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The 2025 session of the Hawaiʻi Legislature begins Jan. 15, but lawmakers are already at work.

As The Sunshine Blog reported recently, House leaders have been consulting with members about possible changes to House rules, something that could happen soon.

To that end, and in the spirit of the season, I am sharing some thoughts on meaningful rule reform.

The Subject Matter Committees

Each subject matter committee — e.g., education, agriculture, transportation and so forth — can and should understand it is making decisions on certain subjects for all House members, and usually in tandem with its Senate counterpart.

It’s not an advisory committee for the speaker or for the House Finance Committee. It can and should seek to be the best informed on their subject.

What are others doing? What is the status of comparable executive agencies or departments in terms of their expertise, resources, respect within the larger cluster of other silos and agencies? These are issues that should be raised.

Members of any subject matter committee should not just be a vote to be summoned after a hearing, but full participants in the exploration of good policy, the existing laws and rules, the budgets, and the issues facing the community.

This does not mean unanimity, but rather competence and engagement. Yes, a proactive committee could be negatively seen as a challenge for the chair, or positively as a team.

Fully engaged in each hearing, prepared to ask meaningful questions of those who testify. In touch with outside advocates and in touch with the larger Hawaii community (not just their own districts).

The Decline Of Committee Relevance

There has often been a tendency to diminish this role of a mini-subject matter policy center in the form of a committee. The role of the committee is diminished and disrespected if it is required to pass out bills with defective dates, or funding bills without a recommendation for how much.

Internal power is like matter: It cannot be destroyed, only shifted from one place to another in one form or another.

One chronic challenge has been to be considered just an advisory group for the House Finance Committee, or sometimes the judiciary or consumer protection committees. In essence it amounts to “Thank you for sharing.”

We should acknowledge that the role of expertise in various subjects and policies has diminished in some agencies, such as Legislative Reference Bureau, or the offices of majority and minority research. At the University of Hawaiʻi, thanks in part to the pressure of some legislators, the UH has been pressured to close down policy centers.

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Consider the enormous impact on the budget of the higher and lower education committees. Yet some don’t want independent analysis or commentary. The Hawaii Educational Policy Center, for example, was shut down with nothing more than an email! And other centers have been starved in UH budgets.

Is the Legislature really afraid to have other views expressed? But what ought to be ain’t is. The demise of the power, influence or even existence of policy expertise means that each subject matter committee has a greater responsibility to be knowledgeable and proactive.

The First Lateral

The Legislative timetable and schedule can have a huge impact on the integrity and importance of the subject matter committee and the democratic respect due its chair and members: especially the date for the first lateral, when all bills referred to more than one committee (i.e., those with multiple referrals) must move to their final committee in the originating chamber.

If you don’t have time to seriously consider and hear all the bills introduced and referred to the committee then ideas, solutions, innovations, etc. are stifled. Good or better government is stifled. Paired with severe limitations on number of bills introduced by each member, the legislative process is like a library banning books.

A bill is an idea. Why limit ideas? So what if 10 similar bills are introduced. Most will die soon anyway.

The Vice Speaker

What should the vice speaker actually do, more than assign offices and parking stalls? Rather than being a voting member of committees, this is a bit of an insult.

Let the vice speaker be a nonvoting seat at hearings. Ask your questions. But don’t try to add to the already significant power of a speaker.

Make the vice speaker vice chair of the finance committee. That really covers a lot of bases. And let’s be candid, sometimes the chair of finance has their own agenda different from the speaker.

The speaker is responsible for coordinating, understanding, responding to all the members of the House who in turn represent all of our citizens. Let the vice speaker carry this significant burden of the speaker into the realm of budgets.

There are other tweaks to enhance democracy, transparence, sunshine, and public trust. For instance, adopting a Citizen’s Legislative Bill of Rights as a general preamble to the rules would create a commitment by the elected to those who put them there.

I love the House of Representatives — the People’s House. Let’s make it the best, the ideal, the role model for a fresh and better relationship among its members and with the general public.

I do believe it feels good, to be good, and to do good.

Happy Holidays. Happy New Year.