Democrats in the state House of Representatives opened this year's Legislature by announcing with much fanfare that they would significantly strengthen ethics laws that govern legislators.

A bill introduced by Speaker Calvin Say and signed by 38 of the 44 House Democrats barred most privately funded junkets and gifts from lobbyists, prohibited privately paid representatives of special interests from serving as legislative interns, prevented lawmakers' spouses from working as lobbyists, doubled the blackout period before a former lawmaker could become a lobbyist and forced legislators and their employees to file detailed ethics disclosures.

According to Say, a tough law was needed to put teeth behind internal ethics rules in the House and Senate that are easily waived.

"I'm happy to say that we are here, trying our best to improve the conduct of all elected officials and state officials, in trying to bring the trust and confidence back to the people of Hawai'i," the speaker said in January.

With such a buildup, it was astounding to see the extent to which the ethics measure, HB 1909, was gutted when the House passed it on second reading Friday and docked it for final approval and passage to the Senate this week.

Gone are the provisions requiring disclosures by lawmakers and restricting gifts, junkets, embedded corporate interns and lobbying by ex-legislators and spouses. All that's left are vaguely defined ethics committees in each house with vaguely defined duties.

How could this happen after all the sanctimonious pontificating about ethics by House leadership, and after an overwhelming majority of members signed their names to the original language?

There was no explanation for the evisceration in the joint committee report issued by the Judiciary and Legislative Management committees, chaired by Rep. Tommy Waters and Rep. Michael Magaoay, respectively.

The committee report still lists a major purpose of the bill as "establishing additional ethics requirements and standards for elected officials and state officials and employees."

Then it says two sentences later that the measure was amended by "removing the provisions establishing additional ethics requirements and standards for elected officials and state officials and employees."

Huh? This could be likened to a puppy chasing its tail, except puppies are cute.

In the absence of any explanation for the changes, we can only infer the reasons: that special interests used to getting their way in the Legislature didn't want to give up their right to buy influence, and legislators didn't wish to give up their right to be bought.

It would be a surprise if the bill is toughened in the Senate, which has let the House take the lead and didn't even hold a hearing on a companion bill.

The opening of the original version of HB 1909 said, "Legislators are entrusted by the people of Hawai'i to serve the public interest. Through the responsible use of this political power, legislators demonstrate their understanding and respect for those on whose behalf they have accepted this trust."

If legislators once intended HB 1909 as a display of respect for the citizens they serve, it follows by logical extension that gutting the measure was a display of contempt for the citizenry.

It proves again that when there's choice between their own welfare and the public welfare, these legislators will protect their selfish interests every time, whether the issue is ethics, tightening Hawai'i's shamefully lax bribery laws for elected officials or reforming campaign finance rules to give opposing candidates a fair chance.

They'll persist in their selfishness as long as the relatively few citizens who vote continue to send back the incumbents who stick it to them year after year.

David Shapiro, a veteran Hawai'i journalist, can be reached by e-mail at dave@volcanicash.net. Read his daily blog at blogs.honoluluadvertiser.com.