������Ƶ

A bill to slash retirement benefits for state judges by one-third was met with uniformly hostile testimony during a public hearing before the Senate Judiciary and Labor Committee on Tuesday.

Unlike several other bills that also targeted the Judiciary this year by threatening the courts’ independence from outside political pressure, this measure would hit current and future judges directly in their pocketbooks.

, introduced by Rep. Sylvia Luke, House Finance Committee chair, and House Majority Leader Scott Saiki, would cut retirement benefits for judges appointed after June 30, 2016, and for currently serving judges who are reappointed or promoted after that same date.

Currently, judges, along with several categories of employees, including legislators, fire fighters, and police officers, are credited on retirement with 3 percent of their salary for each year of service.  Judges appointed, reappointed, or promoted after June 30 would see this reduced to 2 percent.

Retired Associate Justice Steve Levinson, who served on the Hawaii Supreme Court from 1992 until his retirement in 2008, minced no words in calling an “ill-conceived and pernicious piece of legislation.”

Others called the measure unprecedented, and suggested it may violate the Hawaii State Constitution.

Following Tuesday’s hearing, the Judiciary and Labor chairman, Maui Sen. Gil Keith-Agaran, deferred decision making on the bill until Wednesday morning. If it is approved by the committee in time for Friday’s first lateral deadline, it would then move to the Ways and Means Committee for further consideration.

The Senate earlier passed that, in addition to making similar cuts in retirement benefits, would also have required judges to work longer than any other category of state or county employees before being eligible to collect any retirement benefits.

Over in the House, SB 2244 received the “gut and replace” treatment in the Labor Committee, where its contents were removed and replaced with the language of HB 2006. It is now pending in the House Judiciary Committee, but will die unless it is approved and sent on to the Finance Committee by Thursday’s second lateral deadline, which seems unlikely.

That leaves the slightly refined House version of the retirement measure, HB 2006, as the last of several bills introduced this year in a bold bit of political payback by legislative leaders angered by an adverse court in a long-running case challenging the state’s failure to provide sufficient funding for the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands.

First Circuit Judge Jeannette Castagnetti ruled in November 2015 that legislators would have to make available an additional $18 million to DHHL this year to comply with Article XII of the Hawaii State Constitution, which requires the Legislature to “make sufficient sums available” for the department’s administrative and operating budget.

Legislative leaders retaliated with a set of bills that would have required judges to stand for election, or face another round of political scrutiny in order to seek reappointment after an initial term. The attack put the Judiciary on the defensive, as Judiciary officials, judges, and most of the legal community tried to protect the traditional degree of judicial independence while maintaining a judicial demeanor in public.

Several themes were repeated by those during Tuesday’s Senate hearing.

Rod Maile, administrative director of the courts, cautioned lawmakers that reductions in retirement benefits applicable only to judges, rather than across the board to all employees, would be unfair and will make recruitment of qualified new judges and the retention of experienced judges much more difficult.

“In the end, the state as a whole would suffer from this childish act of ritual suicide.” — Retired Justice Steve Levinson

Approximately two-thirds of Hawaii’s 80 judges are vested in the retirement system and eligible to retire, Maile said.

“if some of those judges retire early because of this bill, it will adversely impact the community and the public we serve,” Maile told the committee.

Others were less restrained. For example, Jeffrey Ng, president of the Hawaii County Bar Association, said a “potential mass exodus of judges would cause a severe adverse effect throughout the legal system. The loss of their knowledge and experience would create tremendous instability and may cause irreparable harm.”

Leaders of several public sector unions also strongly opposed the bill, saying that it would set a dangerous precedent.

Testimony submitted on behalf of Randy Perreira, executive director of the Hawaii Government Employees Association, called HB 2006  “unprecedented legislation that severely reduces current employees’ retirement benefits.”

“While this bill currently targets judges, consideration and passage of this measure establishes a harmful legislative precedent, allowing the modification of any employees’ retirement benefits, at any time,” he said.

Perreira’s testimony was echoed by the University of Hawaii Professional Assembly and the Hawaii Fire Fighters Association.

Testimony by Robert Lee, president of the fire fighters union, asked a simple question: “if this proposal is enacted, which is the next group of public employees that may be faced with this type of takeaways.”

The head of the state Employees’ Retirement System testified that the administrative and technical changes needed to implement the bill for the approximately 80 state judges would be costly and, as a result, questionable from a business perspective.

A few people stepped forward to ask the difficult but obvious question: Why?

Momi Cazimero, who has served on the Judicial Selection Commission and currently sites on the Judicial Evaluation Review Panel, put it bluntly. “HB 2006 is not fair; it is not reasonable; is not democratic, but it IS biased against Hawaii’s judges, with no explanation why.”

Justice Levinson concurred in strong testimony prepared for the hearing.

“On its face,” Levinson testified, “HB 2006 HD1 contains no legislative findings or underlying statement of legislative intent. It simply, and without explanation, gratuitously does what it does.”

Then he went further, referring to the string of anti-Judiciary bills introduced this year, most by Sen. Keith-Agaran.

“I doubt that there is anyone in this room who is not fully aware of the Legislature’s motivation underlying HB 2006,” Levinson said, pointing to the legislature’s apparent motivation “to punish the Judiciary for perceived transgressions.”

“It is time for this Legislature to knock it off,” he said, speaking as an elder statesman. “In the end, the state as a whole would suffer from this childish act of ritual suicide.”

The whole scenario — legislative leaders in a back room secretly plotting multiple pieces of legislation designed as payback for court decisions upholding constitutional obligations to Native Hawaiians — is a terrible embarrassment to, and black eye for, the Democratic majority in the Legislature.

It’s time, as Justice Levinson said, to just knock it off.