Constitutional Amendments

[GeckoGeek]

This is a companion post to the City Charter questions. Again, I found the GOP position, but couldn't find the Democrats position. If you have others, or want to add your comments, well, that's what a forum is all about.


Constitutional Question No. 1
"Shall the governor be required to select board of regents candidates from a pool of qualified candidates screened and proposed by a candidate advisory
Honolulu Advertiser: No
Star Bulletin: No
Perry & Price: No
GOP: No
Bob Jones: No.



Constitutional Question No. 2
"Shall the Constitution be amended to provide for a salary commission to review and recommend salaries for justices, judges, state legislators, the governor, the lieutenant governor, the administrative director of the State, state department heads or executive officers of the executive departments, and the deputies or assistants to department heads of the executive departments, excluding the superintendent of education and the president of the University of Hawaii?"
Honolulu Advertiser: Yes
Star Bulletin: No. legislators would receive automatic pay raises without being forced to vote on them.
Perry & Price: weak no
GOP: None
Bob Jones: No. Salary commissions do make sense, but this says the recommendations must either be totally accepted ... or totally rejected. That makes no sense.



Constitutional Question No. 3 "Shall the mandatory retirement age of seventy for all state court justices and judges be repealed?"
Honolulu Advertiser: Yes
Star Bulletin: No.
Perry & Price: No
GOP: No
State attorney general and city prosecuting attorney: No. The governor and the Senate play no role of any kind in judicial reappointments.
Bob Jones: Yes. regularly vetted ability rather than age should be the criterion for retaining judges
Personal: 10 years terms is a long time. I’m hearing too much stink about this being favors. I say reject it and see if we get a better offer of a 7 year review.


Constitutional Question No. 4
"Shall the Constitution of the State of Hawaii be amended to provide that in continuous sexual assault crimes against minors younger than fourteen years of age, the legislature may define:
(1) What behavior constitutes a continuing course of conduct; and
(2) What constitutes the jury unanimity that is required for a conviction?"
Honolulu Advertiser: No.
Star Bulletin: Yes
Perry & Price: Yes
GOP: Yes
Bob Jones: Yes. Criminal statute definitions should always rest with the Legislature.
State attorney general and city prosecuting attorney: This is needed to overrule the State Supreme Court.
Personal: The Advertiser has it wrong. This is a real case and it went to the supreme court. All jurors agreed the guy was guilty of multiple sexual assaults, but couldn’t agree on which ones. The Supreme Court said that wasn’t a unanimous jury. A 6 year old isn’t going to be good on dates. This is to fix that.


Constitutional Question No. 5
"Shall the State be authorized to issue special purpose revenue bonds and use the proceeds from the bonds to assist agricultural enterprises serving important agricultural lands?"

Honolulu Advertiser: Yes. Funds from this special-purpose revenue bond would go toward projects such as upgrading irrigation systems, which would serve as an incentive to protect and preserve these precious open spaces.
Star Bulletin: Yes
Perry & Price: Yes
GOP: Yes
Bob Jones: Blank




Sources:
Honolulu Advertiser
Star Bulletin
Perry & Price (KSSK)
GOP
Bob Jones

[pzarquon]

Re: Constitutional Amendments

I think Question 3 on judges and mandatory retirement ages is the only one generating much heat. I'd be willing to consider removing the retirement age if the motivation for introducing this measure now wasn't so transparent.

Question 4 on defining ongoing sexual assault on a minor is a re-run after a similar question got tossed for being flawed in a previous election, right?

Question 5 is an interesting one, and certainly one I probably should have studied more before rushing to vote yesterday. "Important" was one of the subjective trigger words that made me skeptical, as was the fact that it was industry specific, although I understand the motive for the amendment.

[TuNnL]

Re: Constitutional Amendments

An ad featuring Lingle and Cayetano (2-term Hawai‘i Democratic governor) say they “both agree” you should vote no on Constitutional Amendment #3. This ad is plastered all over the newspapers, on television and on inserts.

[Glen Miyashiro]

Constitutional Amendment #5

Shall the State be authorized to issue special purpose revenue bonds and use the proceeds from the bonds to assist agricultural enterprises serving important ag lands?

The Sierra Club doesn't like amendment #5.

PLEASE VOTE NO on constitutional amendment #5 ("Shall the State be authorized to issue special purpose revenue bonds and use the proceeds from the bonds to assist agricultural enterprises serving important ag lands?").

While this amendment may sound benign -- or even good -- it's simply more corporate welfare for plantation interests and yet another attempt to keep our streams diverted. Please help us put the culture back in agriculture by encouraging your friends and families to defeat this bad measure. Why?

1. The SPRB financing is part of the flawed "important agricultural land" (IAL) law, under which the state is required to give the big landowners "incentives" before designating any important agricultural land. This is corporate welfare, not true protection of agricultural land.

2. The SPRB financing clearly caters to corporate agriculture on old plantation lands rather than local, community and family-based farming. Small, family farmers will not be the ones benefiting from this "incentive," which basically is a government subsidy. Why does corporate agriculture enjoy favors other farmers do not?

3. It may encourage continued stream diversions. The entire history and context of the proposed amendment (particularly the change of language from "businesses on important agricultural lands" to "enterprises serving important agricultural lands," as well as the many companion bills), confirm that the main "enterprise" that SPRBs will finance would be repairs to the former plantation ditch systems diverting water from public streams across the state. The former plantations have been using these ditch systems to take public water "for free" for more than a century. The state should not be encouraging them to continue their monopoly of our public water resources.

4. The law (constitution, water code, and supreme court rulings) makes clear that water is a public trust resource, and that the State has the responsibility as trustee to protect and restore public streams being diverted by the plantation ditch systems. Yet, the state still has not set any scientifically based instream flow standards to protect our streams. The SPRB amendment "puts the cart before the horse" by providing financing for ditch improvements before the state fulfills its primary obligation of stream protection.

5. State and federal taxpayers would be subsidizing the agricultural enterprises by giving them access to tax-exempt financing. Hawaii investors who purchase SPRB bonds would not be paying income taxes on the interest they earn, thus reducing the revenues coming into the state coffers.

By the way, thanks for starting these threads, GeckoGeek! I was just thinking about them tonight and wondering if anyone else was too. :-)