(BIVN) – A new bill that would “remove the ability of the governor or a mayor to suspend electronic media transmission during a state of emergency” is making its way through the Hawaiʻi State Legislature.

House Bill 2581 (HD 1) has already been passed through the State House and will be heard in the Senate Committee on Public Safety and Intergovernmental and Military Affairs on Monday, March 11. 

From the language of the bill:

The legislature finds that the power of the governor or a mayor to suspend the transmission of electronic media during a state of emergency is overly broad and vague. Electronic media could include not only all radio and television broadcasts, but also could potentially include text messages, emails, and posts to social media platforms, which would restrain lawful free speech and publication and violate the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.

The proposed bill may sound familiar. Last year, House Bill 522 made its way through the State Legislature.

In this year’s House Judiciary & Hawaiian Affairs Committee hearing on the new bill, Chris Leonard of New West Broadcasting Corp and president of the Hawaiʻi Association of Broadcasters, said that last year’s bill made it to conference committee, but missed the deadline. At that time, he was working with the Hawaiʻi Emergency Management Agency, or HI-EMA, on a compromise.

Leonard said he thinks broadcasters share “similar concerns that HI-EMA has, and that is an obligation to make sure we keep the public informed.”

“They want to make sure that they are able to move, and do what they need to do under a state of emergency,” Leonard said. “For our membership, for our broadcasters, we want to make sure that we can continue to keep people informed. If you look around the country, if you look at the Paradise fires in California, you look at  Katrina, and more recently, if you look at the tragedy in Lahaina, it’s clear that more communication, not less, is absolutely critical. Anything that potentially stands in the way of that – aside from being against law, aside from potentially being a violation of the First Amendment of the Constitution – is just a danger to public safety. We want to make sure that we can do everything we can to keep the public informed.”