This brief makes the point that Hawaii’s occupational licensing laws have made it difficult for out-of-state medical personnel to work in the islands, thereby contributing to the state’s documented shortage of healthcare workers.
Hawaii’s emergency-management laws need to be reformed to prevent the extensive exercise of unchecked power by the governor. This report recommends specifically that the state Legislature step in and restore the checks and balances that have gone missing during the public health emergency, declared in an effort to deal with the spread of COVID-19.
This report focuses on how to deal with the so-called Konno decision of 1997, in which the Hawaii Supreme Court ruled that civil service positions, with few exceptions, cannot be performed by private-sector workers, leaving the state with little flexibility in crafting public policy.
