Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-First State Legislature

Regular Session of 2001

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Judiciary, to which was referred S.B. No. 905 entitled:

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to decriminalize violations of the lobbyist law and to allow the State Ethics Commission to solely enforce the lobbyist law.

Your Committee received testimony in favor of this measure from the Hawaii State Ethics Commission, Advocates for Consumer Rights, and the League of Women Voters of Hawaii.

Your Committee finds that the current method for enforcing the State's lobbyist law is ineffective. Having infractions of the lobbyist law constitute a petty misdemeanor creates a one-year statute of limitations which is too short for effective enforcement. Usually, by the time the State Ethics Commission is aware of any possible serious violation of the lobbyist law, the one-year period is past. Enforcement of the lobbyist law as a civil law would allow the Commission to impose a civil fine for each violation after a formal contested-case hearing and would avoid the statute of limitations problem.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Judiciary that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 905 and recommends that it pass Third Reading.