The Senate Ways and Means Committee took a very different tack. Its 10-page version basically said, Well take away the States 10 percent skim off the surcharge, but no extension; youre on your own.

That draft unanimously passed the full Senate and went over to the House.

House Finance Committee Chairwoman Sylvia Luke and Senate Ways and MeansChairwoman Jill Tokudaplayed key roles in the various drafts of the rail tax bill.

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

There, the House Transportation Committee kept the bill alive by putting blanks in it its draft extended the tax to an unspecified date, reinstated the skim but replaced the percentage with a blank percent to recover the states costs and a blank percent that would go the DOT for state highway projects.

The House Finance Committee then filled in the blanks, extending the tax for two years, and dropping the skim to 1 percent, none of which would be earmarked for the DOT.

This version went to the conference committee, and then surprising things started happening.

First, the Senate proposed a new draft, radically different from the version that passed the Senate, which extended the surcharge for 10years and raised the skim to 20 percent.

The House came back with a draft that left the GET surcharge untouched, dropped the skim to 1 percent and raised the hotel room tax from 9.25 percent to a hefty 12 percent.

The latter proposal, though innovative, caught the hotel industry unaware, prompting vigorous objections. Then-Senate money chair Tokuda agreed to that version with tweaks a few hours later, thereby making the final decking deadline.

After frantic meetings through the weekend, the money chairs, apparently with some members of the hotel industry, reached a compromise involving a shorter GET extension and a lower TAT hike.

Amendments were introduced on the chamber floors to implement the agreement, although another version with only a GET extension and no TAT increase, which Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell supported, was circulating in the Senate.

The House passed one version and jettisoned its speaker, while the Senate adopted the other version and deposed Chairwoman Tokuda.

With no agreement between the chambers, neither version can be enacted. That is where we are now.

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Tom Yamachika: Anatomy Of The Epic Fail On Rail - Honolulu Civil Beat