Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 25, Number 6, 1 Iune 2008 — Con Con commission [ARTICLE]

Con Con commission

Ten appointees to the new Constitutional Conventional Cost Task Force have been named by Lt. Gov. James Aiona, who is the head of the nonpartisan group. They are: state Sens. Gary Hooser and Gordon Trimble, Reps. Lynn Finnegan and Joseph Souki, Pi'ilani Kaopuiki of the Honolulu Chapter of the League of Women Voters, Kaipo Lum of the Native Hawaiian Chamber of Commerce, Chief Elections Officer Kevin Cronin, Attorney General Mark Bennett, state Comptroller Russ Saito, and Finance Director Georgina Kawamura. The group will detennine how mueh it will cost taxpayers to hold a convention aimed at amending the state Constitution. Voters will decide in the 2008 general eleehon whether to convene a Con Con. The newly created task force will hold statewide meetings to solicit puhlie comment on the overall financial costs of a eonvention. The group is expected to complete a report on their findings by Aug. 1. Task force members are also accepting puhlie comment by e-mail at concon@hawaii.gov. Under the state Constitution, Hawai'i voters have the right every 10 years to vote whether to hold a Con Con. The last Con Con, in 1978, established the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, set an annual

balanced budget requirement, established term limits for the governor and lieutenant governor, and adopted the Hawaiian language as an official language of Hawai'i, among other things.