HAWAII HOUSE DEMOCRATS
PUTTING HAWAII'S PEOPLE FIRST

RECENT LEGISLATIVE HIGHLIGHTS

• Wide-ranging Tax Relief. Based on the 1997 Economic Revitalization Task Force's recommendations, House Democrats worked on a comprehensive tax relief package to jumpstart the economy and end the persistent recessions that plagued Hawaii throughout the 1990s. As a result, the Legislature passed sweeping tax relief measures that included significant reductions in the state income tax, as well as the de-pyramiding of the general excise tax. These measures have ended up saving Hawaii taxpayers over $1,000,000,000 over the years, laying the legislative foundation for the economic revival we are enjoying today.
  
  
• Act 221 - Omnibus High Technology Tax Credit Bill. Although tourism remains the linchpin of Hawaii's economy, House Democrats recognized the need to promote alternative growth industries, especially in light of the cyclical nature of the visitor industry. They responded to this need by helping to pass Act 221 in 2001. This measure established new tax incentives such as GET exemptions for public Internet data centers and the Technology Infrastructure Renovation Income Tax Credit. Act 221 also improved the existing High Technology Investment Income Tax Credit by allowing an investor to recoup the investor's entire investment over five years. These expanded tax incentives have proven to be critical in stimulating our high tech industry.
  
  
• High Technology Tax Credits & State Private Investment Fund. House Democrats continued to assist the high tech industries by working on a plan to establish a funding mechanism. The 2004 Legislature established a source of venture capital and business incentives to increase Hawaii's economic diversity and provide new business by creating the State Private Investment Fund, administered by the Hawaii Strategic Development Corporation. This Fund is to be used to provide an additional venture capital resource for emerging, expanding, relocating, and restructuring enterprises and giving tax credits to taxpayers and financial institutions as an incentive to invest in private seed and venture capital entities.
  
  
• Hawaii Tourism Authority. In recent years, tourism has served as the engine of our economy. In 1998, in the midst of a rudderless visitor industry, the Hawaii Tourism Authority (HTA) was created as the primary state entity responsible for tourism marketing, planning, and promotion. In 2002, the HTA was given the authority to manage the Hawaii Convention Center. These measures have provided our visitor industry with much-needed direction and focus, and have resulted in significant increases in visitor arrivals and expenditures. This, in turn, has led to increased employment and income for Hawaii residents, as well as increased tax revenue for state programs.

• Act 51 - Reinventing Education Act of 2004. Education remains a top priority for the House Democrats. Focusing on improving student outcomes, the House Democrats worked on an omnibus proposal to improve Hawaii's public schools. The Legislature passed the Reinventing Education Act of 2004, which among other things:
  
  Required the Department of Education (DOE) to use a weighted student formula that allocates moneys to public schools based on the needs of each student;
  
  Clarified the duties of principals to enhance their roles as the educational leaders of public schools, and provided the necessary training and skills through the establishment of the Hawaii Principals Academy within DOE;
  
  Gave school principals more authority to expend moneys;
  
  Established a School Community Council at each public school to assist the principal and enhance community involvement in school management;
  
  Encouraged teacher excellence by establishing a National Board Certification Program to provide salary bonuses and fee reimbursements for National Board certified teachers and candidates for National Board certification;
  
  Enhanced the educational accountability system; and
  
  Provided for telecommunications and information technology infrastructure, focused on mathematics textbooks and other mathematics learning materials.
  
  
• Early Childhood Education: Two-tiered Junior Kindergarten & Kindergarten Program. To ensure that children are ready to learn, House Democrats have focused on early childhood education. One of the outcomes was to require the Department of Education to establish a two-tiered kindergarten and junior kindergarten program as a pilot program in the 2005-2006 school year and a system-wide program beginning with the 2006-2007 school year.
  

• Hawaii Rx Plus. House Democrats recognized that the rapidly-rising costs of prescription drugs have hurt many of Hawaii's residents, especially the elderly and others on fixed income. First passed in 2002, the Hawaii Rx Plus is an imaginative program that combines the purchasing power of a large group of individuals to reduce prescription drug costs for those participating in the program. Since then, among other things, the Legislature has worked to improve the program even more by:
  
  Requiring manufacturer rebates and pharmacy discounts;
  
  Mandating the Department of Human Services to establish an Rx Plus preferred drug list; and
  
  Expanding the program to low-income and needy individuals who have a family income no more than 350 percent of the federal poverty level.
  
  
• Small Business Trade Association Health Policy. House Democrats recognized the important contributions made to Hawaii by Hawaii's small businesses. To help them cope with their health insurance costs, legislation was passed to allow small businesses and sole proprietors to form groups to obtain greater bargaining leverage and lower insurance rates by requiring health insurers to treat a trade association and its members as a single group for the purpose of issuing a health insurance policy.
  
  
• Smoking in Public Schools and at School Functions Prohibited. Concerns over second-hand smoke led House Democrats to create a healthier school environment. The use of any tobacco product is now prohibited on the premises of any public school and at any school-sponsored function.

• Substance Abuse. The "ice" epidemic represents one of the most vicious and insidious problems facing Hawaii's policymakers today. Crystal meth devastates families from the inside-out, leaving behind a cycle of drug-induced violence and crime. House Democrats, along with their Senate counterparts, decided to take on the problem by first establishing the Joint House-Senate Task Force on Ice and Drug Abatement (Task Force) in 2003. The work of this Task Force in gathering public input and developing preliminary ideas and solutions led to a comprehensive legislative package in 2004 and 2005 designed to attack the substance abuse problem in a variety of ways. Measures passed include funding for substance abuse prevention, treatment, and education, as well as innovative programs such as the Weed and Seed program and the Drug Court program. New anti-drug laws were also established, providing for stiff penalties for drug offenders who have prior drug convictions, use minors to sell drugs, or whose drug law violations result in serious injury or death.
  
  In addition, organizations that fund drug treatment programs, as well as families and employers, were provided with a remedy for injuries caused by illegal drug use by allowing them to file suit against drug dealers and persons participating in the chain of drug distribution to recover compensatory and punitive damages as well as attorney's fees.
  
  
• Ice Precursor Chemicals. The House Democrats continued its fight against drug abuse by making it difficult to make "ice" in homes. They worked on legislation to help prevent illegal drug manufacturing by more closely regulating the sale and distribution of the essential chemical ingredients of methamphetamines.

• Legacy Lands. The skyrocketing economic growth of the past few years is not without consequences. Increased economic activity brings with it new challenges. One is land use. With the demand for real estate shooting up at a frenetic pace, there is more and more pressure to develop on lands that may be better used for conservation and historical preservation purposes. To protect such lands, House Democrats passed the Legacy Land Act in 2005. This Act helps to preserve our forested watersheds, wild coastlines, and unique historical and cultural sites by allowing the Department of Land and Natural Resources to acquire legacy lands and by allowing government and non-profit entities to apply for funds to purchase legacy lands. The funds come from a percentage of the revenue collected under the conveyance tax.
  
  
• Bottle Bill. Hundreds of millions of beverages are imported and consumed, and their containers discarded in Hawaii each year. A large number of these containers end up in environmentally-unfriendly landfills that are nearing capacity. To help alleviate the pressure on our landfills and protect our environment, the Beverage Container Deposit and Redemption Program was established in 2002. This program promotes recycling by imposing a 5-cent fee on beverage containers, a fee which can be "redeemed" by consumers who take their used containers to a redemption center for recycling.

• Sex Offender Registry. House Democrats firmly believe that our families have the right to know if sexual predators and others who have committed crimes against our children are residing in our communities. Legislation passed in 2004 and 2005 have enabled the State to quickly provide sex offender information online. As a result, the number of offender profiles available to the public has increased to over a thousand.
  
  
• Identity Theft. The Federal Trade Commission reports that identity theft is the number one consumer complaint. House Democrats also recognize that identity theft is a serious problem in Hawaii. To help protect personal information, legislation was passed to:
  
  Prohibit retail merchant club card applications from requesting personal information other than the
  applicant's name, address, and telephone number;
  
  Restrict the use of cardholder information; and
  
  Prohibit government disclosure of social security numbers in government records.
  
  
• Wireless Camera Phone Privacy Violation. While technology has improved the lives of many, House Democrats realize it can also be used to invade personal privacy. Legislation was passed to safeguard individual privacy from the unauthorized use of wireless camera phones by making it a criminal violation of privacy to:
  
  Make a digital record or photograph of a person who is entitled to privacy;
  
  Intercept a photographic image without authorization; or
  
  Make an unlawfully recorded or intercepted photographic image public.
  
  
• Traffic Congestion. According to one estimate, by the year 2030, more than half of Oahu residents will spend 80 minutes or more in traffic getting to work. This level of traffic congestion will only get worse as more and more people come to Hawaii to take advantage of the booming job market, as well as the other attractions that Hawaii has to offer. To address this problem, House Democrats passed a critical bill in 2005 enabling the the City and County of Honolulu to levy a one-half percent surcharge on state general excise and use taxes to obtain federal funding and build a mass transit system. The neighboring counties are also authorized to levy the surcharge to pay for public transportation systems. Not only does this measure represent the first step in alleviating the costly and burdensome traffic conditions that affect many of Hawaii's residents, this also brings "home rule" to the counties, giving local governments the choice of how to best resolve their traffic problems.

• Addressing the Felix Consent Decree. The Felix Consent Decree was the result of a class action lawsuit filed against the State in 1993, charging that the State had failed to provide appropriate educational and mental health services for handicapped children in violation of federal law. Under the October 2004 Felix Consent Decree, the State agreed to fully implement a system of care by June 30, 2000. However, by 2001, the State still had not complied with the requirements of the Felix Consent Decree. At the same time, the appropriation requests made by the executive departments to comply with the Felix Consent Decree were massive and costly. Over $600,000,000 was appropriated in the 2001 executive state budget for fiscal years 2002 and 2003 to meet the demands of compliance.
  
  Faced with such enormous costs and receiving very little assurance that the funds were being effectively and wisely spent, House and Senate members joined to form a Joint Senate-House investigative committee (Committee) in 2001 to investigate the State's compliance with the Felix Consent Decree. The work of the Committee exposed a deeply flawed system hampered by unclear requirements for compliance, extraordinary powers granted to state administrators without any apparent oversight, lack of oversight and accountability of state departments responsible for addressing the Felix Consent Decree, and fiscal mismanagement, including profiteering and wasteful spending.
  
  
• Exploring Solutions to the Housing Crisis. One of the unfortunate byproducts of a booming economy is the runaway increase in housing and real estate prices. Many of Hawaii's working and middle class residents have been priced out of their own communities by mainland speculators and real estate moguls. Some struggle to merely pay the property taxes on the inflated value of their properties. Others depend on affordable housing. Still others even less fortunate are forced to live on the streets, or in shelters.To address the housing needs of our residents, House Democrats joined with their Senate colleagues and other private and public sector policymakers to form the Joint Legislative Housing and Homeless Task Force (Task Force). Prior to the 2006 Legislative Session, this Task Force conducted a series of meetings as well as site visits to analyze the issues and identify solutions to the affordable housing and homeless problem. Their work served as the foundation for the Housing Omnibus Bill, which has been passed in the recently concluded 2006 Legislative Session.
  
  
• Investigating the Hawaii Youth Correctional Facility. The House Committee on Judiciary, along with its Senate counterpart, responded to mounting criticism regarding the management of the Hawaii Youth Correctional Facility (Facility) by conducting a series of fact-finding briefings in November of 2005. The briefings exposed the deep-seated problems plaguing the Facility, with Facility workers testifying that unsafe conditions at the Facility stemmed from alleged abuse of young inmates, inadequate staffing, an absence of policies and procedures, increased youth-on-youth attacks, and lack of communication within the staff.
  
  
• Natural Disaster Planning. The devastating tsunami that struck South Asia in December of 2004 sent a crystal clear message to governments and communities around the world: Develop and implement plans to deal with natural disasters or risk suffering similar horrific consequences. House Democrats responded quickly by working with the Senate to set up a briefing on tsunami preparedness to discuss the plans, programs, and entities involved in preparing our state for a tsunami. A follow-up informational briefing was also conducted before the 2006 Regular Session.
  
  These events helped to focus the State's efforts in preparing for natural disasters as well as informing the members of the Legislature and the general public on the issues and concerns involved in the preparation efforts. The briefings served as a springboard for legislation passed by House Democrats in 2005 that provided funding for shelters, new siren systems, updates of evacuation maps, and expansion of public education campaign efforts. The briefings also set the stage for legislation considered in 2006, including House Bill No. 2183 which would have provided for the retrofit of public schools to be used as emergency shelters.
  
  
• Publications by the Auditor. The House of Representatives and the Senate use the resources of the Office of the State Auditor to conduct management and financial audits of state agencies and their programs. These audits provide invaluable information for legislators interested in improving state programs. Click here to access the Auditor's reports.