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What were former Sen. Kalani English and former Rep. Ty Cullen thinking when they thought they could get away with accepting bribes and never get caught?

Was this an issue of corruption due to personal character flaws, or are there deeper structural flaws in the state’s legislative process? Or could it be both?

For example, the accused senator was said to have bragged that “killing a bill is easy.” But what is missing here is, why it is so easy to kill a bill and get paid for it?

Something is missing in the system that allowed this to happen.

First, the structure of the Hawaii House of Representatives is in the shape of a pyramid with the speaker of the House at the top. He has total control of the legislative agenda. His leadership team of a vice speaker, majority leader, majority floor leader and chair of the House Finance Committee (“The Big 5”) implement his agenda through 18 committee chairs who oversee passing or killing bills, often at the speaker’s behest.

This small number of people exert an inordinate amount of influence in the legislative process, and the two defrocked legislators were in positions that led to corruption.

Some reasons committee chairs could go to the dark side:

• They are given too much authority to pass or kill a bill and are only accountable to the speaker, not the members of their committees.
• They have tremendous influence over their members. Chairs are held in great deference. For example, if a member votes “no” or “with reservations” on a bill, they do so gingerly and apologetically, as to not upset the chair.

Secrecy and the lack of transparency are other flaws associated with the legislative process:

• For example, committee hearings are first conducted openly but then in secret when it comes to passing or killing a bill. The fate of most bills has been determined before the hearing even begins.
• Because of this, some chairs don’t care to hear much testimony from the public and have a habit of speeding up hearings by subtly suggesting testifiers simply say, “I stand on my written testimony.” The public hears nothing about the merits of a piece of legislation.

Shutting down testimony saves time but does great harm because the public does not have access to any written testimony until after the hearing. Even legislators don’t have access to written testimony until it is released by the vice chairs about 10 minutes before the hearing.

A robust discussion by a committee could counter this lack of information to the public and legislators, but most chairs discourage, rather than encourage members to ask questions. When a few members do ask questions, they are reminded to be brief otherwise they will be cut off, much like members of the public are when their testimony exceeds two minutes.

Committee hearings are thus a partial façade of the democratic discourse, and even when 90% of the testimony is against a bill, the chair and members often pass it anyway. A flabbergasted public must go away thinking, “What’s the use of participating in the legislative process?”

Because the Legislature is exempt from “sunshine laws,” voting during Covid has been discussed in Zoom “breakout rooms” — out of public sight to discuss which bills will pass or be killed per the recommendation of the chair. A bill is killed by the pronouncement of the chair alone.

Pre-Covid decision-making discussions were often held out in the hallway outside the hearing room — tucked safely away from public view.

So, what can be done with flawed individuals and a flawed system that lacks transparency, accessibility, and public input?

The should be amended to make committee hearings more transparent and members more accountable with reforms that:

• Require legislators to be engaged in selecting the bills to be heard and committee chairs to call for a vote on bills that are killed.
• Forbid committee chairs to instruct testifiers to just “stand on their testimony.” Instead, testifiers would be required to succinctly state their case before the public.
• Make testifiers’ written testimony readily available to legislators and the public 48 hours before any hearing.
• Require decision-making discussions by committees to be made in public and not behind closed doors, or in virtual “breakout rooms” on Zoom.

So, is Hawaii’s Legislature corrupt? “Yes, kind of, but …”

It has some structural flaws and temptations that draw legislators to misbehave much like a passerby seeing keys left in the ignition of a car. He becomes a thief because he could not overcome the temptation. A few structural reforms could go a long way to restoring the public trust and the dignity of legislators.