i L i n d . n e t

The sudden and largely unexpected demise of Molokai Ranch and Aloha Airlines reminded me that the e-mail disclosed by Governor Lingle’s office is as interesting for what is missing as it is for what was actually found.

Case in point: There’s precious little email during the four-day period concerning Lingle’s Turtle Bay plan, and I don’t recall seeing anything about the Molokai situation or the plight of Aloha Airlines.

On February 4, there’s a message in the “Gov. Lingle” mail from Lois Hamaguchi, Lingle’s communications chief, to Senior Advisor Lenny Klompus: “Is there a contact person taking the lead on the Turtle Bay issue?”

Beyond that, the communications office debated how to respond to e-mails critical of Lingle’s Turtle Bay plan. On February 5, Lois again messaged Lenny:

Question: We usually respond to Hello Gov, but does that include people who are going to

respond negatively to anything we say, and possibly “print” it on their blog?

Your advice please.

There’s also the invitation list to a February 5 “Turtle Bay Acquisition Lunch Reception“, which included Charlie King (King Auto), Dennis Francis (Star-Bulletin), Don Horner (First Hawaiian Bank), Francis Oda (Group 70), Lea Hong (simply identified “attorney”), and developer Standord Carr, among a short list of others.

Aloha Airlines? Molokai? Nothing that I’ve found.

In other news, thanks to Senator Les Ihara for calling my attention to the decision of the Hawaii Supreme Court in the case of Taomae v. Lingle, which held that a bill to amend the State Constitution was not validly adopted because it did not receive the required number of readings. It’s relevant here because of the late-session “gut and replace” strategy used to “introduce” a bill at the last minute aimed at assisting Aloha Airlines.

In the Taomae v. Lingle case, a bill that passed the House in one form was changed in the Senate to create a constitutional amendment rather than a statutory change.

The court cited several constitutional provisions that define what must happen for a bill to be passed. Here’s the key:

PASSAGE OF BILLS
Section 15. No bill shall become law unless it shall pass three readings in each house on separate days. No bill shall pass third or final reading in either house unless printed copies of the bill in the form to be passed shall have been made available to the members of that house for at least forty-eight hours.

The court then looked back to the minutes of the 1950 Constitutional Convention:

[o]ne of the necessary features of laws adopted by the legislature is the necessity for three readings and the opportunity for full debate in the open . . . during the course of which the purposes of the measures, and their meaning, scope and probable effect, and the validity of the alleged facts and arguments given in their support can be fully examined and, if false or unsound, can be exposed, before any action of consequence is taken thereon.

Bottom line of the decision is that the replacement of the original bill’s language by new language for a constitutional amendment meant that the bill did not receive the required three readings in each house.

I’ll have to let the lawyers figure out how the Aloha Airlines “gut and replace” bill can be handled in order to meet the constitutional requirements. But it’s good to be reminded that the legislature’s powers to set (and then change) its own rules are not unlimited.

Yesterday was one of those dawns that set the sky afire.

This was the view from Swanzy Beach Park shortly after 6 a.m.

Click for a larger version.