League of Women Voters of Honolulu v. State

• Decision Date: 04 November 2021
• Docket Number: SCAP-19-0000372
• Citation: League of Women Voters of Honolulu v. State, 150 Hawai‘i 182, 499 P.3d 382 (Haw. 2021)
• Parties: LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS OF HONOLULU and Common Cause, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. STATE of Hawai‘i, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: Hawaii Supreme Court

150 Hawai‘i 182

499 P.3d 382

LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS OF HONOLULU and Common Cause, Plaintiffs-Appellants,

v.STATE of Hawai‘i, Defendant-Appellee.

SCAP-19-0000372

Supreme Court of Hawai‘i.

NOVEMBER 4, 2021

AS CORRECTED NOVEMBER 4, 2021

Robert Brian Black(Lisa Emily Engebretsen with him on the briefs) for plaintiffs-appellants League of Women Voters of Honolulu and Common Cause

Clare E. Connors(Kimberly Tsumoto Guidry, Honolulu, on the briefs) for defendant-appelleeState of Hawai‘i

Thomas Yamachika for amicus curiae Tax Foundation of Hawai‘I

Colleen Hanabusa for amicus curiaeHawai‘i State Legislature

Robert H. Thomas, Honolulu, for amicus curiae Grassroot Institute of Hawaii

NAKAYAMA, McKENNA, AND WILSON JJ., AND RECKTENWALD, C.J., DISSENTING, WITH WHOM CIRCUIT JUDGE KAWAMURA, IN PLACE OF POLLACK, J.¹ , RECUSED, JOINS

OPINION OF THE COURT BY NAKAYAMA, J.

I.INTRODUCTION

Plaintiffs-Appellants League of Women Voters of Honolulu and Common Cause (collectively, "Plaintiffs") appeal from the Circuit Court of the First Circuit's (circuit court) final judgment, which granted Defendant-Appellee the State of Hawai‘i's (the State)motion for summary judgment.

In the underlying proceeding, Plaintiffs filed a complaint in the circuit court seeking a declaratory order that a recently enacted bill was adopted through an unconstitutional process and therefore is void as unconstitutional.Plaintiffs challenged the adoption of a law requiring hurricane shelter space in new public schools on the grounds that it violated article III, section 15 of the Hawai‘i Constitution because the bill did not receive three readings in each house of the Hawai‘i State Legislature(the Legislature) before it was passed and signed into law.The bill that was signed into law was first introduced in the Senate as "A Bill for an Act Relating to Public Safety" and required annual reporting of recidivism statistics by the State.The House of Representatives ("the House") amended the bill to require hurricane shelter space in new State buildings and deleted all reference to recidivism reporting.The hurricane shelter version of the bill received one reading in the Senate before it passed and eventually became law.

The State filed a motion for summary judgment, arguing that the Legislature's own rules of procedure permit a bill to be read only by number and title and do not require the three readings to start again after a bill is amended, even if the bill's contents are entirely deleted and a substituted bill is introduced.Plaintiffs also filed a motion for summary judgment.The circuit court granted the State's motion for summary judgment and denied Plaintiffs’ cross-motion, holding that the process for enacting the law complied with the Legislature's adopted rules of procedure, which do not require the three readings to start again in each legislative chamber after a bill is amended or replaced.

On appeal, Plaintiffs again argue that the process for adopting the bill violated section 15 because, after the House made non-germane amendments to the recidivism reporting bill, the Senate did not hold the required three readings to consider the hurricane shelter bill.We agree.The plain language of section 15 states that "No bill shall become law unless it shall pass three readings in each house on separate days."Haw. Const. art. III, § 15.Here, the bill received three readings in each house by title and number, but the substance of the bill changed when the House introduced the hurricane shelter substitution, which was unrelated to the original recidivism reporting bill.

We conclude that article III, section 15 of the Hawai‘i Constitution requires that the three readings begin anew after a non-germane amendment changes the purpose of a bill so that it is no longer related to the original bill as introduced.

For the reasons stated herein, we determine that Senate Bill 2858, Senate Draft 2, House Draft 1, Conference Draft 1, 2018 Haw. Sess. L. Act 84at 432("Act 84" or "S.B. 2858") violated this requirement.Accordingly, we vacate the circuit court's orders and judgment granting the State's motion for summary judgment and denying Plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment and remand to the circuit court with instructions to grant Plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment.

II.BACKGROUND

A.Act 84

Senate BillNo. 2858, "A Bill for an Act Relating to Public Safety," was introduced in the Senate on January 24, 2018.As originally introduced, S.B. 2858 would have added new sections to Hawai‘i Revised Statutes (HRS) Chapter 353, to require the State Department of Public Safety(DPS) to prepare and submit an annual report to the Legislature that tracked the rehabilitation and re-entry performance indicators for individuals released from prison ("recidivism reporting bill").With minor amendments, the recidivism reporting bill passed three readings in the Senate.

On March 8, 2018, after crossover² from the Senate, the recidivism reporting bill passed its first reading in the House.

On March 15, 2018, the House Committee on Public Safety held a hearing on the recidivism reporting bill and received testimony from interested parties, including the DPS, the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, the Ho‘omanapono Political Action Committee, the Hawai‘i Justice Coalition, the Community Alliance on Prisons, Young Progressives Demanding Action, the ACLU of Hawai‘i, and private citizens.

Despite the fact that the interested parties largely supported the recidivism bill, the House Committee on Public Safety recommended amending S.B. 2858"by deleting its contents and inserting the substantive provisions of House BillNo. 2452, H.D. 1,"("H.B. 2452") which would require that State buildings constructed after July 1, 2018 include hurricane shelter space ("hurricane shelter bill").³H.R. Stand.Comm. Rep. No. 1255-18, at 2(2018).On March 21, 2018, the House amended S.B. 2858 according to the committee's recommendation and S.B. 2858 — as the hurricane shelter bill — passed its second reading in the House.

On March 28, 2018, the House Committee on Finance held a hearing on the hurricane shelter bill and accepted public testimony.The Office of Hawaiian Affairs and Young Progressives Demanding Action offered testimony asking legislators to revert the bill to its original subject as the recidivism reporting bill.⁴While the House Committee on Finance noted the objections of interested parties to the substituted bill, it nevertheless recommended passing the hurricane shelter bill unamended.On April 6, 2018, S.B. 2858 passed its third reading in the House.

On April 10, 2018, S.B. 2858 was transmitted to the Senate.The Senate disagreed with the House amendments and a conference committee of House and Senate members met to confer.The conference committee recommended that S.B. 2858 be amended to delete the hurricane shelter space requirement and instead provide that the State must consider hurricane resistant criteria when designing and constructing new public schools.The Senate adopted the conference committee's recommendation and S.B. 2858 passed final reading in both chambers on May 1, 2018.S.B. 2858 was signed by the Governor as Act 84 and became law on June 29, 2018.

B.Proceedings in the Circuit Court

On September 5, 2018, Plaintiffs filed a complaint in the circuit court challenging the enactment of Act 84 as unconstitutional.The complaint alleged that: (1) the title of S.B. 2858"Relating to Public Safety" does not satisfy the subject-in-title requirement of article III, section 14 of the Hawai‘i Constitution("section 14")⁵; and (2)"the hurricane shelter version of S.B. 2858" did not "have the required three readings in the Senate[,]" in violation of article III, section 15 of the Hawai‘i Constitution(" section 15").⁶Plaintiffs sought a declaratory order that Act 84 was adopted through an unconstitutional process and therefore is void as unconstitutional.

On October 9, 2018, the State filed a motion for summary judgment, arguing that Act 84 is constitutional and that Plaintiffs’ claims presented a nonjusticiable political question.

On October 25, 2018, Plaintiffs filed a cross-motion for summary judgment.The Legislature subsequently moved for and was granted leave to appear as amicus curiae in support of the State's motion for summary judgment.

On January 24, 2019, the circuit court heard the cross-motions.The circuit court orally granted the State's motion for summary judgment and denied Plaintiffs’ cross-motion, holding that the process for adopting Act 84 complied with the circuit court's interpretation of the three readings and subject-in-title requirements of the Hawai‘i Constitution.The circuit court stated that its interpretation of the three readings requirement hinged on the Legislature's own rule of procedure:

[W]hat sways the Court on [the issue of three readings] is the fact that the Legislature adopted rules of procedure and, in the course of doing that, adopted as part of its procedures the Mason's Manual.And it is that Mason's Manual provision, Section 722, and I also did rely on Section 617 that talks about the nature of the substituted bill to arrive at the conclusion that the procedure of the Legislature is such that if a replace and substituted bill is adopted, then under Section 722, the Legislature is not required to conduct three more readings because they have already had in each house the three readings.

And that suffices to meet the constitutional mandate of three readings in each house one day apart so the Court is not able to find that there was any violation of the Constitution with respect to the three readings.

(Emphasis added.)

On April 3, 2019, the circuit court entered written orders granting summary judgment in favor of the State and denying Plaintiffs’ cross-motion.As pertinent here, the circuit court made the following conclusions of law:

1.There was no violation of the Hawai‘i Constitution with respect to the three readings.Based on sections 617and722 of

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