Report Title:

Boards and Commissions; Service on Multiple Boards

 

Description:

Allows a person to serve on more than one state board or commission when the person's service is only in an ex officio capacity.

 

 

THE SENATE

S.B. NO.

809

TWENTY-SECOND LEGISLATURE, 2003

 

STATE OF HAWAII

 


 

A BILL FOR AN ACT

 

RELATING TO BOARDS AND COMMISSIONS.

 

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF HAWAII:

SECTION 1. The legislature finds that existing law expressly prohibits persons from serving on more than one state board or commission that has been expressly created by a state statute or the state constitution. However, it was never the intent of the legislature to prohibit multiple board or commission membership in two specific instances, namely, for ex officio members and by persons sitting as designees of ex officio members.

In the first instance -- ex officio membership -- the legislature finds that the appointment of a member ex officio is an appointment of a position, not of the particular individual who fills that position. Thus, for example, the director of health or the director of transportation, may be designated by a number of different statutes to sit on a variety of boards or commissions in an ex officio capacity. Applying the statutory prohibition against serving on more than one state board or commission to persons sitting ex officio would be a ludicrous interpretation of the law. This would, if nothing else, mean that the legislature could not provide for cabinet members or other state officials to serve ex officio on more than one board or commission.

In the second instance -- designees of ex officio members -- a number of statutes provide for the appointment of an ex officio member, or the member's "designee". Service on boards or commissions for persons sitting as designees of ex officio members should not "count" for purposes of section 78-4(a) for virtually the same reasons it should not count for the ex officio members themselves. Ex officio members should be able to appoint the same designee to serve on more than one of the boards or commissions to which they are serving ex officio.

Accordingly, the purpose of this Act is to expressly restate, reiterate, and declare that the intent of the legislature in enacting section 78-4(a), Hawaii Revised Statutes, which prohibits persons from serving on more than one state board or commission expressly created by a state statute or the state constitution, was originally and is now not to apply to instances of persons serving either:

(1) As an ex officio member; or

(2) As the designee of an ex officio member.

SECTION 2. Section 78-4, Hawaii Revised Statutes, is amended by amending subsection (a) to read as follows:

"(a) Any other provision of law to the contrary notwithstanding, no person shall be allowed to serve on more than one state board or commission expressly created by a state statute or the state constitution[.]; provided that this subsection shall not apply to service on any state board or commission when the person's service on that board or commission is only:

(1) In an ex officio capacity; or

(2) As the designee of the person appointed in an ex officio capacity."

SECTION 3. Statutory material to be repealed is bracketed and stricken. New statutory material is underscored.

SECTION 4. This Act shall take effect upon its approval.

INTRODUCED BY:

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