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President's Message for Spring Come to the Biennial Convention May 30! Public Funding of Election Campaigns (Kory Payne) Bills Relating to Health Care (Joy Marshall & Suzanne Meisenzahl) Election Day Registration (Jean Aoki) Housing (Jackie Parnell) Major Challenges for 2010 Elections (Jean Aoki) Civil Unions (Jean Aoki) My Favorite Testimony Proposed Budget June 1, 2009 - May 31, 2010 (Susan Miller) Voting Rights, Incarcerated Persons (Jean Aoki) Withrdawals and Nominations (Jean Aoki) Corporate Donations (Jean Aoki) Mahalo to All the Contributors to Our Big Non-Event! Campaign to Stop Legalized Gambling Successful (Grace Furukawa & Pearl Johnson) Local Legue Reports - Honolulu (Piilani Kaopuiki) Local League Reports - Hawaii (Leilani Bronson-Crelly & Susan Dursin) Local League Reports - Kauai |
President's Message for SpringAloha for the last time as your president. It is time again for our annual convention and election of new officers – see notices elsewhere in this edition. Once again we have remarkably survived an election and are likely to survive the legislative session. Learn more about the legislative work on following pages. We did ourselves proud thanks mostly to Jean Aoki, ably assisted by JoAnn Maruoka. Their work educating voters on the pros and cons of having a constitutional convention was a major contribution to the community and gave the League a lot of respect and gratitude. Working with the Hawaiian Institute of Public Affairs (HIPA) and ‘Olelo’s Election ’08 program, the League reached a lot of people. The first events, five forums taped and presented on ‘Olelo’s channels, provided wonderful insights and great conversations. Jean and her ConCon team truly assembled a remarkable cast of people. The public forum “A Primer on ConCon” held on September 6 at the State Capitol (co-sponsored by HIPA and the Richardson School of Law at UH Manoa) was reasonably well attended and brought many compliments. Repeated broadcasts on public access stations reached additional people. The final event, the ConCon Debate broadcast on KGMB, was fabulous. It was also taped and presented to ‘Olelo and the other public access stations for wider viewing. As our primary speaker for the Primer, Professor Robert F. Williams, noted in his opening remarks, if you research the history of any constitutional convention in any state in the union, you will find the work of a League of Women Voters. Jean and JoAnn have continued their fine work by keeping on top of the legislative issues dearest to the League, including campaign spending limits and the annual battle to preserve our sunshine laws. If there is anything our legislators, with a few notable exceptions, love, it is unrestricted funding for themselves and total secrecy of their operations. As someone wise pointed out, democracy is not a spectator sport. We are proud to have continued that tradition of constant effort to educate voters and our elected representatives to make wise decisions and truly make democracy work! Have a great new year! Thank you for giving me the opportunity to serve as president of our League. Jackie Parnell |
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