I hate legislative hearings. No, let me rephrase. I hate how most legislative hearings are run. At least, the ones I've seen.
Our hearing on increasing judicial salaries was among seven other resolutions scheduled for 10:15am on Friday. I got there a little before 10 and found there would be two other agendas before us, one scheduled at 9:45 and the other and 10:00. I walked into the hearing room and found that the 9:45 hearing had not yet started. Sigh. A little after 10:00, they started the 9:45 agenda. It was after 11:30 by the time they got around to hearing our resolution.
Everyone who testified was against the resolution killing the salary recommendations. At noon, the Committee adjourned - without finishing the agenda and rescheduled the hearing for 6:00 p.m. that evening with "decision making" on Tuesday. Big Sigh.
I know legislators are really busy people, and perhaps they did us a favor by going on as long before they adjourned (I would have had to return at 6:00 p.m. otherwise), but don't they care about their constituents? Don't they care that members of the public have to take time off from their jobs to come down and wait to testify? Forget me, I'm a government worker and get paid to wait around [where do I sign up? - ed.] but the public doesn't.
If I were John Q. Public, waiting for my Representative to hear what I have to say and got treated like this I might very well vote for someone else. Anyone else.
In any case, very few people actually believe that anything is decided in a hearing. Usually, the decisions have already been made long before the hearing is scheduled, much less held. It reminds me of the Japanese form of theater called Noh. In many respects, what's happening in front of the audience is boring and has very little relevance or importance to what is happening behind the scenes. Which reminds of another Japanese term: shibai. Shibai is also a kind of theater, but in local slang, it means a show performed to hide something else going on. That is, what you see in front of you has no meaning and is intended to fool you into thinking one thing when another is actually occurring.
Most legislative hearings look like shibai to me. But if it is, the reason it is shibai is that we, the citizens, don't make it anything else. We are responsible for the legislators in office. We voted them in. Perhaps it's time for a change.
The problem is, poll after poll says all politicians are corrupt. Except, that is, the one we vote for. And so the same people get returned into office. Year after year. And nothing changes. Well, it is your legislator that is the problem. Go to a hearing. Any hearing. Watch how they run it. Do they start on time? Do they run things efficiently, while at the same time giving everyone a chance to be heard? Note the testimony and track what their decision is. Is your legislator responsive to the public? Does he or she vote the way you would want them to? No, they don't have to vote the way you want every time, but do they do so the great majority of the time?
If they don't, perhaps it's time to find someone who will. It's up to you. You choose. YMMV. Insert disclaimer here. Aloha!
