Policy, Politics, Pride – The Saga of HB444 HD1

In recognition of Pride Month, I’ve included below the official Senate Journal of March 23, 2009, a day I am most proud of.

On this day, as the State Senator representing Kauaʻi and Niʻihau, I led an effort to pull HB444 HD1 to the Senate floor.

HB444 HD1 established civil unions and stated “partners to a civil union … shall have all the same rights, benefits, protections, and responsibilities under law … as are granted to spouses in a marriage.”

There are relatively few times when we are called upon to stand up and be counted. Rarely do we as individuals have the opportunity to participate in something truly important and possibly make a lasting difference in the world and in the lives of people – and this was one of them.

We lost that day, but I tell this story with pride.

As Majority Leader of the Hawaiʻi State Senate, part of my job was to “count votes” and in early 2009 our Caucus was presented with the question: “If the House passes out Civil Unions, are there sufficient votes in the Senate to also pass it?”

So I counted.

One-on-one, individually and personally, I posed this question to the 23 Democratic Senators in our Caucus. 18 of them said Yes. That’s one more than’s needed to override a veto should Governor Lingle (R) have chosen to exercise her pen. At the time, she had not indicated one way or another her intentions, but we were ready.

During the following Caucus, upon being informed of the strong support – Senate President Colleen Hanabusa gave the green light. We have the votes. If the House passes it, we will too.

It was game on.

We knew it would be contentious. We knew it would be a huge fight. But we had the votes.

The response from the community was immediate and overwhelming. The opposition citing God on their side filled the hearing rooms, galleries, and the rotunda. They came in by the busload, carrying signs, toting bibles, and too often spewing hateful ugly rhetoric. It was awful.

The LGBTQ+ community, friends, and allies, also showed up in numbers, speaking with earnest passion in support of the long overdue right to equal treatment under the law.

The House moved quickly. HB444HD1 passed out of their Judiciary Committee on February 5, 2009, with 12 members voting in favor and none opposed and was approved on the floor February 12, 2009, with 33 members voting in favor and 17 opposed.

On February 24 the Senate Judiciary Committee Chaired by Senator Brian Taniguchi held an 18-hour marathon hearing with over 1,400 people submitting testimony. The hearing ended at 3 a.m. with the vote tied 3/3. The three ayes: Senators Brian Taniguchi, Dwight Takamine, and Clarence Nishihara; the three noes: Senators Robert Bunda, Mike Gabbard, and Sam Slom.

HB444HD1 was thus stuck in committee and dead for the session unless extraordinary action was used to pull it to the Senate floor and allow the full Senate to vote – up or down.

Unfortunately the tide began to turn. Various members in the Senate began having second thoughts culminating in the Senate President suggesting in Caucus that “maybe next year would be a better year to attempt passage” and that pulling HB444HD1 to the floor was perhaps not a good idea.

As the Senate Majority Leader my role was to represent the majority and now that majority was slowly turning against something I had put my heart and soul into.

In the privacy of our majority caucus room, I voiced my inability to turn back. I argued both the righteousness of the cause and the timing of the action – “next year” was an election year and the likelihood of passing something this controversial in an election year was in my opinion – slim to none.

I closed by saying to my colleagues, that it was my intent as an individual Senator (not in my role as Majority Leader) to make a motion to pull HB444HD1 to the floor for a full vote, and if I received a second to that motion – there would then be a full open and public discussion and ultimately a vote.

Senator Rosalyn Baker was the first person in the room to raise her hand and say, “I’m with Gary.” She was followed by a few others who also spoke in support and the process was set in motion.

On March 23, 2009, I rose from my seat on the floor of the Senate to make that motion. We needed 9 votes to actually get the bill to the floor.

It became clear immediately that Senate Leadership did not want to talk about the importance or “substance” of the Bill. The gallery was standing room only, full of people who had been promised that 18 Senators were in support of its passage. Leaderships “floor strategy” was designed to limit debate and to obfuscate the discussion around technical aspects of whether or not the bill could be pulled to the floor.

Of course I ignored (respectfully of course) those attempts and spoke to the “substance of the bill” even though I was repeatedly instructed not to.

We lost the vote and won our pride. The 6 of us walked out of that room holding our heads high. 12 others walked out explaining somewhat confusingly to the community that while they really and truly supported the rights granted in the bill, for technical reasons they could not actually vote for it.

And yes, 7 Senators left the floor that day pleased at their success in stopping the LGBTQ+ community from moving forward towards that ultimate goal of marriage equality.

The 6 Yes votes were Senators Rosalyn Baker, Suzanne Chun Oakland, Carol Fukunaga, Les Ihara, Michelle Kidani, and myself.

The 18 No votes were: Senators Robert Bunda, Will Espero, Mike Gabbard, Brickwood Galuteria, Josh Green, Colleen Hanabusa, Clayton Hee, Fred Hemmings, David Ige, Donna Mercado Kim, Russel Kokubun, Clarence Nishihara, Norman Sakamoto, Sam Slom, Dwight Takamine, Brian Taniguchi, Jill Tokuda, and Shan Tsutsui.

1 Excused and absent from the vote: Senator Kalani English

One of the many lessons I learned that day was that even when you don’t think your voice will make a difference it’s important to stand up and speak out in support of others when you know deep in your naʻau it’s the right thing to do. As I spoke that day on the floor, I could think only of those who had worked so hard and sacrificed so much, and who deserved equal treatment, respect, and pride.

Note 1: HB444 was ultimately passed the following year in April 2010 and vetoed by Governor Linda Lingle (R) in July, 2.5 months prior to the primary election. There was no attempt by the legislature to override the Bill.

Note 2: Three years later, Governor Neil Abercrombie (D) convened a special session and signed into law on November 13, 2013 a bill extending full marriage rights to same-sex couples. The contentiousness of these hearings can also be not be understated. Senator Clayton Hee, Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee responsible for Senate Bill 1, which would eventually become the Marriage Equality Act wore a bullet proof Kevlar vest to his initial public hearings. While some of the opposing rhetoric was ugly and vile, fortunately the measure passed and was signed into law without overt violence or physical harm. Marriage equality had finally arrived in Hawaiʻi.

If you are truly into policy and politics, I think you will find the full and official transcript of the proceedings fascinating. You can download a PDF copy of the remarks in the record below.