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The final day to submit measures in the 2024 Hawaii Legislature was Jan. 24. In theory that means no new legislation can be introduced after that date.

But that’s not quite the case. As Civil Beat columnist Beth Fukumoto — a former state House representative — explained last month, short-form bills can be taken up long after that deadline. Fukumoto called them “just-in case” bills, meaning that they can be used “to handle an unforeseen problem.”

I agree with that take. What if there is a natural disaster like a threatening lava flow from Kilauea, or new problems at the Hawaii State Hospital? Using a short-form bill, lawmakers could quickly act to provide money and other relief.

For those and other reasons, dozens of short-form bills are introduced every session before the introduction deadline, including and this year. The bills themselves are almost completely blank (see example at top right), and the only clue as to what they might be used for is in the measure’s title.

The titles are usually just a single word — environment, education, housing — or maybe two words, such as disaster management. The titles are so vague that a lawmaker could drive a Toyota Tacoma through it, transforming it into just about anything.

And that’s where I have some concerns when it comes to sunshine, given the Legislature’s past use of “gut and replace” to such a degree that a final bill could transmogrify into something entirely unrelated to the original.

The Hawaii Supreme Court put an end to the practice in 2021 in a 3-to-2 decision requiring that all bills be fully vetted — that is, that a bill have three readings, as is required by the Hawaii Constitution.

Short-form bills are not gut and replace. For one thing, there is nothing to gut. It might be better to call them “copy and paste” bills.

Here’s a timely example. Last week, notice went out from the Legislature that and would be heard in the Senate Ways and Means Committee for public decision-making last week. SB 572 is a short-form bill on agriculture and SB 578 is a short-form bill on government, and both carried over from the 2023 session.

The hearing notice , respectively, would allow the Department of Agriculture with the governor’s approval to declare a biosecurity emergency, and to ensure Employees’ Retirement System benefits continue for a state or county worker who is retired but is temporarily filling a “difficult-to-fill” position amid a labor shortage (in this case, the positions are investigators in the Hawaii Attorney General’s Office).

The intentions seem noble enough. Invasive species are crawling over the entire state, and government agencies can’t find enough people to do essential work.

But here’s where short-form bills, however well-intentioned, get a little funky.

Until the bill gets updated — a process that can take a couple of days — the official descriptions of the bills are still blank on the legislative website. Only by clicking on the Senate Draft 1 version of the bill — for SB 572, for instance, it’s — will the visitor to the bill’s status page discover what the bill is being transformed into.

Senate Ways and Means Committee Chairman Donovan Dela Cruz did not explain during the quick vote to approve both measures why he thought it was important to do so, although he did mention something about having discussions with the state attorney general regarding SB 578.

Also, no public testimony was accepted on the amended bills. Instead, the hearing notice explained that “a public hearing will be scheduled at a later date, at which point testimony will be accepted.”

Dela Cruz did say both bills would be “recommitted” to his committee, meaning that if they are scheduled for a hearing, agencies, organizations and the public will get to testify. (If you want to watch the brief vote, scroll to around the 51-minute mark . It came in the middle of a very long and excruciating hearing starring Sen. Donna Mercado Kim tsk-tsking people from the University of Hawaii.)

Sure enough, both SB 572 and SB 578 were scheduled to be heard this week.

But here’s another twist: SB 572 is an agriculture bill and SB 578 is a government bill, so one might presume that the Senate Agriculture and Environment Committee might hear SB 572 and the Senate Government Operations Committee might take up SB 578.

If these bills instead went directly to WAM, which is often the last committee stop before crossing over to the House, it could be that they would be missed entirely by people tracking those subject-matter bills.

I left messages with Dela Cruz but did not hear back. I do give the senator credit, however, for at least sharing with the public the content of the proposed bills.

And here’s the latest: On Thursday, SB 572 was re-referred to AEN and WAM while SB 578 was re-referred to the Senate Committee on Labor and Technology — but not GVO as I had expected — and WAM but also to the Senate Judiciary Committee. On Friday hearing notices went out and on Monday both bills cleared their first committees.

Another short-form bill on housing — this one from Rep. Luke Evslin — was . But , which was introduced by Evslin, chair of the House Housing Committee, had not posted a proposed House draft when the hearing notice went out last week, and it still wasn’t posted as of Friday morning.

It seemed Evslin’s committee was scheduled to hear a bill about nothing, like an episode of “Seinfeld.”

I checked the bill’s status Saturday morning. Still no House Draft 1, still nothing. But HB 2007 nonetheless passed Evslin’s committee “with amendments” and was moved along for “further consideration.”

Fortunately, Evslin explained during of the committee hearing Friday that he planned to insert the contents of into HB 2007 and to have a hearing on it soon. HB 2212, which was killed last week due to problems with title language, is an affordable housing bill that would allow religious, educational and medical institutions to build residential units on lands zoned for residential or commercial use within the urban state land use district.

Evslin said lots of changes to HB 2007 could happen this week when the revamped bill is finally heard. That turned out to be the case, as the brand is similar to HB 2212 but different, too.

Here’s an excerpt from the copy-and-paste: The Legislature finds “that some medical, educational, and religious institutions are willing to convert a portion of their land to provide housing. It is not the intent of the legislature to allow fly-by-night developers to create one of these types of institutions solely to circumvent the normal development process.”

Accordingly, HB 2007 now calls for those institutions to build dwelling units on lands zoned “within the urban district, under certain conditions.”

‘Broad’ Purpose

SB 572 and SB 578 are now long-form bills, as appears the destiny for HB 2007. Like butterflies, they have emerged from their cocoon and are no longer caterpillars.

I called the Legislative Reference Bureau hoping to learn how many caterpillars in 2021, 2022 and 2023 became butterflies, as it seems it’s a fairly regular practice. Alas, that information is not recorded for posterity.

OK, I’ll stop here, as I realize I am diving into the legislative weeds. And I should note that all this is perfectly allowable under House and Senate rules.

House Majority Leader Nadine Nakamura defends the process.

“A short-form bill outlines its purpose broadly, allowing the committee to review the idea before detailing specifics in a long-form,” she said. “Amendments require committee approval, and the bill, after a floor vote, is recommitted for a public hearing. It undergoes the necessary three hearings on the House floor, which is required of all bills.”

She added, “All bills hold the potential to become enacted legislation upon approval from both the House and Senate, followed by the governor’s signing into law.”

Fair enough. Still, my concern is that sneaky things can and do happen at the Big Square Building on Beretania, aided and abetted by a system that lawmakers themselves design and know and work better than anyone else.