Senate Handling Confirmations Under Challenging Circumstances
By Hawaii State Senator Gary L. Hooser
In her Governor’s Message of October 24 (”Decisions made in special session will shape our future,” Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 10/24/07), Governor Linda Lingle attempts to make a case that the 2007 Special Session was not only about the Hawai‘i Superferry. She attempts to distract the public from the session’s obvious central purpose by impressing upon the community that the confirmations of three department heads and hundreds of boards and commissions will shape our future.
While those of us in the Senate acknowledge the importance of all confirmations, the governor’s act of misdirection ignores the fact that these three department heads and numerous board and commission appointees are all currently serving. If not for the Special Session, as interim nominees, they would have continued to serve and would have been up for confirmation when the Legislature convenes in January.
Other than judicial nominations, the Hawai‘i State Constitution requires the Senate to consider the governor’s interim nominees before “the end of the next legislative session.” Under normal circumstances, interim nominees come for confirmation in the next regular session. However, in this case, the current special session is the “next legislative session,” and so the Senate must take up the full slate of interim nominees—over ninety in all—within the planned six-day session.
The confirmation of judges does not require a special session of the entire legislature. Judicial nominations require only the Senate to convene, and so do not trigger the Constitution’s “next session” provision.
Since the governor called us into special session for the Hawai‘i Superferry, the Senate must now consider in a very abbreviated time frame these ninety-plus nominees while addressing the Superferry bill and Hawai‘i’s extended sentence law. Senators are working very hard at scheduling the hearings necessary to fully consider each nominee’s credentials, experience, and suitability to serve. Despite the severely shortened schedule, each Senate committee will do whatever is necessary to consider the nominees and perform their constitutionally-mandated duty of advice and consent. I can assure you that every Senator’s absolute commitment is entirely beyond question.
What the governor does not mention in her article is that the difficult circumstances of these confirmations are the result of her own actions.
The special session itself is the result of the administration’s mishandling of the Hawai‘i Superferry environmental assessment. By first granting a legally unsupported exemption from the provisions of the Hawai‘i Environmental Policy Act, Hawai‘i Revised Statutes Chapter 343, and then failing to support Senate Bill 1276 in the past legislative session—a bill which would have allowed the Superferry to operate while the Department of Transportation completed an environmental impact statement on the Superferry’s operations—the Lingle administration precipitated the crisis that culminated in this session.
Governor Lingle has never accepted responsibility for her administration’s actions, or admitted that it was those actions that brought the legislature to the situation in which it finds itself today.
Still, it is one thing to avoid a political liability, and quite another to try to deflect attention by questioning the seriousness, commitment, or diligence of the Senate. It was the Senate that took up the challenge of truly listening to the concerns of hundreds of Hawai‘i residents in over twenty-five hours of public hearings across the state. It was the Senate that crafted a workable and effective approach to allowing the Superferry to operate which preserved both a viable transportation alternative and our unique and precious natural environment. And it will be the Senate that will give full and fair consideration to the governor’s nominees during the special session.
In her column, Governor Lingle stressed that the public should “feel confident in the integrity of the confirmation process.” At the same time, her implicit questioning of the Senate’s commitment to the advise and consent process erodes that very confidence.
When we look at real action rather than political rhetoric, it is clear that the Senate has demonstrated its willingness and ability to do what needs to be done, in this special session and in past sessions. Neither the governor nor the public has cause to question that simple fact.
Senator Gary Hooser is Majority Leader of the Hawai‘i State Senate. He represents District 7 (Kauai, Niihau).