STAND. COM. REP. NO. 475

 

Honolulu, Hawaii

                  

 

RE:    S.B. No. 1194

       S.D. 1

 

 

 

Honorable Donna Mercado Kim

President of the Senate

Twenty-Eighth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2015

State of Hawaii

 

Madam:

 

     Your Committee on Judiciary and Labor, to which was referred S.B. No. 1194 entitled:

 

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO LOBBYISTS,"

 

begs leave to report as follows:

 

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to:

 

     (1)  Require all lobbyist disclosure statements to be electronically transmitted to the State Ethics Commission;

 

     (2)  Require the State Ethics Commission to post and make available all lobbyist disclosure statements on the Commission's website;

 

     (3)  Require that the lobbyist disclosure statements on the State Ethics Commission website be text searchable and the information on each statement be available for download in a spreadsheet format; and

 

     (4)  Clarify that lobbyist disclosure statements on the State Ethics Commission website are government records.

 

     Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from Common Cause Hawaii and one individual.  Your Committee received testimony in opposition to this measure from the Hawaii State Ethics Commission.  Your Committee received comments on this measure from the Office of Information Practices.

 

     Your Committee finds that this measure facilitates the text search of and access to lobbyist disclosure statements by requiring these statements to be transmitted electronically to the State Ethics Commission and providing a searchable format of these statements.

 

     Your Committee has amended this measure by:

 

     (1)  Reinstating language stating that lobbyist disclosure statements are public, rather than government, records;

 

     (2)  Inserting an effective date of January 7, 2059, to encourage further discussion; and

 

     (3)  Making technical, nonsubstantive amendments for the purposes of clarity and consistency.

 

     As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Judiciary and Labor that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 1194, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 1194, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.

 

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Judiciary and Labor,

 

 

 

________________________________

GILBERT S.C. KEITH-AGARAN, Chair