It's your ConCon. What do you want to do with it? Learn - Discuss - Decide
WHAT'S A CON CON WORTH?
A Con Con isn't free. It takes our tax dollars to put it on. But what's a Con Con worth?
It's a fair question. We should never waste taxpayers' money, and the cost of a Con Con versus its benefit is a fair factor for us voters to consider in deciding this November whether to covene a Con Con.
It's also a question we should address now, because the early debate over a Con Con is focused almost exclusively on its cost. Con Con opponents have determined their best argument to persuade voters to reject a Con Con is not its merits but that it will cost too much. Supporters (and I'm one) say let's decide this on its merits, and that cost is a red herring, worth it and controllable.
We saw this play out publicly in the last week. Our State Legislature, most of whose members are not Con Con supporters, passed a resolution (HCR231) directing the Legislative Reference Bureau (LRB), an arm of the Legislature, to estimate the projected cost of a Con Con and report back by September 1 of this year. Our Governor and Lieutenant Governor, Con Con supporters, countered with an LG-led Con Con Cost Task Force made up of state cabinet officials, Hawaii's elections officer, state legislators (majority and minority), and civic organizations, to report back by August 1st.
What's going on? The Legislature's resolution directed LRB to evaluate just one type of potential Con Con (an expensive one), while the administration's task force, in a little one-upsmanship, will evaluate a range of possible Con Con formats and expenses. Unfortunately, this represents the inevitable politicization of the debate and an overfocus on cost. The good news is that somewhere in all of this we'll have good information with which to consider this aspect of our November decision.
But let's step away and get the ground rules straight. First, let's remember that exactly how to set up a Con Con once the voters decide to convene it is up to the Legislature. There's no standard mandated Con Con format, and thus there's flexibility to design various types of Con Cons at various costs.
Here are just two examples:
-The Legislature's resolution directed that LRB evaluate a Con Con of 102 delegates (representing two per representative district) with salaries, offices, staff, etc. But we could have a Con Con of 76 delegates (one per representative district, one per senate district) at proportionately less the associated cost.
-The Legislature's resolution directed that LRB evaluate a Con Con to be held "at a leased facility in Honolulu large enough to accommodate ... general operations ..., including plenary sessions, large committee meetings, and informational sessions and to house offices for the delegates." (Whew, does the Convention Center need business?) But we do have a State Capitol that can accommodate all of that for free, and a past Con Con met at a public school for virtually nothing.
Let's also put the cost debate in context. Our Constitution in part establishes the structure and operation of our state and county governments. This year our state budget is over $10 billion and our county budgets around $2 billion. How much is it worth to take a good look, for the first time in thirty years, at whether and how we can run our government more efficiently?
Or how about a fundamental responsibility of our government, like educating our kids the best we can? Our state education system is established in our Constitution and our Department of Education spends almost $2.5 billion a year. How much is it worth ... priceless?
Once the political vog starts clearing on this aspect of the Con Con debate, I suspect the opponents of a Con Con will have pushed the cost of an assumed Cadillac Con Con well into the $10 to $20 million range, the theory being that voters might be fine with a "single digit million" Con Con but will balk at $10 million-plus. And my answer on the merits of that cost and format would be an unqualified yes, it's more than worth it. But I think with a little creativity, use of existing resources and (speaking of this site) modern technology, we can have our best Con Con ever for far less the cost.
It's a fair question. We should never waste taxpayers' money, and the cost of a Con Con versus its benefit is a fair factor for us voters to consider in deciding this November whether to covene a Con Con.
It's also a question we should address now, because the early debate over a Con Con is focused almost exclusively on its cost. Con Con opponents have determined their best argument to persuade voters to reject a Con Con is not its merits but that it will cost too much. Supporters (and I'm one) say let's decide this on its merits, and that cost is a red herring, worth it and controllable.
We saw this play out publicly in the last week. Our State Legislature, most of whose members are not Con Con supporters, passed a resolution (HCR231) directing the Legislative Reference Bureau (LRB), an arm of the Legislature, to estimate the projected cost of a Con Con and report back by September 1 of this year. Our Governor and Lieutenant Governor, Con Con supporters, countered with an LG-led Con Con Cost Task Force made up of state cabinet officials, Hawaii's elections officer, state legislators (majority and minority), and civic organizations, to report back by August 1st.
What's going on? The Legislature's resolution directed LRB to evaluate just one type of potential Con Con (an expensive one), while the administration's task force, in a little one-upsmanship, will evaluate a range of possible Con Con formats and expenses. Unfortunately, this represents the inevitable politicization of the debate and an overfocus on cost. The good news is that somewhere in all of this we'll have good information with which to consider this aspect of our November decision.
But let's step away and get the ground rules straight. First, let's remember that exactly how to set up a Con Con once the voters decide to convene it is up to the Legislature. There's no standard mandated Con Con format, and thus there's flexibility to design various types of Con Cons at various costs.
Here are just two examples:
-The Legislature's resolution directed that LRB evaluate a Con Con of 102 delegates (representing two per representative district) with salaries, offices, staff, etc. But we could have a Con Con of 76 delegates (one per representative district, one per senate district) at proportionately less the associated cost.
-The Legislature's resolution directed that LRB evaluate a Con Con to be held "at a leased facility in Honolulu large enough to accommodate ... general operations ..., including plenary sessions, large committee meetings, and informational sessions and to house offices for the delegates." (Whew, does the Convention Center need business?) But we do have a State Capitol that can accommodate all of that for free, and a past Con Con met at a public school for virtually nothing.
Let's also put the cost debate in context. Our Constitution in part establishes the structure and operation of our state and county governments. This year our state budget is over $10 billion and our county budgets around $2 billion. How much is it worth to take a good look, for the first time in thirty years, at whether and how we can run our government more efficiently?
Or how about a fundamental responsibility of our government, like educating our kids the best we can? Our state education system is established in our Constitution and our Department of Education spends almost $2.5 billion a year. How much is it worth ... priceless?
Once the political vog starts clearing on this aspect of the Con Con debate, I suspect the opponents of a Con Con will have pushed the cost of an assumed Cadillac Con Con well into the $10 to $20 million range, the theory being that voters might be fine with a "single digit million" Con Con but will balk at $10 million-plus. And my answer on the merits of that cost and format would be an unqualified yes, it's more than worth it. But I think with a little creativity, use of existing resources and (speaking of this site) modern technology, we can have our best Con Con ever for far less the cost.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Rick M. on -
I'm hearing all this warm and fuzzy stuff about "improve education", make government more responsive and so on.
But Not ONE SINGLE REAL SUGGESTION on how to actually achieve this.
Where are your SPECIFIC suggestions?
I make suggestions and Peter Kay tells me they aren't "mainstream". Is that why everyone else is afraid to make substantive proposals?
This ConCon will be useless if you guys don't propose SPECIFIC ACTUAL changes in WRITING.
Otherwise it will just be all over the place and the hippy dippies will put all this feel good stuff about the Dept of Peace etc. and we wont get ANYTHING accomplished.
I mean, do you guys really want to get something done or is this all nicey nice smoke blowing?
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Permalink Reply by Peter Ehrhorn on -
Why would a better organized and updated government structure come out of a Con Con? And why would it substantially improve business activity and could you define improve business activity? It seems to me what one views as improved business activity could be viewed very differently by others. Could improve bus. activity be raping the environment by others? or Limiting individual rights? All one has to do is look at what G W Bush promised as opposed to what he delivered and one should be cautious, very cautious.
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Permalink Reply by Peter Kay on -
Rick, I think we can all agree that we want to get something done. We wouldn't be spending our time discussing these issues online if we weren't.
The question is: what's the best way to get something done that will actually get something done?
Yes, "improve education" is warm and fuzzy. But it's a topic that most of us can agree is a huge problem in Hawaii that so far legislation has been unable to address.
So before we get to specific, actual changes in writing, lets perhaps have a discussion to identify what elements we believe contribute to the cause of the current public school problems, for example.
Then once we feel we have a pretty good handle on those causes, determine if there is a constitutional change that can bring about some solutions.
I know this isn't the lets-get-right-on-it type of approach (that frankly, I love doing myself in the private sector world of tech startups) but good Democracies don't operate like dictatorships, either.
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Permalink Reply by Rick M. on
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"Great post, Ed. This is precisely the kind of leadership we need from "Elder Statesmen" such as yourself."
Get a grip on your fawning, Peter! Ed didn't say ANYTHING of any substance WHATSOEVER.
This is all feel-good, amorphous, meaningless talk.
Where are the SPECIFIC recommendations?
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Permalink Reply by cashpoor on -
In my opinion, it should be supported as long as it doesn't end up like the Hawaii republican convention, repressing free speach of delegates or citizens, giving out ballots pre-voted for candidates that haven't been transparent with private agendas, all at the expense of our constitutional liberties.
See this: http://www.hawaiireporter.com/storyPrint.aspx?952d1664-7578-4c49-96...
People have every right to know what is going on in all forms of government, and it is too bad that we so seldom actually seek diligence on this.
A Transparent Government is Freedom. Humanity deserves integrity in governance.
In business there is always the battle between the marketers and the accountants, the marketers want to spend so they can make more, the accountants want to save for a rainy day. Any good manager takes this all into account and invokes a positive balance between them.
Thanks Ed for your work, and for keeping an e-Democracy.
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