Chad Blair: When it comes to veto overrides, Ige is no lingle

The governor, a Democrat, was not particularly popular in his own party. He often clashed over politics and legislation with his Democrats, who controlled Hawaiian lawmakers.

The tense relationship came to a head when lawmakers brought together the votes to override a veto law – a direct and successful challenge to the governor’s leadership.

The year was 2001 and the governor was Ben Cayetano. It was the first time in the history of the state that a democratic governor had been overridden by democratic lawmakers. (More on that later.)

On Tuesday, Governor David Ige, a Democrat, was also overridden by Democratic lawmakers, but it wasn’t the first time for him. That came in 2016.

Even so, Ige now has six veto overrides – the worst of any Democratic governor – and he has one more term before his term ends in early December 2022. Legislators could also override a seventh vetoed bill this Thursday if it plans to vote on three other vetoed bills that were amended on Tuesday to address Ige’s objections.

Let’s keep an eye on things. In his six years in office, Ige interpreted more than 50 vetoes that were not lifted, which gave him a decent beating average. But his predecessor and Democrat Neil Abercrombie vetoed 43 bills in four years, and none were overturned.

Ige also stated in a press conference on Tuesday that this year he has added more bills than usual to his veto-intent list – 28, ultimately reduced to 26, but also a single veto item on the state budget – due to the waning impact of the Pandemic to the state coffers and issuance of US Treasury Department guidelines on the use of federal COVID-19 tools. Both developments came after the 2021 legislative period, which ended on 29.

That said, Ige was rejected by the House and Senate this week, which suspended a total of five bills on Tuesday and possibly one more on Thursday. The House of Representatives actually overwritten three more vetoed bills that the Senate refused to take up.

Ige is not a lingle

But Ige is unlikely to experience the disdain that majority Democrats have for former Republican governor Linda Lingle (2002-2010).

Lingle, only the second GOP governor in the state’s history, interpreted 347 vetoes during her eight-year tenure and suffered all but one override. Her track record included a record 38 overwrites in 2009 when she vetoed 55 bills.

Lingle vetoes that were overridden included bills to increase income tax, approve permanent postal voting, and require recipients of state funding for sexual health education programs to provide comprehensive, medically accurate sex education.

But the Democrats failed to kill many other Lingle vetoes, including the 2010 Civil Union Act. Many Democrats were as uncomfortable with the then-controversial law as the Republican head of state.

Let’s go back to Cayetano. The law he vetoed in 2001 was called the Age of Consent Bill and was designed to protect minors from consensual sex by raising the legal age from 14 to 16.

In his 2009 memoir, Ben, the former governor said he had no objection to an increase in age. What bothered him was the language in the bill, which allowed for staggering.

“For example, if a 19-year-old had consensual sex with his 14-year-old girlfriend, he would face a 20-year prison sentence on the sliding scale,” recalled Cayetano. But if his girlfriend were 15 at the time, it wouldn’t be a crime.

The sliding scale “trudged reality and common sense,” he wrote, and a 20-year prison sentence was far too harsh. Cayetano pointed out that Honolulu prosecutor Peter Carlisle, as well as the commission, spoke out in favor of the position of women against the law. Yet only one Democrat, Senator Les Ihara, voted against.

The reason the veto was lifted, Cayetano learned from some Democrats, was that they did not want to be gentle with crime at election time.

This is not intended to equate the events of the 2021 legislature with those of the 2001 session. However, draft laws have consequences that were often unforeseeable at the time of their approval or rejection.

Cayetano wrote that John Etrata, 24, and Ariel Aki, 15, committed suicide five years after the Lanai Age of Consent Act went into effect. They were lovers and lived together for three months at the time. Etrata was arrested for sexually assaulting a minor.

“Nobody knows exactly why they killed themselves,” said Cayetano. “But I wondered how shocked Etrata must have been to find out – and he must be – that he was facing a 20-year prison sentence for being intimate with Aki. Ironically, if Aki had been a year older, they could have been married – with the consent of their parents. “