds of both houses of the legislature that would have the power to override the Governor's veto. So let me begin by introducing our distinguished guests this afternoon. The authorities on gubernatorial and governmental shenanigans and actions and whatever. So we have with us today, first of all, from the University of Hawaii, the director of the Public Policy Center. And oh my goodness, and we also have with us an editor from the, oh, I am getting lost because Colin, Colin is here from the University of Hawaii. And Chad Blair from, well, you've got to tell us what's. Civil beat. Civil beat. I know it's civil beat. But what's your, what's your, you're the editor? I, you know, there's a lot of people think that but there's misconception out there. I am an editor. I'm the public, rather the politics and opinions editor. Oh, I'm so glad I kept looking up on that machine for your title and it threw me all off. So Chad Blair and Colin, what am I doing? What am I doing? That's because I just got too much. You're so invested in these bills. It was happening. And when you look at the TV, there was no title. So that that screwed me up. But anyway, we're going to be talking about what the government is going to do. Now, the process as it's set out in the Hawaii State Constitution is that the governor has to either sign or veto a bill by the 45th day after the end of the legislative session. And that would be July 9th, July 9th coming up. Now, prior to that 10 days prior to that, which would be next week, Monday, June 24, he has to send a send notice to both houses of the legislature detailing which bills he intends to veto. So here we are one week before that great event. And I thought it would be fun this afternoon if we first of all discuss the process and discuss what he might be vetoing in the future. Now, as you know, Chad, you did an article about the bills that he has already signed. Right. And Governor, as you well know from your time in office, in addition to suggesting your intent to veto or perhaps your intent to sign, you can also, the governor, let the bill go without your signature, right? That's another thing you can do, which kind of says, well, I'll just let it go. I believe that's what Governor Burns did way back in the day regarding the abortion rights bill. Yeah, the abortion rights bill. Pretty big deal. He being a Roman Catholic. And it was a big deal. And actually, this is kind of a real policy moment for most governors because it really, well, it tests your beliefs. It tests your politics, too. I mean, because there this becomes an intense moment when all of the people who were lobbying at the state legislature now come in to see you, you know, and they're doing you something new this year. And that is they're running ads. I was just going to mention that the read ads. Right, right, right. They're running ads telling the public, not just the governor, the public, how how they feel about a particular. This is the bill to tax real estate investment trust, essentially levy a corporate tax on these organizations that own tens of millions of dollars of property, including Alamoana shopping center, know a marketplace marketplace, Hilton Hawaiian Village, and includes organizations like Alexander and Baldwin, which shifted to reach status a couple years ago. So they used to pay corporate taxes. And now they at this moment because of the way they have a better tax, the tax books work. Yeah. And so the idea is that we're missing a good chunk of change and revenue that could go right into our general fund. And sure enough, the REITs, the National Read Organization, as well as some local groups spending heavily, they couldn't quite defeat it at the legislature. In fact, it passed pretty well. But now they're running these ads saying, I can't do this, it's going to hurt you. And the ads are getting more and more sophisticated. It was kind of, to be really honest, it seemed like it was kind of sloppy in the beginning. But now they're getting out there, they're talking about not only losing construction jobs, they're talking about affordable housing, local people, investments and, you know, bad business climate and all of that. And for most people that may not know what the REIT are all about is that they are investment vehicles, supposedly more long term investment vehicles in real estate that don't pay income taxes, income taxes or any kind of special corporate income tax. What they do is that they're supposed to take whatever profits they make and give it right back to the shareholder. Right. That's right. So now you're getting shareholders being told that's actually your money. So this is going to be pretty interesting. What do you think the government is going to do? I think he's not going to veto this bill. I mean, I think there was certainly a lot of support for it in the legislature. I mean, they did mount this fairly sophisticated campaign and an interesting one to encourage him to veto it. But I don't think the REITs are very sympathetic political figures. I mean, the major issue with the REITs is that a lot of those shareholders are not Hawaii state residents. And so they're not paying Hawaii taxes on that revenue they're getting from the REITs. And I think that was what gave the legislature a lot of support to pass this bill, which is a 6.4 percent. The business climate. Right. So the claim from the REITs themselves is this will lower investment. They won't be investing in areas that have seen a lot of redevelopment, like for example, Manoa Marketplace. It won't be as an attractive vehicle for investors from other places to attract capital to Hawaii. Do you think that does that make any sense? As the backstop in all of this, that's the government's job. He's the catcher, right? So he's the guy that's supposed to be concerned about the business climate and the image and all of that. But you don't, you don't get a feeling on that. I don't get a feeling that he's going to veto this. Okay. What about you? I agree. He might even sign it. The temptation for any governor, any executive have extra revenue coming to the state. I've heard different figures, but I the figure of $60 million annually seems to stick in my mind. There's another figure for that Airbnb bill, which I know we'll talk about later. But I think the governor has to look at that. He also represents the people. Frankly, there's just not a whole lot of sympathy for corporations in this day and age. I recognize that A&B is a longstanding, former Big Five company. With A&B, we're all sort of people that went after Bill that, you know, it's not not up, but that we all know what the water bill, you know, although it's amazing because they famously did not testify on the bill. All their lobbying was behind closed doors, but there's no question that Alexander and Baldwin wanted that A&B water bill to extend for seven years, those stream diversion permits in East Maui that they worked out with the bill and are. So people have sort of whether they wanted that to happen or not, it's associated them with another bill that you're not Some of them suggested, boy, maybe Airbnb would go with the REIT bill. If in exchange, they could get the water permit bill. Well, it didn't turn out that way. A&B is 0 for 2 in that regard. They are. This is not a very good session for A&B. Well, you know, I mean, if we have time, we ought to talk about that, because I think that they actually won on the water bill on the water bill. Okay. Yeah, on the water bill issue. They took it in the seat on this one. But this would normally be in my experience, the kind of bill that you wouldn't go out to the public with. This is a definitely insider bill. I mean, I would have had my lobbyists coming in there, along with the people from the state retirement system, showing that their investments would be losing money. This is the REITs bill. I agree with you. And I can only figure that that door was not open to them. And so this is their Hail Mary pass. This is what you do for people who want to get some kind of work done. Well, there's another thing to keep in mind, the fact that the National REITs representation, I don't know what the WHOE, the organization is called, but it spent considerable amount of money lobbying against it. Remember, it's often as there's a trend in states, as one state goes, so goes another. And that's what they're really worried about. That is to consider that this is going to spread nationwide. You know, it seemed to me that one of the questions the governor will be asked to believe is that if this bill passed, it would actually make a difference for investments. And you know, if people are only investing because of the tax, there's something's wrong with the investment in it. We're also talking about a 6.4% tax. I mean, I think it's partly ruinous for the REITs. It would be for my salary. Okay, guys, so let's, let's talk what else is interesting? What else is interesting that the governor may, may let to do or not do? What about the let's go, let's get some fun. Let's do some social stuff. What about decriminalizing marijuana? I thought you were going to go there. I thought you were going to get a job. Well, the bill that passed would allow possession of about three grams of marijuana. And if I could, I was in college, if I could afford three grams, it would have been Well, the sad truth is that there are people that are going to jail because they have maybe a couple of joints and we don't need to put more people at OCCC or the other correctional facilities. Frankly, yeah, we actually have a big problem. Correct. There would also be, if I understand correctly, from the legislation, expungement of the record, the clearing of your record, should this pass. And I was surprised, we were actually talking before we came on today, that it made it out. Remember, recreational marijuana was the big deal they were talking about at the beginning, complete legalization, although not for, you know, young people, it would be certainly 18 or 21 and above. But I'm surprised that it made out. Although some prominent people were backing this, at least publicly, whatever they thought. But it died in the city of Rosbaker, simply didn't want to pass it was much more focused for health committee on medical marijuana and improving that law that's the governor, I will tell you this, Governor E. Gay, as a number of times, he has said publicly, he's never smoked marijuana. I do think that makes a difference. I think that's probably true. I came from the I didn't hail. President Obama famously said, I didn't hail. That was the point. But the governor has said as recently as when the bill passed out of the legislature, the first week of May, or last week of April, first week of May, he was asked about it, what are you going to do? And of course, he didn't want to show his cards. But he did say what he has always said, marijuana is illegal at the federal level. It is a schedule one drug, along with heroin, cocaine. And he's concerned about that as well as some transportation issues. Well, yeah. And you know what, we're going to take a quick break. When we come back. You know, it just seemed in my opinion, though, that the decolonization bill was kind of a neat little compromise. You know, if this is a way to show that you're liberal, I mean, but not go all the way. And I guess that's the arc of legislation, you know, getting half pregnant. But anyway, we'll be right back. Aloha. My name is Mark Shklav. I am the host of Think Tech Hawaii's Law Across the Sea. Law Across the Sea is on Think Tech Hawaii every other Monday at 11am. Please join me, where my guests talk about law topics, and ideas, and music, and Hawaii Ana, all across the sea from Hawaii and back again. Aloha. Aloha. This is Winston Welch. I am your host of Out and About, where every other week, Mondays at 3, we explore a variety of topics in our city, state, nation, and world, and events, organizations, the people that fuel them. It's a really interesting show. We welcome you to tune in, and we welcome your suggestions for shows. You got a lot of them out there, and we have an awesome studio here where we can get your ideas out as well. So I look forward to you tuning in every other week where we've got some great guests and great topics. You're going to learn a lot. You're going to come away inspired like I do. So I'll see you every other week here at 3 o'clock on Monday afternoon. Aloha. Welcome back to Talk Story with John Wahee. Today we are talking about whether or not the governor will veto some key pieces of legislation that just passed from the recently held 2009 legislative session. The last bill we were discussing was the bill that would decriminalize a three grams, I guess, of marijuana, sort of a half pregnant decision that was done by the legislature in order not to decide whether or not they would like to legalize adult marijuana. But what is interesting about the decriminalization is I have been actually had a series of conversations with Governor Jay Hinesley from Washington State where they legalized adult use and myself. And he's actually working on some legislation. And what we were discussing is our guilty conscience. We were discussing our guilty consciences, which occurs because we deeply regret that we had a hand somewhere along in our career of putting young people in particular, but people in general, in jail. We're smoking for using a cannabis, which today in many parts of this country is available for recreational use. In fact, the entire West Coast really only state that hasn't legalized it. Yeah, absolutely. And so, you know, in his case, we actually sat down and worked through some of the points that you would want to put in a legislation that would harden people already in jail. What a waste of human potential. But then again, you know, the difficulty was that the after you put somebody in for 10 years, they may not be the same person that there were some innocent young person in the past. But anyway, you know, I think there's a lot of social emotion in this entire issue. I think that's right. In fact, this is this is one of these interesting bills. I mean, I was talking to chat about this earlier. I got a lot of calls from mainland reporters who just assume that of course, Hawaii is going to legalize marijuana. And I think partially it's a misunderstanding of the political culture here, which is it's a much more conservative place than some people realize and also a generational divide. This was the bill my students were really furious about. And it's not just because they wanted to smoke marijuana. To them, it just reflects an out of touch legislature on out of touch era, you know, and yeah, this is a young people's bill. And it's not necessarily, as you say, because they want to do it, but because it it actually shows the hypocrisy. You know, Governor, it's not just young people that smoke marijuana. It crosses the generations. And I think in addition to the don't put them in jail, that doesn't make any sense. The other very strong argument, which is not a test of the decrim bill, but would be if we recreationalized or legalize is the revenue picture. And that is what is motivated states like Inslee is Washington state, right? And Colorado and Oregon is the money that can come in into state coffers. In some cases, dedicated for a particular fund, I think in Colorado, it goes to education, maybe some other purposes. And at some point, particularly a state with such a huge, unfunded liability, it must be $20 billion or more retirement and health benefits for our state and county workers. You're going to look at that and say, not only that, you're going to say, who has the best marijuana in the United States? We still have this branding thing. Well, we one has got a great, great marketing. This is something that I know the folks who are working on marijuana here are very concerned about. They want Hawaii to be thought of as the Napa Valley of the United States. They want the same kind of protection code of coffee here. Exactly. Pokey. Exactly. Exactly. People watching around saying you can't say what is it? Kona Go, Maui, Maui, you know. But, you know, what's interesting about all of that is that the medical marijuana industry is not necessarily booming with cash or paying real revenue back into the state. Well, it's taken a long time for that to come online. And remember, we were one of the first states to move towards medical marijuana, but not dispensaries. It was only until a year or so. I think it wasn't until January of this year that the Department of Health finally started opening the dispensaries. And by the way, it wasn't all at once. One at a time. In fact, there are some licensees that are still not open as I thought. I thought by now most of them had and then of course they're limited by state law to how many you can have in each county. Well, I'll tell you what, though. The, you know, okay, what do you think he's going to sign veto or let it go to law? Is he going to treat this like you do? I'm going to say he's going to let it go. Let it go. He's not going to sign it. He's not going to sign it, but he's not going to veto it. Not a bad thought. The more I think about it because then he doesn't have any responsibility for it, I still lean to that he will he will veto it just because it conflicts with federal law. Having said that, you haven't seen the Department of Justice, even under this administration, cracking down on the states that are allowing us to go forward. Well, you know, it's really interesting, but the political, the politics of this issue is interesting because it's one of the few issues where you have the ultra-right and the ultra-left agree. That's right. That's right. And it's the guys in the middle who want to keep pretending that America is still in the middle that sort of oppose this stuff. And not really, not in the private conversations. You know, but the people that are opposed at the most, publicly, the people who are justifying its law enforcement. It's the prosecutors, it's the county police departments. They're the ones that have been most vocal and saying, don't do it because it's a gateway. A gateway in the sense that, oh, if you decriminalize, then the next thing is recreation. Well, that's that's what I told Judge Moon, you know, and I said, you know, it's sort of interesting because one of the biggest gateways would drug use is just cigarette. It's true, you know, and liquor, everything else. But yeah, I guess we can't get those back in the bottle. Yeah, you know, so how many, how many gateways do you need? Since we're on the topic of marijuana, one bill that hasn't got as much attention that I wanted to bring up, but it's been talked about for a long time is this industrial hemp. Yeah, it's related. And actually now it's going to be much more important than I think was originally thought years ago when this has been kicking around because now there's this this fan of CBD oil that can treat everything from balm to cancer. It's like marijuana light, you know, it's marijuana light. So everybody's buying CBD CBD. I do this. I take these health supplements, you know, and it was sort of interesting because they wanted me to do everything else in the now they're number one product that you can buy online. Oh, yeah. And have mail to you is a CBD, cart, you know, bottle. And I think this is ridiculous, you know, and people are going out and buying it because it's legal, it's safe, it's as close to marijuana as you're going to get. And there's a kind of hypocrisy over the whole thing. But you know, Hawaii politics on the social issues is very interesting because it the church, the religious right in Hawaii is vocal and strong. But they're always song of moves on the big issues, you know, whether it's the choice issue is same sex marriage, all of these things. So if you're a politician, what do you have left to give it to the troops that are, you know, in that with that inclination that support you? Well, you mentioned abortion rights, and there's something that we didn't expect the actual possibility that Roe versus Wade could return what is happening in Alabama, and the southern states in particular, and you're seeing a real trend. No one ever thought Rover versus Wade would be touched. Well, you know, why the last two issues would be commercial gaming and recreational marijuana? Yeah, the physician assisted suicide or death of dignity was one of the last ones. You know, and you got these two and it's going to be a bet which one eventually happens. So to speak. I think the bet you lose if you bet wrong. And it'll probably be record anyway. Let's keep going. What have we got else? What else have we got that said? Probably the most controversial, I would say Bill on the governor's desk is the one that barely made it out of the state Senate. It was one vote. In fact, they deadlocked it 1212. Kurt Fevella had to go to the hospital on the last day of conference committee and then they ultimately some back and forth went on. And I'm talking about the Airbnb bill, even though it's not Airbnb per se, but it is. It's short term vacation rentals, Expedia, other companies, and this would permit these organizations to act as tax brokers, collectors, and get that GT, the general excise tax and the TAT, the transit accommodations tax and get that money from these people that are renting these places anyway. About $46 million is what Senator Donovan de la Cruz chair the WAN committee taxing illegal activity. Laura Thielen and Gilbert Vieir, two state senators with districts with a lot of these these units, the North Shore and Kailua and to Waimanalo and so forth. Thielen essentially said, look, if you pass this bill, SB 1292, I think, maybe it's an HB, you're going to be legalizing an illegal activity. Governor E. Gay himself vetoed similar legislation just a couple years ago. And the concern is, well, you're just going to open the door. There's no enforcement provision in this zoning and enforcement is at the county levels, not at the state level. I think a lot's going to depend on what happens, even as we're speaking right now with the Honolulu City Council. Bill 85, particularly Bill 89, which is the more omnibus bill, and it allows some units, not others. And it seems to be a compromise bill. This is interesting. A short term vacation rental businesses, the national organizations, they're against Bill 89 of the city level, but they're for the state bill that I think kind of shows you where they stand. What they find acceptable. Exactly. Just don't make us illegal. It also has created some interesting political partners like the hotel industry and local five together. I'm in opposing this bill, which usually they don't get along so well. But you know, the industry is probably correct. I mean, what what they would like is for people to go and use the traditional lodging facilities. And it said those lodgings that Hotel five has a lot of its workers, the primary unit that employs those. This kind of resembles the sort of the arguments about the about Uber and Lyft and the recipes, you know, where you have an established industry and you technology has made it possible or something else to evolve unregulated. But it's not just technology. It's bottom line. It's dollars. It's a lot cheaper to get a BNB or short term vacation rental just like it's cheaper to catch an Uber and a Lyft. Have you gone and rented a taxi recently? No offense to the taxi companies, but no surprise that they're upset with Uber and Lyft coming in. So it's a new business model. And you know, Civil Bee had an editorial, I believe, where you talked about how Hawaii was addicted to Airbnb. And there's a lot of truth to that. I mean, most of the growth and tourism from eight million to 10 million, we haven't had significant new hotel construction. So a lot of that or nearly all of it is from Airbnb. So there's a lot of people making money, including Hawaiian Airlines and the airline industry. Well, see, that's it. That's it. There's a lot of people making money off of it. But the real impact of it and politically is in the neighborhoods where you have these huge houses. I was visiting a very sick friend of mine and who was bedridden. And we looked across the street and his wife was telling me, you know that house has 26 bedrooms? Who would know? You know, come on. Yeah, I mean, 26 bedrooms. He sure wasn't a monster home. Well, it was a huge place, you know, but you know what that and the only reason why their bedrooms is because they got hot pretty hot, hot hot plates. Yeah, hot plates. And this is why senators like feeling from Kailua are getting so much pressure on this bill. In fact, this was motivated the most recent kind of crazy proposal for Kailua to secede from the city and County of Potalulu and create its own county. This is how you want to do that in Molokai and it actually picked up some steam. We're going to be right back after this word from our friend. Hi, I'm Rusty Komori, host of Beyond the Lines on Think Tech, Hawaii. My show is based on my book also titled Beyond the Lines and it's about creating a superior culture of excellence, leadership, and finding greatness. I interview guests who are successful in business, sports, and life, which is sure to inspire you in finding your greatness. Join me every Monday as we go beyond the lines at 11 a.m. Aloha. Aloha, I'm Dennis Wong, a host here at Think Tech, Hawaii, a digital media company serving the people of Hawaii. We provide a video platform for citizen journalists to raise public awareness in Hawaii. We are a Hawaii nonprofit that depends on the generosity of his supporters to keep ongoing. We'd be grateful if you'd go to Think Tech Hawaii dot com and make a donation to support us now. Thanks so much. Welcome back to Talk Story with John Waihei. For those of you listening out there and those of you joining us, the number to call is 808-374-2014. We would be delighted to take your questions. We were just discussing the new proposal to tax ABNBs in Hawaii. What do you think? Is the governor going to sign it, veto it, or just let it become law? I think he's going to veto it and partly because he vetoed a similar bill earlier and because some of the financial pressure is off. I mean, one of the reasons Senator Delacruz pushed this through the legislature is because it was going to fill this hole, but tax collections are up a bit and so there's not the kind of urgency to get it passed this year. I agree. Again, it's tempting. That's a lot of money. If we were in a more dire situation financially, I think you would do it. But again, I will say it a lot depends on what the city council does with Bill 89, which we'll know sometime later this evening. But I'm guessing along with Colin that he's probably going to veto it. You know, it's interesting that nobody's starting to make the argument that in the United States, the United States Congress, we're way years in the past when they wanted to get rid of a particular habit that tax it out of existence. So you could get rid of some of this by making them a whole lot more expensive than the hotel. Well, with Bill 89, the penalties that would be encouraged for people that don't pay it's something like $1,000 a day, then it jumps up to $5,000. I think on Maui, they pass something where it's even huge, even higher. That's a pretty good incentive to pay your bill when it's just racking up those funds. Or, you know, raise the taxes and eventually this will happen. Or you could auction off the permits or something like that. I think he's going to let this one go without his signature. Okay, that's good. That's good to know. But don't think that as any kind of indication. It's a gut feeling I have. You're a former governor. I think I'm kind of carrying somebody. I think it does. And you know, the hotel industry, if he does let this go, is going to be particularly angry because the other bill is about taxing resort fees, which has been their way around raising a bit more money, more money recently. And I think he will let that go. And you know, I just think he's going to say, you know, I don't like it, but if the legislature, this is their stuff, you know, all the rest of that stuff. But really what he's doing is he's forcing the issue back up. Anyway, where are we now? You got there were two bills that surprised me that made it through. One of them is automatic recounts in close elections. And of course, this was driven by the Trevor Ozawa, Tommy Waters race, but also Matt LaPresti and Kurt Fevella, even though that one didn't get another chance to hear from the voters. It is amazing that we have not had an automatic recount procedure on our books until now. I don't have the exact figure, but it's a pretty small percentage. But then 100 votes, which would in fact, would apply to Trevor Ozawa and Tommy Waters. And we know that turned out. I don't think there's I think I can't see where the governor wouldn't pass this. Yeah, I think this is definitely a signature use. People, when I was in office, I think was faced with a situation with an election that actually ended up in a high. Oh, this was Jean Albano running against what is her name, Connie Chan, in Kalihi. And this was when you were in charge as I don't know, I was I was, you know, the law says that in that situation, I sort of take control because I get to you know what the solution is, is it flipping a coin? The law says you got to flip a coin. All right. So we got to the, you know, these guys came in. And but one of the one of the candidates says, I'm not going to flip a coin. I'm going to flip a coin. What are you going to do? And there is no provision for somebody saying I'm not going to participate. So we ended up saying, well, if you don't flip a coin, it falls to the governor. That's how I got. So I then decided that I'm going to appoint the winner of the new special election. And now lucky for me, Kalihi only had a democratic primary. There was no general. So we could run it again, you know. But yeah, I don't see the governor doing anything. But it is a good thing to have on the book. I think a lot of people were surprised that we did it when this came out. The more significant bill is the vote by mail. We were looking at a pilot program just for Kauai County only in the 2020 election. This would be an absentee ballot, mailed to every single home, and you would vote. And then there would be a study sent back to the legislature saying, well, how to turn out? Well, instead, the legislature moved to implement that statewide for next year's election. And by the way, we should make clear, if you're the old fashioned kind, and you still want to walk into a voting booth, there will still be places to do it. But it's not going to be every precinct in this day like it used to be. And it's going to save money according to the people that run the elections here. And fingers crossed, we hope that it's going to improve turnout. We'll see. I think the governor is going to sign that bill. Oh, I'm willing to bet he will. I think you will, too. I don't see any reason. Well, it's also kind of his philosophy. Yeah. I mean, he's a conservative guy and all of that. But I don't know. What do you think? Do you think it will actually have an impact on our voter participation? Does it actually matter? What are the bills that did not make it out of session with his automatic voter registration? Right. Something that has shown actually have an impact improving turnout in a lot of places that did not make the cut. I think it's a combination of things. Even Scott Nago, the elections chief elections officer said, look, it's not our job to get people to vote. Our job is to make it as easy as possible for people to vote. It's already pretty easy. Now having it come in your mailbox and think about it, you don't have to get off from work. You can actually sit in front of the computer and talk it over with your family members. I think that will serve as an incentive. You can also, there can be a, you know, you can as somebody running in the political campaign there's also a whole lot of new tracks you can do. So I mean, so first I should say that a lot of the studies done right, a lot of the studies done and vote by mail show it shows it has a little bit of an effect. It's not a huge effect. They had vote by mail in Oregon for a long time. So it might help a little bit. It's not mainly what it does is it makes people who already voted just makes them it easier for them. Oregon already had an 80 or 90 percent turnout rate. We're like at 50 percent depending on how you evaluate it more like 30 whether or not it's. We used to have these really high numbers. Oh yeah. But then again, you know, we changed the way that you calculate the figures, you know, because we used to only do the percentages against registered voters. Now we do it against eligible voters. And so you really got two percentages going there. Well, with eligible voters we're last. Yeah. I mean, we're really. Minnesota, I think is always number one. Yeah. Yeah. But I'm interested in Hawaii is always the star of this state. And that's where they're going to roll this out. First, are they work? Well, now it's statewide. So the real question was that I don't know politicians thought it through at all. And maybe you can pass these types of things. But if when I was in the legislature, the big this behind the behind the scenes discussion would have been, do you think I could win with this system? I don't think that. I have no doubt that discussion went on this time around to go there. No doubt at all. Am I going to be hurt running for reelection? If anybody can if that's what happens, you know, I mean, we used to have multiple member districts that got changed. And everybody said it was, you know, horrendous things would happen. And they did. But nobody wants to change the system. Sure. Sure. We wiped out the Republican Party, essentially. And nobody wants. And it was nobody was to change the system. We had this the open we used to have closed primaries, where you had to be a member of the political party to vote in the primary election. All you said, you know, at least declare your membership. Now it's a different kind of primary. Any change people will find will be uncomfortable. Well, I would mention the primary. This is my personal gripe. Even though it's technically an open primary, it's not. You can only vote for one party. You can't say I want a Democrat in this seat and I want a Republican or a libertarian. And let me tell you unlike the general election you can do that. Well, let me tell you well, and you have you should be able to do that. That's the idea of a general election. But the reason why that is like that is because that's a compromise again. You know, way back we used to the this is the 1970 Constitutional Convention and a little bit of history and the sponsor of the what is the the open primary was Bill Patey. Really? And he was like yeah, he was a Republican who liked Democrats. So he wanted to be able to vote for the best Democrat in the in the elections that he was. You pointed him to DLNR, didn't you? Yeah, yeah. He was my campaign manager. And I was in the Constitutional Convention. So he actually pushed for this open primary. But the effect of having. But he had to be checked. OK, well, by a number of us real Democrats. It may have been. But in reality, the primaries become the defining the essential election. The general election is almost a wash in most races. It is the primary. And remember, since that time, a lot of races have gone nonpartisan. County council, County mayor. As a reaction to that. As a reaction to that. So that, you know, somebody can actually legitimate they run for mayor and be, you know, traditionally a Republican. You couldn't do that. Really. Back in when we used to have partisan elections. But the compromise was OK, Bill. You they can vote. Everybody can vote in anybody's election. Not you don't have to show your party card, so to speak. But you got to choose. At the bottom of the other. It's interesting this session, how many bills experimenting with different ways of running elections were considered. I mean, there was there was the rank order voting system. There are California style jungle primary as a bill. All sorts of things that I don't think I saw more voter reform bills that I had seen. That's because nobody thinks they're going to lose their election. You know, no, I'm serious. If people really if you really wanted intense discussions on this, which is by the way, a good time for this is a good time for good government organizations to get involved because the legislative there is no fear. I mean, when you make a change that actually starts to make real change, then you're going to see a whole different kind of. Legislature credit for moving forward in this regard, I do too. OK, guys, we're going to have great elections. One thing we know is that when we had a lieutenant governor, he would have believed that every day he should make more people vote because that's why we get selected governor. He's one of the responsibility. You have a professional running election. She can say something like Mr. Nago, which is it's not my job. You know what I mean? All right, OK, we I want to go to prison. Yeah, let's go to prison, you know. And what so the legislature in its wisdom came up with what? Well, this was another surprise at the legislature because criminal justice reform generally has not gone very far. Remember, justice reinvention initiative? I mean, there were some things that happened, but we all know our prisons and our jails are in a serious, serious condition. Delapidated. We send hundreds of prisoners to Arizona. We hire a private prison company to house them there. We've got overcrowding. Look at the riots that happened at the Maui. Really? The triple C facility. Oh, triple C is falling apart. We need to rebuild that. Although there's an argument about whether we need to be building building more jails and prisons. What came out? I think three measures, but one in particular is an oversight commission, an independent commission to oversee the eight prisons, the eight jails. Sorry, I always get that wrong. It's four jails and four prisons, eight facilities total that is run by the Department of Public Safety. They're all state controlled. And the hope is that is going to really make a lot of headway in terms of improving our criminal justice system. So let's come back and talk more about this. We're going to take another break at this time. So here we are. We'll be joined us in about one minute. Aloha, I'm Yukari Kunisue, the host of Konnichiwa Hawaii, Japanese talk show on Think Tech Hawaii. Konnichiwa Hawaii is all Japanese broadcast show. And it's streamed live on Think Tech at 2 p.m. every other Monday. Thank you so much for watching our show. We look forward to seeing you then. I'm Yukari Kunisue. Mahalo. Hello, I'm Stan Osterman, a host here on Think Tech Hawaii, a digital media company serving the people of Hawaii. We provide a video platform for citizen journalists to raise public awareness here on the island. We are a Hawaii non-profit that depends on the generosity of its supporters to keep on going. We'd be grateful if you go to ThinkTechHawaii.com and make a donation to support us now. Mahalo. Welcome back to the last segment of today's very interesting shows where we are discussing the possible actions that Governor Igay may take with regard to legislation that was passed by the recently held legislative session. The question would be whether he is going to be to them, sign it, or even let it become law without signature. So, let's get to the prisons. We're just on there. And there's this oversight commission. What does the commission do that isn't being done now? Well, it doesn't exist. Yeah, well, it's like... It would create it and there would be a coordinator that would be in charge. There's currently a reentry commission that would be folded into it. It would have some appropriations and it would have direct oversight of the Department of Public Safety, which runs the prisons and jails. So, what does that mean when we say oversight? You know, what does that mean? Well, I can tell you that it's a very long and detailed bill, but its recommendations came from a task force of some very well-respected people, including Supreme Court justices and prosecuting attorneys and people that are hoping to reform the system and it had near-universal acclaim. Often a task force study or any study would go to the legislature and they may or may not act on it. There were actually two task force that came forward this time and another recommendation that's going to this, going along with this is unsecured bail. Too many people cannot afford bail. Unsecured bail. Even though for a nonviolent crime, they just don't have the money. Well, most of the people that are in the jail, I'm gonna just go out on a limb and say at least 50% of the people in the jail, more likely more, are people who haven't been convicted of a crime. They're waiting for court date and yet they're sleeping three or four people to a cell including someone's got their head down by the toilet and then the Maui Triple C facility. So this, that, the bill that we, was the second bill that you just talked about would allow the judge to release them. Has it discretion to say, you're fine. I mean, you know, they don't expect you to be able to get on an airplane and leave and there will be concerns about people that might in fact flaunt that and then do something to escape justice. But most people just don't, we're talking hundreds and hundreds of dollars sometimes higher to post bail. Most people don't have that kind of spare change. Exactly. And what would the system, what would it matter if a lot of these minor crimes, if they did catch a plane and leave? What? You know, save us all a lot of money. You know, a minor blow faster. You know, and we're not the first to do this. I mean, the biggest player who's moved to unsecured bail is California. But there's a lot of other state and local jurisdictions that have started this I haven't really heard of any major consequences. I mean, adverse consequences. You know what's interesting, because I often thought about this and that is that our, both the United States Constitution and the state constitution says that you cannot be jailed for debt. And yet, when it comes to taxes and when it comes to bail, you stay in jail, you know, for the non-payment of a debt. For days and longer. And the statistics backed that up. There was another bill. This was on asset forfeiture. That's where the authorities can seize, even without you being charged with a crime. Cars, other things that were used, possibly in the commission of a crime. And then you never see that again. The average citizen who loses even their home, that then could be auctioned off by the state or the counties and the money then goes into. And you never have to be guilty of the crime. No, you never have to be guilty. That's another bill that is on the governor's desk, asset forfeiture. Now, if you're accused of or involved in a felony, that's a different story. But for non-violent crimes, the idea is that why are we taking your stuff? You know, again, these bills hit the borderline because, dad, to the normal American Hawaiian citizen in, or Hawaii citizen in the state of Hawaii, if I told you that the government can just step in there and grab your property because you had a little chicken fight in your backyard. I mean, you even can believe it? And by the way, this is not the first time the forfeiture bill came up. No, but it is on the governor's desk. There's even one more, if I just may. Hard to believe this didn't actually exist, but there is a bill that will require the reporting of the deaths of inmates who work in incarceration facilities, as well as the people that work there. Can you believe that that's not already on the books right now? Why do you need a bill to do that? That should be automatic. I think there was personality issues that were concern. Remember the folks that are employed, the ACOs and others work for unions? Right. UPW, I think is probably the major union for the prisons. And there was a concern about just, you know, personal violations letting a name get out there. But in fact, it seems to have tied up of folks being notified, family members and friends, that somebody had died. And you know, this group of bills, I mean, because sometimes we talk about how national trends relate to us here, this has been a national trend. It has. Criminal justice reform and prisoner reform, this is one of the few issues where the right and the left sometimes agree, and particularly the issue of asset forfeiture. You get the hard right conservative libertarians and the liberals agree on this particular issue. And what is their agreement? Their agreement is it's a terrible idea. Don't touch my stuff. Let it go. Goverment. Absolutely. You know, literally, I remember I was a young legislator sitting at the state, you know, in the judiciary meeting and Chuck Moslin came by, he was a prosecutor back then, and he wanted this bill so he could grab Campbell Estates land that was being leased to people who formerly worked for Wailua Plantation, who were having chicken fights in their backyard, because that was in his mind organized, an organized crime activity. And it got turned down. This time the legislator passed it. So real quick, commission. Yes, no sign, no sign. I think it would be, I think the governor would do it for a couple of reasons. It was supported by the public safety chairs who were part of the commission, Greg Takayama, one of the governor's closest friends in the house. And frankly, the governor wants to move towards getting a new OCCC bill. That is something that's been moving slowly. I will just add real quickly, the task force itself did not say that more incarceration is the way to go. That is not the way to reform our system. No, I hope so. But for now there's a simple recognition that we can't just keep people in Arizona as well as three or four people to a cell. My guess is he'll sign it. He's gonna sign all of them. All of them. So you're gonna go real quick. There's all of them. The bill, what do you sign? He'll probably have a big ceremony and Clara Sisyahara and Greg Takayama. What about the Forefist Tribule? I think it's a no-brainer. I will tell you that it has been opposed, as you can guess, from some law enforcement agencies, but it is a civil liberties issue. And as you mentioned, it's politically appealing on both sides of the political spectrum. So what does the Forefist Tribule do? We didn't really... You know what? I'm actually gonna just read real quickly what it does. Unless the cover defense is a felony for which the property owner has been convicted, you can't do it. You could not seize this property. There are some exceptions here and there, but it's a civil right. And it makes a certain amount of common sense. Yeah. Because by the way, when that's done with auction, that money doesn't go back to the person who owned it. It goes to the government. Well, it also goes... A specific part of the government. Correct. That's what a law enforcement agency goes to. It goes to a black box. Yeah. You know, none of the traditional methods of oversight apply to this money. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, go confiscate a Corvette from the local drug dealer. And then you got a Corvette, you know? Okay, guys, so anything else that we got? Because I tell you what, the governor did sign a bunch of bills and it looked more like all the spending bills. Yeah, there's nothing terribly controversial. There was a bill regulating midwives, with an exception for native Hawaiian practitioners. That was one of the few bills. Remember, about 300 bills make it out of a ledge. About 3,000 are introduced. Right now, 100 of those 300 have become law. So the governor's looking at 200. And of those, I'm looking at maybe two dozen that are probably controversial. Yeah, probably controversial. Yeah, like collective bargaining. Collective bargaining, what a surprise. That's gonna go right through all those bills. Well, I tell you one thing, though. Usually the money bills, for a governor, the money bills, especially if they're clever, money bills are the easiest to handle. Because you got three ways to deal with them. I mean, you can either veto the entire bill or sign it, or you can do a line item veto on bills and change the amounts that have been down. Or you can just sign the thing and never release the money. So there's so much that you can do. So you can do it. Right, right. Or make somebody behave before you release it. I don't know. I'm sure the governor's never done that. You know, I won't say that past governors haven't done that. David E. Gay strikes me as the kind of guy that doesn't make deals. No, he's much more straightforward. Yeah, he just seems, he calls it like he sees it and he doesn't, who knows. If there is another side of David E. Gay that I don't know, that would be a surprise. I've never seen him really play politics with legislation in that regard. I can hear people now out there in the world laughing and say, yeah. I think he does, he believes that he makes the best decision based on the merits of the bill and his administration weighing in on the pros and cons. One of the largest percentages of bills that will be vetoed at the end of any session have to do with technical mistake. Yep, that's right. I think of somebody forgot to do something in the rush of legislation and the governor will get back a memo from the Attorney General's office or budget and finance or an agency and say, look, if you do this, this other program is gonna be affected. You need it to write one more sentence in here. And it's, so there's gonna be a lot of vetoes of that nature. Now, one thing that the legislature has never done, never done, and I had actually suggested to them that they should do this when Linda Lingle was governor, you know, as a partisan gesture, because as a governor, I would never do this. What I would never encourage this is that the constitution allows the legislature to in one day's time, with one reading, amend a bill that the governor puts into that, into any category. So I can go in and I can amend the legislature, doesn't have to override a veto. They actually have a second option, which is that they will amend the bill to conform with his message. Now, the difference between that and the normal bill process is that if he vetoes it then, it just, there's no override. So what you can amend it, and we could clean up a whole bunch of legislation if they would come back and do that. Because, and the tricky part, the political part, this is a little lesson in politics for some of these guys out there. The political part of doing all of this is that you can, a lot of times, governors, I'm sure this particular governor is much too straight-laced to do this, but governors use technical reasons to veto bills they actually don't like. And when we were doing this with Linda Lingo, for example, where it came up, is that she says, I'm vetoing the first game marriage bill because it technically did not suffice in certain aspect. So I said, what you can do to a governor is go in there and make it, correct it, and hand it back and say, veto it now, or sign it. So you can do this kind of gameplay. But they never did that. Well, they never do now. But governors consistently, not this one, I'm sure, but governors consistently have used technical reasons to get rid of bills. It gives them some political cover. Yeah. Well, yeah, because you can say it's not me, it's them. And you just hope it never comes back. Anything else, anything? Well, I would just say it's a biennial session. Anything that went through this session and didn't make it or any bill that Mike had vetoed or sent back for whatever reason is alive and could be brought up again next session, it could be brought up at any time. But bills do carry over to 2020. And that's when you're gonna see more of it. So let's go down, he's gonna sign all of the corrections bills. That's the prediction that my esteemed colleague made. What about you? I think it would be a good thing to do. I think they're good bills. There's a lot of people that support it. And I can't think of a state that has, many states that have more problems with our prisons and jails than Hawaii. I think it's a good step forward. And as I said, probably helping with his own initiatives in terms of trying to get a new jail bill. Okay, guys, you know what we're gonna do? We're gonna write down all the predictions you guys made today. And then we're gonna see. Maybe I'll write a letter to Civil Beat and tell you, publish this, you know. We're gonna hold you up, right? Although you didn't make any predictions. Yeah, I didn't make any predictions. Anyway, thank you very much for joining us. I hope you enjoyed our program this afternoon. Join us in the future when we find out how good a group of pundits we actually are. Aloha.