ThinkTech Hawaii: The Unending State of Emergency

The Unending State of Emergency. The host for this show is Jay Fidell. The guest is Tom Yamachika.

A “state of emergency,” which causes the Governor’s emergency powers to kick in, is supposed to terminate automatically after sixty days. Our Governor has gotten around this limitation by proclaiming a continued emergency just before the sixty-day clock runs out, thereby restarting the sixty-day clock. Most of us have lost count of the number of emergency proclamations. Legislators, understandably, are getting perturbed that they are being left out, and will be introducing measures to give the Legislature a veto power over all or a part of an emergency proclamation. The Governor, on the other hand, says that Hawaii is doing better than most states because of the emergency powers he has wielded. “I would say this: Virtually every single state that tied the governor’s hands has regretted it,” Ige is quoted as saying.

In this episode, we discuss the tension over the Governor’s emergency powers and possible action to be taken in the 2022 Legislature.