FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 1, 2001
Contact: Rep. Galen Fox
Tel.: 586-8520




GOP: IF DEMS AGREE TO HOLD HEARINGS - NO RECALLS

The House Republicans have issued the following statement:


The House Democrats are complaining that they did not receive any request to hear two bills that we plan to recall. The truth is that a letter requesting a hearing on our election reform bills was sent to House Judiciary Chairman, Eric Hamakawa, back on February 6th. The Majority has had more than twenty days in which to schedule a hearing and they have not. We will readily forego any effort to recall a bill if the Majority would agree to hold hearings. That's all we want. We want important measures to be heard. We want open government.

The majority claims that their bill, HB 168, already addresses the automatic recount issue. What it actually does is to create another task force to "consider the feasibility" of an automatic recount. And it doesn’t address at all, the fact that the present statute mandates that all precinct chairs be of the same political party as the governor. This is wrong.

Our bill proposes action and not just another committee or task force. Besides, there is no reason that our recommended changes couldn't be operative while the task force is performing its "considering."

We Republicans are only requesting to recall bills that are important to the public. Yet there has been a concerted press release and letters-to-the-editor campaign attempting to discredit our efforts to open up the democratic process. We don't mind. The House Majority has only succeeded in demonstrating to the public that we still have a long way to go to achieve truly open government in Hawaii.

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