Lawmakers override age-of-consent veto State lawmakers voted to override Governor Ben Cayetano’s veto of a bill to raise Hawaii’s age of consent for sex from 14 to 16 during a special session Tuesday. It’s the first override session since 1957
Lawmakers override age-of-consent veto
State lawmakers voted to override Governor Ben Cayetano’s veto of a bill to raise Hawaii’s age of consent for sex from 14 to 16 during a special session Tuesday.
It’s the first override session since 1957 and the first since statehood in 1959.
The vote required a two-thirds majority vote to override the governor’s veto. In the House, 48 members voted to override, with three members excused. In the Senate, one member voted against the override, while 23 members voted yes and one was excused.
Cayetano had blasted the override decision, accusing his fellow Democrats of “pure politics.”
He said he vetoed the bill because he considered it a badly written law that imposes severe punishment – up to 20 years in prison – on some young people having consensual sex, while providing no punishment for others because of a few months’ age difference.
The governor had the support of city prosecutors, police and civil rights groups, including the State Commission on the Status of Women.
But Republicans and many majority Democrats in the State Legislature, as well as others, said the present law protects sex by older people with 14-year-old children – a lower age of consent than any other state.
House Speaker Calvin Say and Senate President Robert Bunda said Monday they expected the session to take only about five minutes, but lawmakers spent more than an hour on the measure.
Under the state Constitution, the override session was required to begin before noon Tuesday – the 45th day after the veto.
The age of consent bill approved in May would make it a Class A felony of first-degree sexual assault with a prison term of up to 20 years for a person to have sex with someone he or she knows to be younger than 16, provided the age gap is not less than five years and the two are not legally married.
“This is a great victory for Hawai’i’s children,” said Kelly Rosati, executive director of the Hawai’i Family Forum, a strong supporter of raising the age of consent.
Hawai’i was the last state in the union where the age of consent was 14. South Carolina, the other remaining holdout raised its age of consent to 15 last year.
Sen. Jonathan Chun (D-7th District), who was lauded for his work in convening the special session by Rosati’s organization, had called House Bill 0236 an “honorable compromise.’
At the beginning of the regular legislative session in late January, seven age-of-consent bills were proposed.
TGI staff writer Dennis Wilken and Associated Press writer Bruce Dunford contributed to this report.
