What EXACTLY Can Only Be Achieved Through A Constitutional Convention?

[Rick M.]

We're hearing lots of vague ideas but very few actual proposals. Leaving aside, for the moment, that we can amend the State Constitution any time we want without the need of a Constitutional Convention, let's look at the actual changes we want to see if we get a ConCon.

So rather than "Improve Education" say something specific like:

"Insert paragraph giving each family a school voucher for each child which can be used at the school of their choice (public or private). Each child's voucher shall be equal to the amount of the DOE yearly budget divided by the number of school-age students in the state."

Let's not discuss the pros and cons - let's just list the things we ABSOLUTELY NEED a constitutional convention for:

I'll start it off:

1. Delete Article XII Hawaiian Affairs

2. Rewrite ARTICLE XI Section 7 Water Resources to give water ownership to the landowner and to remove the governmental interference in how the water is used.

3. Delete ARTICLE XI Section 8 Nuclear Energy (ban)

4. Add a section to Article XIII (Collective Bargaining) saying, "No employee shall be required to pay dues to a union as a condition of employment"

5. Delete the second paragraph of Article XIII (Collective Bargaining) to eliminate the right of government employees to unionize.

[Rick M.]

Why is Spanish used?

Because the politicians are pandering to the millions of illegal aliens that are illegally voting.

[Emil Svrcina]

Constitution, as I understand it, should respect in general our lives - right to survive here, to be safe, and to support us in living enthusiastic lives - Sustainability of all three should be guarantied by constitution.
Therefore your point 1. is valid, if for example Hawaiians should abuse existing article XII and harm the rest of us economically or try to gain unfair advantage.
2. absolutely - we need to have distributed life essential systems including water systems in case of disasters.
3. I'm a nuclear scientist and I say we don't need nuclear energy in Hawaii. Abundant clean solar energy instead - there are great technologies already existing, affordable. We should support and have an option for every home to be independent and/or part of the grid.
4. yes to "no to elitism"
5. yes to "no to elitism"
I'm also definitely in favor of using ConCon as a tool for people to add initiative, referendum, and especially recall so we have choices how to deal with government officials, who divert from such constitution of sustainability, who don't stay true to their election "slogans" - example mayor's famous "do we need it, can we afford it, can we maintain it" and his current sometimes arrogant push for the opposite - "TheRail" project.
Have I escaped one oppressive government 20 years ago only to end up in Hawaii being oppressed again? No way, no more!!!

[Rick M.]

I'm not sure what your points (other than nuclear energy) have to do with the constitution. Have you even READ the constitution? See http://hawaii.gov/lrb/con/

Rules for running HECO and MECO are created by the Legislature not the constitution.

Currently in the constitution:
Water is a public trust
No nuclear plants are allowed
Read http://hawaii.gov/lrb/con/conart11.html (Article 11)

You want a socialist type State - you got one!

[cashpoor]

Thanks Emil, I give you a huge applause for your number 3, 4 and 5.

And Rick many of your arguments are on track in my opinion, however, your nuclear stanse is way of. I am 100% in support for sustainable energy for all of the islands. The most important thing I want to stress is the importance of our right to generate our own energy "off grid" this must be in the constitution! It is obviously more accessible then you are aware of.

Another thing too. I was researching another country's political version of democracy, and for the water rights, the governement owned all the rights to the water. Even rain water collected on your land. This should be addressed in the ConCon, it may not be an issue now, but we need to keep the water owned by the land owners. Energy, water, and food are things that corrupt governance uses to control or enslave people, we cant have that being so far away from an alternative.

[Rick M.]

Like I said. Have you READ THE CONSTITUTION yet?

We already have the water owned and held in trust by the State.
We already ban nuclear power.

My intention is to change these things. And this is how we do it. We package the changes together, give the voters the opportunity to vote yes or no on the WHOLE package.

That way we can throw in some special interest stuff to get the various groups to vote yes on the whole package.

My ideal package would include:

1. Delete Article XIII that allows government unions
2. Delete Article XI(8) that bans nuclear energy
3. Modify Article X to convert to local schoolboards and superintendents and remove the Hawaiian education part
4. Allow voter initiatives
5. Put in term limits

These are all popular positions and the whole package will pass easily.

[cashpoor]

Thanks Rick for your concern as to if I in fact have read it. And yes, I have.

I have seen many packages denied in the past in many forms of government due to one small part that is objective. My opinions in essence are not far from yours, and my objectives are for the people best interests. The nuclear part will cause a bigger stir and throw off the others that you state, in my opinion.

Its a constitution not a package deal, my vote is for the people to have the power over their own lives with integrity of all people. Not socialistic, but liberal.
With a package deal, you get groups to support is more of a political move then an proper move. I see a Concon as a way to sort these issues out one by one. No grouping policies.

Unionizing is the same thing as what you are presenting, for apeasement of a group. The point is each one deserves a vote in itself. A yes or no vote in packaged bundles isn't truly acting as a democracy. But I appreciate your concern, opinion and potential strategies.

[Emil Svrcina]

Rick, thank you for your response. I was referring to your points in your original article. I didn't read the whole document (HI constitution) yet, but I will.

"cashpoor" (response right after mine) has a good point: "Energy, water, and food are things that corrupt governance uses to control or enslave people".

I also don't know the rules of running HECO yet, but I think HECO is energy monopoly and that is typical for socialistic state. And NO, I don't want socialistic type state (I have escape from one, and I understand State of Hawaii is very close to it as it is), that is why I have interest of changing it, before is too late.

Again sustainability of life for Hawaiians (meaning us all living here in State of Hawaii) must be the priority protected by Hawaii constitution, so even actions by legislature are always govern by it (they can't endlessly keep increasing taxes, and waste our money at the same time on ineffective and inefficient projects, increasing our dependency on government, dependency on foreign sources of anything (food, oil, medications) - that is WRONG and unsustainable.

Our basic life supporting needs are energy (electricity, food, water), safety (existing army and individually right to have arms to defend our families), and freedom to express ourselves for benefit of all (freedom of religion, speech, freedom to think and create freely regardless of special interests or union workers' needs, applications of common sense ideas to make us energy independent, .............and do MORE WITH LESS in general, if we have to.

Hawaii Constitution must be the GENERAL PRINCIPLE ideally so every our activity is govern by it.

Is it possible?
It better be. It must be or good bye capitalism and welcome not even socialism in my opinion but fascism.

[Rick M.]

I believe that we will see a "package deal" given to the voters to approve or dis-approve as a package.

[jk]

In the mid-1990s the Honolulu Charter Commission came up with 40+ proposals to amend the City Charter and was faced with the decision about how to present them to the public on the ballot -- whether to group similar ones together, or to have a separate vote on each item. I thought it would be a disaster to have separate votes on each item because the public couldn't possibly learn enough about all 40+ items. But that is what the Commission decided to do. It turns out that I was mistaken, and it worked well. I hope the ConCon learns from this experience.

[Rick M.]

I doubt very much we'll separate out the votes. It will be a package deal. Otherwise, why bother? We could just propose the changes one at a time WITHOUT a ConCon.

The whole point of the ConCOn is to go completely through the Constitution, make ALL the changes and get the whole thing passed.

And like I said. We put some stuff that has wide support (local school boards, etc) and it will all pass together.

That is how we will break the hold the unions have on us, get rid of the environmental roadblocks to progress, and eliminate special privileges for Hawaiians.

[jk]

Voting on the issues separately recognizes that different people have different opinions on different issues, as demonstrated on this forum, and allows as much individual discretion as possible. It is true that the Legislature can propose constitutional amendments one at a time. But the simple fact is that the Legislature is not bringing forth the salient issues. If that were happening, there would be no need for a ConCon. That is why the electorate votes every 10 years on whether or not to have a ConCon.

Rick, your strategy of trying to pass proposals that, alone, probably wouldn’t pass, by bundling them with proposals with wide support, is distasteful to me. Moreover, that strategy couldn’t possibly work because those proposals with only minority support wouldn’t make it past the ConCon.

[kawehi]

Our thought to your discussion here is illegal...based on the facts that Hawai'i was never annexed and we (Hawaiians) are not Americans and this isnot America. I doubt that you have anything sewn up brother. You are dreaming. Go and read the laws.
international law.
K/.