Trust. Not having it causes more work for everyone.
The State House Committee on Labor and Public Employment met yesterday morning for decision making. Unfortunately, the decision they decided on was to "defer" decision making. That is, the two most important concurrent resolutions, whether to reject the salary recommendations for the Executive and Judicial Branches, are temporarily deferred. No word on when they will decide what to do.
Open, transparent government is critical to building trust. I've talked before on how important trust is in any relationship. Whether we're talking about business dealings, personal interactions, or government actions, having an open record that lets everyone see what is going on and why tends to build trust.
That doesn't mean you may agree with every decision, but at least you can see what the decision was based on and why it was chosen.
But turn that around and imagine a situation in which everything is done behind closed doors and nothing that you see has meaning. That Alice in Wonderland world is pretty much what the Legislature is doing in regards to these concurrent resolutions.
The committee chair said the concurrent resolutions were deferred while they "reviewed the Commissions' reports." One would think that the legislators would have read the report before co-offering concurrent resolutions to reject the recommendations found in these reports. But if it is true, as implied, that they have not "reviewed" the reports, then this leaves them open to the very charges of pettiness that they are so vehemently denying.
For why else would you co-offer a concurrent resolution to kill the recommendations, having never read the recommendations, if it weren't due to the fact that you want to somehow punish the Republican governor?
Indeed, operating the way the Legislature is doing leads to all kinds of scenarios. Hence, we are forced to track not only these concurrent resolutions, but also several bills that could be "gutted" and replaced with legislation to reverse the hard won reforms last year in what the State Attorney General called "an outbreak of good government."
I wish I could say I trusted the Legislature to do what's right by Hawaii's people, but if their actions so far is an indication of anything, I can't. So we all lose.
Aloha!
