Short takes, outtakes, observations and other stuff you should know about public information, government accountability and ethical leadership in Hawaii.But did they get the official pens?: With state House and Senate leaders in tow for the obligatory photo ops, Gov. Josh Green on Friday signed off on seven good-government bills addressing ethics, lobbying and campaign spending law.
Green noted that it was just last session that state government “was rocked by ethics violations of grave concern. This shook our faith statewide in government and created a dark cloud over our state.” The silver lining, however, was that the Legislature was forced to take a “hard look” at reforms.
The seven bills are, arguably, low-hanging fruit and are mostly the measures that were fairly easy to deal with. Still, at least one — House Bill 137 requiring lobbyists to disclose what they are lobbying on — does move the needle forward substantially on disclosure of who is angling for what at the Legislatire. Orignal Source