New folks.
Senator Brian Taniguchi is the new chair of the Senate Committee on Labor, Culture and the Arts. Senator Les Ihara, Jr is the vice chair. While Representative Aaron Ling Johanson is returning, Vice Chair Representative Stacelynn K.M. Eli is a first time representative of District 47. It was nice being in the audience of the first meeting of the House Committee on Labor and Public Employment as Representative Eli took her first vote on HB34 and everyone in the room gave her a round of applause. Another reason we are "lucky we live Hawaii". Other members of the House Committee on Labor and Public Employment include Representatives Linda Ichiyama, Lisa Kitagawa, Angus L.K. McKelvey, Sean Quinlan, Kyle T.Yamashita and Lauren Matsumoto. The Senate Committee on Labor, Culture and the Arts also includes Senators Stanley Ching, Mike Gabbard, and Kurt Fevella.
New procedures.
The budget process is the biggest noticeable change where each Department has a bill heard at the subject committee. Department of Labor and Industrial Relations (DLIR) is HB1186 and was heard today at 8:30 a.m. Wage Standards Division has asked for an additional Labor Law Enforcement Specialist and a small increase in operating expenses. There were no questions on any of the DLIR requests, now we'll see if that's a good thing or a bad thing down the road.
Which leads to another thing I'm liking about these Labor Committees, there seems to be a little more respect for people's time and effort to participate in the process. Today Representative Johanson released all the DLIR people he had asked to be there to answer any questions. In a hearing last week Representative Johanson took the time to explain how the agenda was planned to get through some of the issues he anticipated to be quicker so the bills with more testimony would be in the middle. When the hearing was running up against the scheduled Noon House legislative session, he apologized for the "ambitious agenda".
In previous years when an increase in minimum wage was on the table, the hearings scheduled might go on for hours. This year we've had one in the Senate and one in the House that both felt short and sweet. Minimum wage moves on in SB789 and HB1191.
New scope
Since I've been at the DLIR, I've seen the "labor" component in the Senate move around to different places. When it was with the Judiciary and known as JDL it was run by Clayton Hee, then Gilbert Keith-Agaran. When Jill Tokuda led in 2017 it was just the Labor Committee. The Judiciary Committee split off and went to Senator Brian Taniguchi. Now the Senate Labor Committee has undergone another transformation and is now the Committee on Labor, Culture and the Arts.
As a docent at the Honolulu Museum of Art (HoMA) that makes me happy that I might hear about some of the issues that live on the periphery of my life during the legislative session but always remain a central source of happiness in my life. The first time I was in Room 224, I noticed a large Allyn Bromley print. It was like sitting with a friend. The lighting and glass covering the print made it difficult to get a good shot. I'll keep trying... stay tuned.
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