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State House updates its rules on public testimony, social media use

Rep. Nadine Nakamura addresses the state House as speaker for the first time on Jan. 15, 2025.
Mark Ladao
/
HPR
Rep. Nadine Nakamura addresses the state House as speaker for the first time on Jan. 15, 2025.

The state House of Representatives amended the rules that govern how it operates, from when public testimony gets uploaded to the power of committee chairs.

Lawmakers didn’t unanimously agree on the changes to the House rules — but all commended leadership for allowing members to submit amendments.

"We took off party labels or affiliations and really considered each proposal on its merits. And I think that was really refreshing and it also provided a really good opportunity for us to have a dialogue about what can we do to make the House better, how can we really improve our processes," said Vice Speaker Linda Ichiyama, who chaired the Advisory Committee on Rules and Procedure.

Public testimony will now be available at least two hours before hearings in the House. It also asks committee chairs to post it as soon as possible. Before, it wasn't available until hearings already started.

There will also now be a list of organizations that have bills introduced by request. In the past, the public wouldn't know who requested the measure.

Additionally, the House now has an official social media policy to guide members into the digital age. It doesn’t allow members to disparage one another on their official or private accounts.

Advocates said that while the process to amend the rules is a step forward, the actual amendments were lacking.

"The more substantive changes that we were asking for, like reducing the power of the finance chairs, or making committee chairs have to explain why bills are getting deferred or turned down and requiring people to have their positions on record — those big things that could have increased transparency and limited power, term limits for chairs — none of those things really happened," said Evan Weber with Our Hawaiʻi, which pushed for more transparency in the House.

Some changes concerned lawmakers, such as removing a provision that prohibited the vice speaker from being a voting member of committees. This is a rule that the House has repeatedly disregarded over the years.

Another rule would explicitly say that advisory committees, like the rules committee, would not be required to hold public meetings. This was another rule that the House ignored while deciding on the rule changes.

The rules passed with nine lawmakers voting with reservations and one "no" vote.

Ashley Mizuo is the government reporter for Hawaiʻi Public Radio. Contact her at amizuo@hawaiipublicradio.org.
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