A weak gesture of solidarity from state lawmakers on pay issues during a deep recession is better than none at all.

That's why House Bill 1536, which passed the House Committee on Labor and Public Employment, should be advanced by the Finance Committee and moved to the state Senate.

It proposes a salary freeze for the governor, lieutenant governor, justices and judges of all state courts, administrative director of the state, departmental directors and deputy directors, and members of the Legislature.

Where lawmakers are concerned, accepting a pay freeze at current levels amounts to shutting the barn door after the horse has bolted. Effective Jan. 1, their salaries shot up by nearly 36 percent. While the increases they're forgoing in the next two fiscal years are at the 5 percent range, the big fat raise is already in the bag.

Hawai'i is confronting a budget deficit of $1.2 billion, a hole that may sink even deeper when the next projections of tax revenues come out. Lawmakers need to persuade public employees to accept the shared sacrifice of pay freezes to bridge the budgetary gap.

Good luck with that. These union workers did not share the legislators' bounty of a whopping salary boost just last month.

The committee report on the bill acknowledges that the state Commission on Salaries approved the raises "at a time when Hawaii's economic future looked bright," and that, given the fiscal downturn, a freeze "would be the most prudent thing to do."

But folks at the state Capitol will have to understand if the public doesn't hand them any medals for that insight.