Report Title:

Line-item veto; Education

Description:

Proposes a constitutional amendment to prohibit the governor from vetoing specific items appropriated for the benefit of public schools.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

H.B. NO.

2589

TWENTY-SECOND LEGISLATURE, 2004

 

STATE OF HAWAII

 


 

A BILL FOR AN ACT

 

proposing an amendment to article 3, section 16, of the hawaii constitution, to modify the veto powers of the governor.

 

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF HAWAII:

SECTION 1. Article 3, section 16, of the Constitution of the State of Hawaii is amended to read as follows:

"APPROVAL OR VETO

Section 16. Every bill which shall have passed the legislature shall be certified by the presiding officers and clerks of both houses and shall thereupon be presented to the governor. If the governor approves it, the governor shall sign it and it shall become law. If the governor does not approve such bill, the governor may return it, with the governor's objections to the legislature. Except for items appropriated to be expended by the judicial and legislative branches, or items appropriated to be expended for public schools, the governor may veto any specific item or items in any bill which appropriates money for specific purposes by striking out or reducing the same; but the governor shall veto other bills, if at all, only as a whole.

The governor shall have ten days to consider bills presented to the governor ten or more days before the adjournment of the legislature sine die, and if any such bill is neither signed nor returned by the governor within that time, it shall become law in like manner as if the governor had signed it.

RECONSIDERATION AFTER ADJOURNMENT

The governor shall have forty-five days, after the adjournment of the legislature sine die, to consider bills presented to the governor less than ten days before such adjournment, or presented after adjournment, and any such bill shall become law on the forty-fifth day unless the governor by proclamation shall have given ten days' notice to the legislature that the governor plans to return such bill with the governor's objections on that day. The legislature may convene at or before noon on the forty-fifth day in special session, without call, for the sole purpose of acting upon any such bill returned by the governor. In case the legislature shall fail to so convene, such bill shall not become law. Any such bill may be amended to meet the governor's objections and, if so amended and passed, only one reading being required in each house for such passage, it shall be presented again to the governor, but shall become law only if the governor shall sign it within ten days after presentation.

In computing the number of days designated in this section, the following days shall be excluded: Saturdays, Sundays, holidays and any days in which the legislature is in recess prior to its adjournment as provided in section 10 of this article."

SECTION 2. The question to be printed on the ballot shall be as follows:

"Shall the governor be prohibited from vetoing individual items appropriated to be expended for the benefit of public schools?"

SECTION 3. New constitutional material is underscored.

SECTION 4. This amendment shall take effect upon compliance with article XVII, section 3, of the Constitution of the State of Hawaii.

INTRODUCED BY:

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