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Candidate Advisory Council: role and relevance SAM K ING Staff Writer
Last week, the Regents Candidate Advisory Council published its list of regent candidates and sent it to Gov. Abercrombie. This has prompted questions among faculty and students at UH about what the RCAC is, what it does and how it does it. In 2007, when the state was in financial crisis, Hawai‘i passed a constitutional amendment to Article X, Section 6 to create the RCAC. The only other state with an RCAC is Minnesota, but the reason for its creation was obvious to Sen. Sam Slom (RHawai‘i Kai, ‘Aina Haina, Kahala, Diamond Head), called the “Lone Ranger” because he is the only Republian in the State Senate. “The RCAC was created to further limit the appointment power of Gov. Lingle,” he said. One of the forces that stabilizes the U.S. political system is the balance between the three branches of power: the legislative, executive and judiciar y. Under a Republican governor, Hawai‘i’s Democrat- dominated L egislature made it a priority to restrict executive power. Slom wrote, “ The L egislature always wants [to give] more power to itself than to the executive.”
EXECUTIVE CONSTRAINTS Before the A rticle X amendment, the governor appointed whomever she wanted as a regent, with the consent of the Senate. A fter passing the constitutional referendum, the L egislature passed Act 56, which enacted the amend-
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ment. Then- Gov. Lingle vetoed it, but the veto was quickly overridden. Act 56 created a system whereby seven people appoint seven other people to the RCAC. The RCAC in turn selects two or three candidates for each regent position and sends those names to the governor. The seven people who select the RCAC members are the president of the Senate, the speaker of the House of Representatives, one of the co-chairs of the All Campus Council of Faculty Senate Chairs of the University of Hawai‘i, chairperson of the Executive Council of the University of Hawai‘i Student Caucus, chairperson of the Association of Emeritus Regents, president of the University of Hawai‘i Alumni Association and the governor. Essentially, while the executive used to control 100 percent of the candidate nomination process, the executive now controls one-seventh of the process.
Q UA L I F I E D C A N D I DAT E S? Kathryn Matayoshi, the Senate-appointed member of the RCAC and the current superintendent of the Hawai‘i Public School System, thinks the RCAC does a decent job. A “good group of people [are] on the committee,” wrote Matayoshi in an e-mail. See RCAC, next page
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Volu me 105 Issue 76
CURRENT REGENTS Karl Fujii Chair Term Ends 6/30/11 Appointed by the President of the University of Hawai‘i Alumni Association Neil Bellinger Vice Chair Term ends 6/30/13 Appointed by Speaker of the House L. Thomas Ramsey Secretary Term ends 6/30/11 Appointed by one of the cochairs of the All Campus Council of Faculty Senate Chairs of the University of Hawai‘i Nelson B. Befitel Member Term Ends 6/30/13 Appointed by Gov. Lingle Joseph F. Blanco Member Term ends 6/30/11 Chairperson of the Association of Emeritus Regents Worked for Cayetano; former UH Regent Kathryn Matayoshi Member Term ends 6/30/13 Appointed by the President of the Senate Current Superintendent of DOE Dove Atherall Student Member Term ends 6/30/11 Appointed by Chairperson of the Executive Council of the UHSC
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