Free-press advocates lamented the impending expiration of the state’s news media "shield law," hailed nationally as a model for protection of news sources, and laid the blame squarely on Sen. Clayton Hee, the Senate’s judiciary and labor chairman.
At a news conference Wednesday, Jeff Portnoy, an attorney for the Hawaii Shield Law Coalition, said it would be a "waste of time" to pursue the matter as long as Hee (D, Heeia-Laie-Waialua) is judiciary chairman.
Hee was unavailable for comment Wednesday, a Senate spokeswoman said.
At least one senator who had worked on the shield law legislation said he would try again next year by helping fellow lawmakers and the public better understand what’s at stake.
"The public gets most of its information through media sources, through journalists, and if journalists are concerned about being forced to reveal their sources it has a chilling effect on their ability to let the public know what government is doing," Sen. Les Ihara (D, Moiliili-Kaimuki-Palolo), a member of the Judiciary Committee, said Wednesday. "Democracy, I think, is at stake."
The shield law will expire on June 30 now that lawmakers have failed to agree on an extension ahead of today’s adjournment of the 2013 session.
House lawmakers voted to extend the existing law by two years. The Senate, meanwhile, passed a weakened version of House Bill 622 that had been agreed to in conference committee last week. The passage of two different proposals essentially kills any extension.
Hawaii’s shield law, which affords journalists a measure of protection from having to reveal confidential sources in court, has been praised for its inclusion of digital, online and other emerging media. Advocates criticized the conference draft because it removed the protection for such nontraditional journalists.
Portnoy was among those urging lawmakers to kill the conference draft, rather than let an "abomination" such as the gutted shield law go into effect.
The House approved its bill Tuesday morning, a few minutes before the Senate floor session began. While Senate leaders said they were informed of the House decision Tuesday morning, none of the senators who supported a stronger shield law tried to force a floor vote on the House’s amended version of the bill. Senators instead passed the conference draft in a 16-9 vote.
Hee had questioned the House’s late timing and inadequate coordination with the Senate. Ihara said he was aware of the House’s amendment, but that he did not have enough support for it in the Senate.
"We didn’t have the votes to proceed," Ihara said. Rather than force a vote on a doomed amendment, Ihara said, he will try to work next year with those who opposed the conference draft to craft a better law.
Given the House action earlier in the day, the Senate approval of the conference draft all but assured defeat of the watered-down proposal — a defeat that advocates had sought, Ihara said. He praised the House tactic.
"That’s one way of killing it that preserves a long-shot possibility of doing it right, doing what we should have done, which was just to extend," Ihara said. "And we just couldn’t get the votes."
"Passing the amendment without consulting with the other chamber affirmatively kills the bill," said Senate Majority Leader Brickwood Galuteria (D, Kakaako-McCully-Waikiki).
Versions of the bill that were agreed upon in conference committees "continued the additional protections of a shield law above and beyond what is provided by Hawaii’s Constitution for the press," he said.
"The floor amendment presented a very substantive change to the conference draft that was agreed upon by the House and Senate conferees. Every draft of the bill up until that point sought to make the shield law permanent. To introduce such a substantive change, moments before the Senate began its floor session, lacked the transparency and openness that the public expects and deserves," he said.
