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Editor’s note: We sat down just before session with Sen. Karl Rhoads, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Rep. David Tarnas, chair of the House Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs Committee, to talk about what to expect this year in the way of accountability and transparency measures, as well as other issues they’re interested in.

Tarnas began by giving his assessment of accomplishments of the past two years, starting with the 2023 recommendations of the House Commission to Improve Standards of Conduct, headed by retired Judge Dan Foley. Tarnas said progress has been made in strengthening prosecution of fraud, increasing transparency in government, improving legislative rules and reducing the power of money in politics.

The discussion then turned to the lawmakers’ priorities for this session, some of which continue the work of the Foley commission. We’re joining the interview, which has been edited for length and clarity, at that point. But we plan to revisit their thoughts on previous legislative accomplishments in an article next week that, once the bill-filing deadline has passed, will examine what sunshine bills have been introduced this session and how they may build on prior initiatives.

Tarnas: I think it’s important for me to hear what Judge Foley said about what we did. He was very complimentary about the Legislature and how we moved through and passed significant legislation. And while we didn’t pass some of your favorite bills — like public financing, that was not recommended by the Commission to Improve Standards of Conduct, partial public financing was.

You have expressed strong opinions in support of initiative and referendum. There’s not an appetite to pursue that. I think this is a representative democracy and we would like to continue with that form of government.

What are your thoughts beyond the Foley commission about what could be working better? What could be better for the state of Hawaii when it comes to transparency and accountability legislation?

Tarnas: I think we have plenty of material to work with between what the Commission to Improve Standards of Conduct recommended and all the bills that are being submitted by the Campaign Spending Commission, the Ethics Commission, and others. I have some great people working with me and it’s a pleasure to work with Senator Rhoads. I’ve learned a lot from him as well, and we have a great working relationship.

I try to be very clear about what is something that is able to gain support and what’s not able to gain support. I’m a very practical guy and I have worked hard to try to move forward the recommendations. And my own contribution to it is being able to facilitate the dialogue and discussion within the House and negotiations the Senate and try to pass the best bills for our state.

Rhoads: I think on the campaign spending on comprehensive versus partial public financing, I think you have to look at it as it’s a continuum. You have to look at it big picture. And to me, the big picture is that often your first race is your most difficult and where your learning curve is the steepest.

I seriously considered running on the public financing system. I looked at it pretty carefully and decided that I wasn’t going to win. Part of it was because of the district I live in is a high-rise district. And you can’t knock on their doors, which is sort of the poor person’s way of getting around somebody who has a lot of money. So the chance I had to take was, can I raise enough private funding to be competitive?

As it turned out, the answer was yes. But that was one of the big question marks in my head when I first ran.

So my concern with partial public financing is, the system we have right now, almost nobody uses it. And the reason almost nobody uses it, I’m quite sure, is the reason I didn’t use it, because they don’t think they can win. And they don’t usually.

Now, there are some exceptions: David Ige won the first time he ran (for governor). But as soon as he was in office, he immediately started raising money.

I would say as soon as he was past the primary. 

Rhoads: As soon as he saw that there was a chance, we went back to the other system. There’s a couple of other examples. And it’s not a united front in the Senate. There are people who are have their doubts about it there as well as in the House. But I think the biggest doubt people have is that we all got here by using a privately financed system. We know we can win this way. And so jumping off into another system that I believe would be better, there’s some hesitation about that because you don’t know for sure exactly how that’s going to affect you. 

So the political reality is that the House has made it pretty clear they don’t want a comprehensive, complete overhaul for a fully funding system. There are senators who have doubts about it as well, although the vote was 25 to nothing.

So for me, an expanded partial system is a compromise. It’s not as good as the comprehensive system would be. But maybe if we make it good enough, more people will be able to run. But I think unless we get it very close to a fully funded campaign system, it will only work in races where you have a weak opponent to start with. If you go and take on an entrenched incumbent, you’re probably not going to win even with a beefed up partial system because you just won’t have enough money. 

And I believe that a competent incumbent should be hard to beat. If you’re doing a good job or one that voters approve of, then it should be hard to beat you.

But it shouldn’t be completely impossible. In fairness, it’s not completely impossible. But for the most part, it is very hard to beat even a not-competent incumbent. And you need to have a system where there’s a possibility for the challenger to win. And I think the most likely way to reach that goal is to have a comprehensive public financing system.

Criticism has been raised that it helps the Republicans. I’m not sure that matters, but I don’t see how, because if anything, the Democrats, in Hawaiʻi at least, we’ve traditionally been way stronger on the grass roots. Typically, the unions are on our side and they can provide bodies to do the sign-waving and all the other stuff — stuffing envelopes, sending out mailers by hand instead of spending the money to mail them.

And traditionally, the Republicans have been the ones with the money. So if the Republicans, as the National Republican Committee said, “You know what, we think we have a chance to flip Hawaii, flip the Hawaii Legislature,” they can come up with tons of money to do it. I don’t see the money is their problem. Their problem is that they don’t have a message that sells very well in most of Hawaii.

Tarnas: And so in the House, I’m trying to gauge how we can best move forward. There’s other objections that I hear from other members in the House, and from constituents. They don’t want to spend tax dollars on entities that they don’t support. And I hear from constituents and other legislators saying what we need to do is to cut the influence of deep-pocketed special interests and pay-to-play. So focus on bills that do that. We can’t change Citizens United, but we can deal with this issue of contractors and grantees (donating to legislators).

It sounds like comprehensive public financing may be a tough sell this year. The new House speaker is one of the key people on record being opposed to it. But I believe I’m hearing a desire for increasing partial public financing.

Tarnas: I think that there is. Certainly, I have heard from House members interest in that. I’m hoping that I can capitalize on that and get an agreement for the money. In the bill that the Campaign Spending Commission is proposing there are additional positions, and I think we have to follow through with that. I support that, and I would like to see us move to both increase the amount in partial public financing and provide them with the positions that they’re asking for. 

Rhoads: I think improving the partial public financing system is a realistic possibility this year.

It seems like in the last couple of years there has been quite a bit of improvement in lobbyist disclosure. What more might be might be necessary?

Rhoads: Well, I think because of work that you guys have done here at Civil Beat the issue has become much more salient. And I think both David and I promised months ago that we would be looking at it more seriously because of your reporting this year.

There is a bill that would make it so that the boards of directors and the family members of grantees and contractors would not be able to contribute either. So, yes, there’s going to be bills. I’m putting in one myself. Backing up a little bit, when people give you money, you don’t always know them. The bill that the Campaign Spending Commission is putting in, there’s no way to know if the person giving you money is a contractor. So if you just happen to know, great. And you don’t take it.

But the problem for us in office is that even if we took the money in good faith — you know, they weren’t supposed to give it to us and we didn’t know who they were — the mud splatters on us, too.

So the wrinkle that my bill will have is that as a contractor or grantee, before you can get the money, you’ll have to say, “Here’s the people that are on this list.” And then the state procurement officer or the agency will want to give that information to the Campaign Spending Commission, who in turn will make it available to candidates and candidate committees just so we can check, say, “Okay, I’ve never heard of this guy. He’s a contractor. Can’t take your money. Sorry.”

I think it’s a cleaner way to do it and saves a lot of trouble on the back end because you just don’t know. The bigger the race is, the more true it is. As a governor, people are getting money all of the time and they have no idea. 

Tarnas: And I agree. We need to have a publicly accessible database of whoever is getting contracts. The request from the Campaign Spending Commission is for this be expanded to grantees. And it would be for the officers and their immediate family members as well. It’s a list that we need to have available. It should be publicly accessible. Candidates should be able to get it. That is important.

I looked at other states and I think Connecticut has a useful model. It’s got a different approach. I’d like to have us consider that in addition to the Campaign Spending Commission bill and the senator’s bill and see if we can move something, because I think it is important. We did try to move this last time and we took it to conference committee. So I think Senator Rhoads and I are interested in doing this. And I will work hard in trying to do it again this session

Is there a publicly accessible database that is readily accessible?

Tarnas: I think it’s accessible, but it’s not easy to find it. I asked the Campaign Spending Commission, and they said, “Yeah, you can put it here and it’s there.” And I said, “Well, you know, we just need to make it easier.”

Some of the things they have to do with it depend on whether it’s the state or the county. So there’s two different sorts of levels. We’re talking about contracts and grantees. We’re talking about officers and immediate family members. So there’s a lot of data but it’s not everything. Maybe just the name of the companies there, but we don’t know who the officers are or their family members. I think better data is publicly accessible, even if there is some information available through the state procurement office or other sources listing group, what company has contracts. I’m interested to try to do a better job with this and make it more transparent.

So your bills would mandate that this information be put together in an easily accessible, comprehensive way?

Tarnas: Yeah, it’s publicly accessible, to make it available so that a candidate (and) everyone’s got to know what’s going on here. 

Rhoads: My bill doesn’t go that far. It just says the contracting agency has to collect it and they have to give it to Campaign Spending. And Campaign Spending has to make it to available to people to take money, which is noncandidate committees and candidate committees.

I’m open to the public part of it. I think maybe it makes a little harder politically, but I’m not sure why it would. Bottom line, I think this is a bill, whatever version we end up working out, which I think has a pretty better than even chance of passing this year.

A couple of years ago you made it clear that lawmakers could not hold organized fundraisers during session. You can, however, still accept contributions during session. I wondered if you might comment on whether there could be any changes in that regard as well — in other words, to stop contributions to campaigns during session. 

Tarnas: In the House, we passed a measure that prohibits solicitation and acceptance of contributions during session. I think that there is certainly a willingness in the House to consider something like this. We will have a Campaign Spending Commission measure to consider.

Rhoads: I just think it’s unrealistic. And the reason is because of the timing of the elections and the sessions. The people who win are the ones who get their campaigns going. I started knocking on doors in early February of the year of the election. But that’s exactly when you need to raise money because you have to integrate your door-knocking with mailers generally, at our level.

You just can’t do it. And I suppose you can argue that while you’re an incumbent, you should raise your money before session started. The advantage that challengers do have is that we’re in session right in the middle of the campaign. And we’ve already taken fundraisers themselves off the table, which does kind of tie one of our hands behind our back.

The other thing is, I don’t know what it means for the City Council, because they’re in session all the time practically. So when would you be able to fundraise and when would you not be able to fundraise?

The timing is just what I object to. I just I don’t think there’s any stomach to change it in the Senate. And whatever the political hit is, the political hit is.

The Sunshine Law still seems to be confusing and complicated for a lot of people at the county level as well as the state level. Do you think there’s going to be any movement to make the Sunshine Law a little bit more straightforward, less complicated, easier to follow?

Rhoads: I will be introducing a bill at the request of neighborhood boards because the new Office of Information Practices leadership came out with a ruling recently that said that neighborhood boards would, if they put elected officials on the agenda, they would have to listen to what we say but then they couldn’t ask us any questions. Well, that sounds like heaven to me at one level. But on the other hand, what’s the point of having people, having elected officials come where anybody can just come and see you and ask you questions and get answers?

So I will have a bill that just narrowly says you’d still have to wait a month to take action unless it was an emergency of some kind. But you would not just have to listen to what government testifiers have to say. You get to ask them questions and dialogue with them about whatever the issue is.

The broader issue is that it is very confusing. I was on a neighborhood board for nine years before I was elected to the House, and it is difficult sometimes to know what you can and can’t do.

The executive session one always seemed to me like a no-brainer. I think Brian Black (of the ) has a lawsuit and I think he’s going to win. It’s like classifying documents at the federal level. Stuff gets classified all the time that doesn’t need to because it’s embarrassing and they just don’t want to see it. 

I mean, there are still things that should be an executive session. They will be able to say, “We’re going into executive session to discuss disciplinary matters regarding revolving personnel.” They’ll come out and they’ll say, “We’ve been advised to do X, we can’t talk about exactly what it was, but it’s a personnel decision.” And that’s probably the best you’re going to get. But you should at least have to say what you were talking about. And some boards don’t do this and boards and commissions don’t do that.

Would the executive session issue be something you could resolve legislatively rather than wait for a court ruling? 

Rhoads: I think it is resolved. I think the current law makes it pretty clear. So I guess I would wait to see how it’s interpreted. But I don’t know. David may have a different opinion on that.

Tarnas: I don’t know. Karl may be right. But in terms of the legislation that relates to the Sunshine Law, I am going to be proposing a change recommended by the Mauna Kea Stewardship and Oversight Authority on Sunshine Law. In the transition period for the authority as it takes over management of Mauna Kea, they’re trying to build more understanding among members of the board. And it’s a unique experiment that we’re doing. I’m very hopeful it will succeed. But the chair of the board has asked if it would be possible to authorize a couple of members of the board to meet during the transition period without the Sunshine Law so they could have candid conversations. And as long as there’s no commitment to vote, no commitment to vote is made or signed and there’s no decision-making — decision-making is only done at a duly noticed meeting of the authority.

I do look to Mr. Black for his expert advice on these sort of things. I’m also trying to assist the Mauna Kea Stewardship and Oversight Authority to be successful and build a rapport and have the Native Hawaiian community really empowered through the authority. And I and some of the folks on the board just want to have that ability to have those conversations out of a public duly-noticed meeting.

I certainly know the other boards and the counties want the same thing. I’m not proposing legislation in those areas. But as Karl said, he’s proposing something for the neighborhood boards. If others have suggestions on what you think we should do to improve the effectiveness of the Sunshine Law, tell us what your thoughts are.

How often do you guys talk to each other during session?

Tarnas: As often as we can. We both have each other’s cell phone numbers, if anyone reaches out, we get right back to the other. I’m very grateful, I have a great rapport with Senator Rhoads. 

Rhoads: You know, we were both born in Michigan, so we both have that Wolverine thing going. It gets really busy. We don’t speak every day, but anytime we want to, we get in touch with each other.

Both of you have already been interviewed by us on illegal fireworks following the New Year’s Eve tragedy. Is there anything specific we might be seeing in the session regarding illegal firewoars? 

Tarnas: The Department of Law Enforcement has their recommendations coming out of the Illegal Fireworks Task Force. I am eager to support their requests. They want to create and fund a dedicated explosives unit, investigative unit with five full-time investigators and assistants, additional people as assistants and clerical workers. They want to expand the forensics laboratory to include analysis of explosives to the tune of $2 million. They want to buy a scanner that’s really good at detecting fireworks in containers.

It’s a very tough job. I want to focus on cutting supply. And it’s very challenging. It’s not just imports. It’s coming in the mail. It’s coming in on airplanes. It’s coming in every which way. I want to see some prosecutions. And we need to make some examples of people who are flagrantly violating the existing law and illegal fireworks and importation sale.

Giving a ticket with a high fine is easier to prove in court than it would be to take someone in for a felony charge. And the burden of proof is much higher. (Honolulu Prosecutor) Steve Alm said this numerous times, it’s tough to get neighbors to testify against their neighbor. And we passed legislation to allow use of videos, photographs, but you still need to have someone testify, “I saw this happen on this date.”

And people are reluctant to do it. I get it. I understand events and I also understand people want to be able to have fireworks. Aerial fireworks are illegal. We need to focus on enforcing that law. We need to focus on cutting supply.

Rhoads: I really only have two points to add to that. One is, the fact that they’re coming in in airplanes, it’s sort of clicked in a couple of days ago that that might be a real problem. And (former) DLE Director Jordan Lowe admitted it is a real problem. I hope we can do something with that.

And the other thing was, I thought that it does seem to me like there might be a synergy here in terms of the detection of contraband with biosecurity, because the biosecurity guys, the Department of Agriculture, they’re doing the same stuff only they’re looking for different things.

Or, if we do go the route of the scanners, you don’t have as much leeway if the cargo is coming from another U.S. port. If it’s coming through customs, you can open up anything you want. You don’t have to have a reason. You don’t have to have any suspicion or anything. But most of the fireworks, my understanding, is coming from the rest of the U.S. There still has to be some kind of suspicion, I believe, or it’s just more complicated coming from the rest of the U.S.. But it does it does seem to me like there’s some cross energy there that you could actually do two important things.

Tarnas: They’ve got requests for funding for improvements to their information technology and other technology for detection of crimes or to reduce crimes in this state including fireworks. They’re looking for it using technology so they can improve it. And they say they want to improve their ability to respond in labs.

This is very expensive. Once they confiscate this, they’ve got to be able to store it, destroy it and dispose of it. And that’s very costly and dangerous. The federal agencies have a lot more authority in some of these areas than the state. And so that’s why I think the Illegal Fireworks Task Force is very helpful because it includes the federal agencies in there. And I really would like to see them step up and do more. And we’re willing to do that, too, so that they can step up partnerships with us.

The last thing is criminal justice reform. Is there anything that we should be looking for specifically in this session? 

Rhoads: Well, the big problem is — and it’s a sort of a blurry area between the judiciary and the executive branch in terms of operating the Department of Corrections — but we have way too many people in jail who are there only because they couldn’t make $250 worth of bail. The task force three or four years ago indicated that paying bail or not paying bail does not indicate whether or not you’re going to show up in court. Which is the main issue there.

It’s a toxic issue politically. When we worked on this a couple of years ago, Steve Alm actually came out and said he supported (bail reform) because I think both of us had agreed to a tweak. And then a few weeks later, he turned around and said, “No, it’s a terrible bill.” It’s a very difficult issue because it’s really easy to demagogue and people have demagogued it. 

“You’re letting criminals out on the street.”

Rhoads: Even though we don’t know they’re criminals yet until they’ve been convicted. I mean, some of them are. But it would be interesting to look at it more carefully. I’ve been trying to but haven’t really gotten a good conclusion. What about people who make bail? What do they do? Do they go commit another crime before they go to court? Do they show up for court?

Anecdotally, there was a woman who was arrested for drunk driving maybe a year ago. She made bail. She was arrested for drunk driving about three hours later and made bail again. That’s the part that people don’t really focus on is, well, “People who make bail, they’re criminal, too.” Are they less likely to commit a crime because they didn’t made bail? I think all the evidence says, no, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t make any difference unless the Supreme Court intervenes.

Tarnas: I’m interested in moving measures forward out of the House in hopes that the Senate is interested in them that are in this area. We’re going to propose another version of the bill we tried to move last session, which is basically a cite and release — citations in lieu of arrest. Police would be able to first cite and release for certain offenses, and we would expand that number. So we’re going to be putting forth on cite and release for some petty misdemeanors, nonviolent, petty misdemeanors. We’re also going to be putting in a bill to make sure that those that deal with bail, pretrial detention and substance abuse treatment of some who are eligible. 

I am interested in moving forward with something on civil asset forfeiture. It’s something that we’ve tried to address in years past, well before I was Judiciary chair. It’s a very sticky issue, but I think it’s something I’d like to try again with.

I’d like to eliminate fees from the juvenile justice system. I don’t think most judges even want to levy fees on juveniles. I don’t think there’s any evidence that that really works. 

And then I’m trying to improve the way the state goes about its clemency process for record clearance and expungement.

Rhoads: I’m glad that Chair Tarnas wants to take another run at civil asset forfeiture because it’s actually not very controversial. All the Republicans like it, all the Democrats like it. The people who don’t like it are law enforcement and the AG. And the last time we passed one Gov. David Ige vetoed it. It’s one of the few bipartisan issues left in the world. And I’d really like to see it.

Just to clarify, you meaning to ease up on seizing assets? 

Rhoads: No, you can still seize it. It’s just right now nobody has to be convicted of anything and they can just take your assets. I’m assuming Chair Tarnas’ bill is similar, but I have a bill that would just say you can still take the assets and hold them until there’s a conviction. But if the person is never convicted of anything, at some point you have to give them back. 

Tarnas: I want to highlight the judiciary’s requests, which I think are really important. There’s three specialty courts that they want support for to continue, and make some of the temporary positions permanent. The women’s court, the truancy court, the DWI court.

And then we’re starting up a new Wahiawā District court. It’s a big deal. And they’re going to need staff to work on it. And we need an additional district court in Kona. And it’s a big ask, but that’s something with a new judge plus the court staff.

And the judiciary really needs to improve on cyber security and some of their technology. And so that’s an important request.

The Criminal Justice Research Institute is making some requests, and I really want to support them. We need to have good data to be able to drive policy reform.

And then finally, the judiciary is asking for restoration of funding for essential staffing that was defunded during the early part of the Covid-19 pandemic. And we do need to seriously consider that.