Twisting the Knife
Sometimes getting all worked up about something helps me to write about it. But sometimes, I just get so worked up it's best that I cool down before putting fingers to keyboard. I'll let you decide which I should have done today [g].
Yesterday, the Hawaii Senate Committee on Ways and Means staged a theatrical release sometimes known as a public hearing. The hearing was on a concurrent resolution to reject the Judicial Salary Commission recommendations.
As I've stated before, the Judicial Salary Commission is an independent commission tasked with determining the salaries of judges in Hawaii. Four of of the five Commission members are picked by the Legislature (the fifth by the Governor). Hence, if there is an axe to grind, it's not the Judiciary that is doing it.
Part of the law authorizes the Commission to set salaries from July 1, 2004 through July 1, 2011. Now, I'd be the first to say that trying to project living conditions that far into the future is a daunting task. Nonetheless, unless the Commission decided to give judges a one-time raise, and then tell them that's all they would ever get for the next eight years, the Commissioners would have to do just such a projection.
So they did and what they come up with was 3.5 percent per year. This amount is in line with what other states have been giving their judges and more or less parallels the cost of living, as projected into the future.
Of all the things to object to, the Committee Chair objected to this. He said he could not accept the 3.5 percent per year increases because he didn't know what impact it would have in the future. News to Senator, the impact will be 3.5 percent per year.
Obviously, what he was objecting to wasn't the 3.5 percent. What he was objecting to was the Executive Salary Commission recommendations. Yes, I said Executive, not Judicial, salary recommendations. For you see, we have a Republican Governor and a Democratic party Legislature. In what has been described by the press as incredible pettiness, the Legislature doesn't want to give her, and her appointed Directors a raise (the last one being 14 years ago while the Legislature gave themselves a raise last year). So, in a tortured logic only politicians can understand, the Senate wants to kill the pay raise for judges also because, it is said, it would look bad to kill the Execute branch pay raise but let the Judiciary go forward.
Now you understand why I say the Legislature is involved in theater. What they say on stage is different from what they do. But, in the end, this play will be a tragedy because everyone looses. Including the Legislators.
On a related note, the Senate Committee also heard a
similar concurrent resolution to kill raises for the Hawaii
Office of Hawaiian Affairs. Their situation is a little
different but I wish we had the cajones could write
testimony like the people supporting OHA. One of the
testifiers, a woman lawyer from a law corporation dealing
with Hawaiian issues, told the legislators not to "twist the
knife stuck in the back of Hawaiians..." by passing their
resolution. Man, that is great imagery in writing.
If only we could be so direct and to the heart of the matter.
Aloha!