Rebelling Against the Culture of Silence

by Tom Yamachika, President, Tax Foundation Hawaii

For a very long time, there has been a culture of silence within Hawaii state government.

This culture has manifested in various ways.  In our Legislature, for example, Civil Beat recently reported that legislators just vote yes to move things along, 98% of the time.  UH Professor Colin Moore found this to be just one of many “procedural habits that minimize visible conflict. Real debates on the floor of the House and Senate are rare. … And many controversial bills are never even scheduled for a hearing. They’re not voted down. They simply vanish.”  Our own research has taken aim at what we call “Blankety Blank” bills, ones that are voted on with blanks in key places and pass anyway…because folks either don’t want to or, more likely, are told not to discuss or debate them.

The culture of silence is also within state agencies.  Our research (part 1, part 2) has led us to “secret law,” directives that are supposed to be followed by Department of Taxation staff but are not made available to the tax paying public.  We are still in the process of fighting the government in the court system and in the Office of Information Practices to make them release the vast majority of these directives and to invalidate a part of one of them that is inconsistent with statutory law.

Of course, we are not the only ones trying to promote transparency in government.  The Public First Law Center has brought dozens of cases in the court system and has made great strides in this area.

That brings us to the remarkable development we write about today.

As Hawaii Free Press reported, one highly placed official at the Department of Taxation recently came out with an elaborate, highly factual 49-page complaint that accused the current Director of Taxation of having a highly toxic work environment.  He named names, including his own.  He sent the information to dozens of people, including the Governor, all legislators, HGEA, and the accused director. 

Among the factual allegations is that the Director organized a tightly woven process to control any and all information that was released to the Governor’s Office or to the Legislature, and that he orchestrated the removal of a 30+ year employee, known and respected by other Department staff and the practitioner community, because that employee was consulting with the previous Director of Taxation.  I suppose he considered that employee to be not “loyal” enough, similar to behavior exhibited by a certain President of the United States.

I give the employee who made the complaint (at least he was an employee when he sent it) credit for unparalleled courage. 

In response to Hawaii Free Press’ inquiries, both the Director of Taxation and the Governor’s Office declined to comment, saying that it was a personnel matter.  No surprises there.

It now remains to be seen what will become of the complaint.  In past days, back-channel discussions would lead to a decision, which would be implemented very, very quietly.  More than likely, the disgruntled employee would be quietly removed and fade into oblivion.  This time, with a very public step being taken, it will be impossible to simply sweep the matter under the rug. 

We encourage everyone involved to act calmly and fairly.  Your ultimate bosses – not the Governor, but the people of Hawaii – will be interested to see how this turns out.