Recess Is Not Recess
The Senate will not meet again in session until Feb. 28, and in the meantime will hold additional hearings to prepare legislation for the first decking on Feb. 29.
Senators will not be relaxing during the scheduled recesses this week and next. In fact, because of the “first decking” next week, many senators and their staff spent last weekend and Monday’s holiday at the Capitol like any normal session day.
The decking date on Feb.29 is the deadline for all committees to file reports in compliance with the mandatory 48-hour waiting period before a bill’s third reading, passage and crossing over to the House of Representatives. While the original concept of the recesses was to allow the senators to return to their districts and meet with constituents, years ago because of time constraints, committees began to schedule hearings during recesses as well.
Senators still attend to their communities in the evenings and weekends, but the scheduled recesses now provide them with additional time to move their legislation through the committees and toward a floor vote before the end of February.
Because most bills require fund appropriations, the Ways and Means Committee, which includes 12 of Hawai`i’s 25 senators, will hear the most bills of any committee between now and the decking deadline. According to the Legislative Information Systems Office, 581 bills that were referred to Ways and Means moved through their initial committee hearings. The Ways and Means Committee has until the decking deadline to decide which bills to hear and pass for a floor vote. Last year, the committee passed 442 bills.