I have worked for the legislature since 2001. I spent almost four years as an office manager and I am currently working as a legislative attorney. It confuses me why legislators vote with registration. I can understand sometimes that they like the intent of a bill but there was some detail in the bill that they do not like, but why in the world would they vote with reservations when it is clearly a bad bill? Why not vote no if they believed that the bill is bad or on third reading that the bill has not been amended so that they could vote with a confident and wholehearted yes on it?
A prime example of this became evident on the floor of the House of Representatives today. Today the House heard HCR 314. This is a terrible resolution that wants to set up a sister state relation with the province of Thua Thien-Hue. Now generally sister states are a good thing, but in this case, well I just don’t get it. Why would we want to set up a sister state relationship with a province in a communist country that is known for corruption, the sex trade of women and children, where more than fifty percent of the population lives below the poverty line, and they constantly restrict the basic rights of their citizens such as life, liberty, the right to own private property, religion, and many other basic rights we take for granted here in America. In addition Hue is known for the massacre that occurred during the Tet offensive of 1968. In just four days over 3500 civilians went missing. The civilians were South Vietnamese, German doctors, Americans helping the South Vietnamese in Hue, and government officials. Soon after graves started to appear just south of the city and a year later over 24 mass graves were found and over 809 bodies. Is this the type of government we want to have a sister state relationship with? This legislative body, just three weeks ago, condemned the genocide occuring in darfur. A resolution was adopted asking for the United Nations Security Council to adopt a resolution condemning the violations of humanitarian law and to create a no fly zone over Darfur. This seems contradictory to me and this legislative body should be ashamed that they will recognize one human rights violation in one place and ignore another and try to create a sister state with a country who committed a similar attrocity. IT IS HYPOCRITICAL, and it is a slap in the face to the 58000 Americans who gave their lives to defend the freedom of the Vietnamese people and to the hundreds of thousands who served proudly in Vietnam during that conflict. But I digress, my point wasn’t really to discuss this issue but how our State Legislators voted on this issue. So on the floor today, members from both sides of the aisle got up, spoke, and then voted with reservations. Only three Representatives were man enough to vote no on this issue, and while I may disagree with their views and politics, I can respect them for doing the right thing and voting no on this issue. Only three were willing to step up to the plate and do the right thing. I wish the rest of those who had voted with reservations actually voted no and took an actual stand on this issue.
The sad part of this is not that this legislation passed, it is sad, but that legislators were afraid to take an actual stand. It seems to me that ultimately what they are doing is playing politics. They are playing politics with each and every citizen’s life and well being. Instead of doing what is right and what they should, they simply sell their vote on the floor for maybe another vote in the polling booth or money from an interest group. This applies to politicians on both sides of the aisle. I wish for Hawaii’s sake and for each and every citizen that these politicians would stop voting with reservations and vote either yes or no. I wish, I pray, that they would take a stand one way or the other.
