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Some Hawaii lawmakers want to give the governor more power in appointing members to the ’s Board of Regents, picking up a political debate started last year after the rejected two of his nominees.

Six years ago, university faculty and students successfully lobbied for a constitutional amendment that took away the governor’s authority to appoint regents directly. It was part of a larger movement within the university toward greater autonomy from the state.

As a result of that amendment, the governor now selects regent nominees from a list compiled by the . But Gov. says the advisory council process is broken.

Senate Education Committee Chair agrees with him, and has crafted a bill that would reform the advisory process but leave it in place.

Her bill points to last year’s reform that changed the way the members were selected, turning it from an elected process to one in which the governor appoints the board but with Senate confirmation.

According to her proposal:

“Especially on the heels of the 2011 board of education appointment process, the legislature can clearly see the potential value in granting the governor the authority to select and appoint regents on the basis of how each regent’s individual strengths will add to and complement the overall board of regents. It has become evidently clear that no governor will be able to adequately select nominees to the board of regents unless the governor has more control and involvement in the recruitment and selection process.”

But a retired attorney who is actively involved with the university and helped spearhead the movement for the current regent selection process in 2006 says criticism of the advisory council is misplaced.

“The real question is, ‘What have they produced?'” said Frank Boas, who has served on the UH Foundation executive board and in various other capacities at the university. “All of the constituents are pleased with the results, so why change it?”

Giving the governor more control over the Board of Regents would only politicize it, interfere with the university’s autonomy and make private donors less likely to give money, he told .

He added that Tokuda was a strong advocate for the advisory council five years ago.

But Tokuda said last year’s difficult regent confirmation hearings made it clear it was time to reassess.

“The system that we put forward with the best of intentions and the best information we had at the time was not achieving the kind of outcomes we had hoped,” she said.

Tokuda describes the application process as overwhelming and the vetting process as so time-consuming that it is a barrier to qualified applicants even applying.

The current law is specific about who can apply and what qualifications they must have.

“That is a huge concern,” she said, adding that the way the advisory council works prohibits the governor from viewing all the qualified candidates at once and from viewing and nominating to the board in a holistic manner.

limits the advisory council to presenting the governor with “no fewer than two and no more than four” candidates for each vacant seat on the Board of Regents.

“It doesn’t allow him that ability to be really accountable for the appointments he makes,” she said. “Right now he’s very limited in terms of the selection power he has.”

Her proposal leaves the advisory council in place, but reconstitutes it with five gubernatorial appointees instead of the seven current appointees selected by various university stakeholder groups. The bill also places the council in the governor’s office “for administrative purposes” and requires it to submit to him “pools of at least three qualified candidates” for every Board of Regents vacancy. It also allows the governor to require the council to reopen recruitment and applications if the qualified candidate pool ever drops below three per vacant seat.

Tokuda’s bill would revise the advisory council’s role, but from some of her colleagues in the Senate would get rid of the council altogether.

sponsored by Sens. , and would eliminate the council and give the governor the power to appoint regents directly, subject to Senate approval.

The proposed constitutional amendment requires not only legislative approval, but voter approval. If passed by the Legislature this year it would go to the voters in November.

A amends state law to eliminate the advisory council.

Another bill, this one introduced by Sen. Sam Slom, about the advisory council from state law.

takes a more measured approach and gives more specific instructions to the council on vetting nominees.

But Boas said lawmakers and the public need to take a closer look at the current process before changing it.

“I’m afraid that without public participation and awareness, the university could go back to where all you needed to do to be on the Board of Regents was to send a check to the governor,” he said. “I think the only really sensible way to judge the council is to see what they’ve produced, and how that’s working. And they have produced a merit-based board that’s working very well and everyone is very happy with.”

Since the advisory council has been in place, the university raised $300 million in a single fundraising campaign — the most money it’s ever raised in one campaign, he said, adding that suggests donors would rather give to a university system that is not politically charged.

“If we go back to the system of having political cronies on the board, that can’t be very good for campaigning for funds,” he said.

The push for a new Board of Regents selection process feels like deja vu after the Legislature’s successful attempt last year to convert Hawaii’s elected into one appointed by the governor.

In that case, a constitutional amendment was approved by voters in November 2010, and at the beginning of the 2011 legislative session, there were at least four bills proposing various methods for the governor to appoint his Board of Education.

Some resembled the Regents Advisory Council process, and Tokuda said then that the advisory council was a bad model. In the end, it was direct appointment by the governor, subject to Senate approval, that got signed into law

In this case, Tokuda said, “It’s important that we not be afraid to ask ourselves, ‘Is something that we created not working?'” she said. “We need to be willing to take a step back and better meet the mandates put before us, but not be afraid to change if we have to.”