It was a typical scene at the Capitol: two Kauaʻi legislators getting together to discuss common interests and how they could support each other and the folks back home.
The sort of thing that happens at the start of every session.
But this was also a high-level meeting between longtime Senate President Ron Kouchi and brand-new House Speaker Nadine Nakamura, and the latter had a special request.
“She innocently in her folder slid over a bill,” Kouchi recollected with a smile the next day.
It was a proposal that could significantly change how the Legislature operates, and Nakamura wanted Kouchi to join the cause by introducing the same measure in the Senate.
“I don’t know if you’d sign it,” Kouchi recalled her asking, “but I said, ‘For you Speaker, I’d be happy to sign it on our side and we’ll see what happens.’”
And just like that, the often-proposed but seldom seriously considered concept of converting the Legislature to a year-round enterprise took on new life.
“I’m glad you signed that bill,” Nakamura said to Kouchi as the top two legislative leaders headlined Civil Beat’s Civil Cafe at the Capitol on Jan. 22.
Then she made her pitch.
“All of the county councils in the state are year-round,” Nakamura said. “They have a fraction of the state’s budget and they meet year-round because the work of the counties — and here at the state — is year-round. Emergencies happen year-round.”
“We currently have a 60-day session from the middle of January to the first week of May and we have these self-imposed deadlines that require us to not hear a lot of bills,” she said. “It requires us to write very complex bills in a very short period of time. We do not get the time to really work it as we would on the council side.”
She noted that she and Kouchi are both former Kaua‘i County Council members.
“I really appreciate that process and I think we should move toward that.”
Why It Could Actually Happen
Nakamura’s House Bill 1425 calls for the creation of a task force to study the logistics and ramifications of a 12-month Legislature.
Don’t roll your eyes.
This would not likely be one of those longstanding committees that eventually issues a report to be put up on a shelf and forgotten. In addition to the speaker’s sincere interest in the issue, the panel would be required to submit its findings to the Legislature at least 20 days before the start of the 2026 session.
More importantly, something occurred just five days after the Civil Cafe that likely removes a big obstacle to a year-round session: State Salary Commission members revealed they were considering bumping up legislators’ pay by 40%.
If that happened, there would be no further debate about whether the job is full-time. And If legislators are full-time, why should the session be so short?
“It would be good to pay legislators more so we don’t have to have that second job,” Nakamura said at the Civil Cafe.
Better pay and no outside employment would reduce conflicts of interest and could also lead to a more diverse group of legislative candidates, the speaker said.
“We are excluding caregivers, women especially, who want to come out and do this type of work, from entering state legislative offices,” she said.
Lawmaker salaries aside, there would certainly be other costs associated with the move to a 12-month Legislature, such as additional staff resources and travel.
“I know it is a big change,” Nakamura said. “The study group would really take a look at what are the different issues, what are the costs.”
The current 60 days for floor sessions might still be sufficient — they would simply be spread out over 12 months, she said. Meanwhile, bill-writing and committee hearings could proceed at a less frenzied pace.
Nakamura’s bill gets its first hearing Wednesday at 2 p.m. before the Legislative Management Committee.
In addition to her bill and Kouchi’s companion measure, Senate Bill 1514, there are two other bills this session proposing the conversion to a 12-month Legislature. The companion measures would put the question directly to voters via a proposed constitutional amendment.
One of them, Senate Bill 733, was heard Friday by the Senate Judiciary Committee. It was deferred, meaning it probably won’t proceed this session. The other, House Bill 770, does not yet have a committee hearing scheduled.
The Legislature is also waiting on a more modest study of the 12-month option that’s being put together by the Legislative Reference Bureau as the result of a Joint House Resolution approved last session. The LRB was asked to study the pros and cons of a continuous legislative session, what the calendar might look, and the salary needs for full-time legislators and staff.
What’s Really On The Table Here
Legislative leaders conduct much of the people’s business behind closed doors and wield near-dictatorial powers in open committee meetings and especially during the private negotiations that dominate each session’s final days.
They often point to the current tight deadlines (one sponsor of SB 733 has called it “four months of chaos”) to justify secrecy for the sake of expediency.
Each election season, legislative candidates are asked in their Civil Beat Q&As if they would support applying the Sunshine Law to the Legislature to stop most of those secret meetings at the Capitol. Many say they would — if the sessions weren’t so darned short.
Perhaps the time really has come to take more time.
Legislators long ago exempted themselves from the open meeting laws that apply to other government bodies. But a year-round Legislature could not only better oversee the work of 20 state departments and agencies and a $20 billion budget, it could do so in the light of day.
If the speaker of the House and the president of the Senate are open to operating more like the county councils on a 12-month schedule, shouldn’t they be willing to conduct their business out in the open just as the councils are required to do?
Senate Judiciary Chair Karl Rhoads said as much when he amended a year-round Legislature proposal two years ago to apply the Sunshine Law to state lawmakers. At the time, he noted that Hawaii had almost twice the population it had back in 1968 when the current legislative procedures were enshrined in Article III of the State Constitution.
Getting legislators to abide by the Sunshine Law won’t be an easy sell. But if they convert to a 12-month session, they would have plenty of time to do the right thing and allow the public to observe their deliberations, not just their committee hearings.
Some will say the Capitol just wouldn’t be the same without the old-fashioned horse-trading that goes on in private.
Not the same, but perhaps better.
What about the idea that what happens at party caucus meetings stays at party caucus meetings?
Again, it wouldn’t be the same if their constituents were watching, but it might be better.
Longer Sessions Already Possible
Even now, legislative leaders aren’t quite as rushed as they often say they are.
The State Constitution spells out when each session begins — the third Wednesday in January — but not when it ends. Those 60 days of floor sessions could already be spread out over a lot more of the calendar instead of ending in early May. And committee hearings could continue in the intervals.
If they feel like they have unfinished business — and every session ends with that feeling — legislators can also extend a regular session for an additional 15 days or call themselves into special session for up to 30 days. Either of those options requires the approval of two-thirds of the House and Senate.
Still, a cleaner way to convert to a 12-month session would be through voter approval of a constitutional amendment. That’s because the constitution’s current timing requirements for the governor to sign or veto bills is tied to when the Legislature adjourns its regular session.
This session’s bills for a full-time Legislature, for instance, would give the governor 90 days to sign or veto measures, with no reference to the date of adjournment.
It’s becoming plausible to imagine a future in which better-paid legislators hold no outside employment and are unconstricted by artificial deadlines.
However it unfolds, a longer session holds promise for a more effective Legislature
Change is coming. Newer lawmakers are raising more questions about the top-down nature of things at the Capitol. The recent hour-long discussion on the House floor of its rules of operation was refreshing evidence of the shift, because those rules traditionally are imposed with no dialogue at the start of each session (as they still are in the Senate).
It’s becoming plausible to imagine a near-term future in which better-paid legislators hold no outside employment and are unconstricted by artificial deadlines.
Their only jobs would be addressing the many challenges facing Hawaii, which should be full-time work indeed.