 Aloha and welcome to Ehana Kako. We're here every week on the Think Tech Hawaii Broadcast Network. I'm Kili Iakina, president of the Grassroot Institute, one of the delights of being involved in public policies. You meet some really smart people. And one of those people is Colin Moore, who's the head of the UH Public Policy Center, as well as a professor in political science at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. In just a few moments I'm going to introduce him. And we're going to chat a little bit about something that is, well, it takes place all the time here in Hawaii, but we often don't think of the ramifications. And that is, we look at short-term politics and somehow turn that into long-range policy. For example, take housing. There have been some emergency decrees to deal with the problem of housing. And those may be politically popular, but is housing, or homelessness, rather, an emergency? And is it a short-term problem or is it a long-term problem? We're going to talk a little bit about that later on. But first, we may talk a bit about the rail, because that was a hot topic this past Saturday in the 2016 primary elections that were held here in Hawaii. And sitting right there on the cameras, giving his punditry, was Colin Moore. Colin, welcome to the program. Happy to be here. Well, always delightful to talk with you. And we don't even have to rehearse, because when we sit down and have coffee, all we do is talk politics. That's right. It just comes naturally. The wonky thing we're going to do today is have you weigh in on whether short-term political statements actually are good in terms of long-term policy. And we'll talk about the homelessness issue there. But first, we can't resist talking about the elections. So you are pundit-apundits on Saturday night. Yes. I got to see those results come in. It wasn't the world's most interesting election, but there's almost something comforting given what's going on in the national scene. That's right. Relative stability of a center-left-away politics. Calmness. Yes, yes. Well, you can tell clearly the different views of Trump and Hillary, but could you tell the differing views of the mayoral candidates, the center stage event? I mean, the one view is about rail. That's right. Which street? It stops on. Which street? It stops on whether or not the mayor is a flip-flopper. Should we fire Dan Grubowskis? I mean, all of these things, the whole race pretty much turned on rail. I mean, and that's because Charles Dejeu is the anti-rail candidate. Right. I saw a sign out there that says, not Middle Street, go to school in Louisa. Just come straight to my house. Just a rallying cry. And, you know, talking about the mayoral race, do you think a lot of the posturing in terms of some of the political, some of the candidates had to do with gaining short-term value, getting votes? Oh, I think so. I mean, and actually, I think Mayor Caldwell paid a bit of a price for this because he had earlier said, well, now he's going to entertain the idea of stopping in Middle Street. Then he perhaps changed his mind a little bit and said, oh, no, we're just going to go there until we can get the rest of the money to finish it to Alamoana. I think that there is a little bit of a short-term gamesmanship. What I hear you suggesting is that he had a policy approach that he had been driving for quite a while. But when the elections came, he needed to make some course adjustments, some adjustments to his actual policy. That's right. And I mean, whether he did that because it was, you know, he actually reconsidered it or because he wanted to appeal to anti-rail voters. I mean, people have different opinions on that. Well, stepping back a little bit, you're a political scientist, so you study the behavior of political people. And it's often thought that politicians get their views from taking polls. How true is that? I think for the most part, there's a lot of truth to it. I mean, it depends on the sort of politician you are. I mean, there are some people who are, you know, aren't planning to run for higher office. They're at the end of their term. But for the most part, yeah, I mean, there's a very famous book in political science that tries to explain the whole system as a way simply as an incumbency racket, basically, that all of these rules are set up to protect incumbents. Well, we're going to come back to talking about the mayor's race and the rail in a moment. But you're talking about incumbency. There can be no stronger incumbency enclave than the Office of Hawaiian Affairs Board of Trustees. I need to make a quick disclosure before we can talk about this. I am not only your host on Ehana Kako, and not only the president of Grassroots Institute, which does nothing politically partisan for candidates, but with another hat, I happened to run in the primary election for trustee at large in the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. And I was fortunate enough, as a subject of Collins discourse, to be one of the runners of thought. So I'm one of two candidates going into the general election. And I'm facing a 20-year incumbent. Now, back to our conversation. And that was just by way of disclosure. The Office of Hawaiian Affairs has some people who've been there for over 10 years and decades and so forth. In many ways, people say that the confusion about how somebody becomes a trustee keeps the incumbents in office. Oh, I think that's very true. I mean, the races tend not to be either. There's many candidates, so it's very difficult to really see clearly what each candidate is, their position on these issues. Well, one year, there were over 80 candidates. And so many people here in Hawaii who have been here many years, remember the days when you have this long list of names and you look down the list, you don't know anybody, but you find a chemo because you have a cousin who's named chemo and something like that. How much does name recognition play in when there are multiple candidates in the field? Oh, it's tremendous. I mean, name recognition is always very important. But when voters have very little information, I mean, the only thing they know is they recognize a name. It helps the incumbents all the more. And I mean, I think OHA is particularly complicated because there are so many people who aren't native Hawaiian, who don't vote in those elections, which means they tend not to get much press coverage. Well, a lot of people don't realize that it is a state government agency whose trustees are elected by the body politic and whose salaries and benefits are paid for by the taxpayers. Yet people, for their various reasons, they may not know or they may not feel comfortable, often don't participate. In fact, this year in the primary, 41% of the people who had an OHA ballot on their ballot, they could have checked the box, simply didn't. Why do you think that is? Well, I think, I mean, I think it's really, there are two causes. I think some people have sort of a principled stand where they don't think it's appropriate for folks who aren't native Hawaiian to vote in that election. The other is, I think a lot of people just simply don't know anything about the office. They don't know anything about the candidates. And so they simply don't know who to vote for. And all that goes back to your premise that it's designed to keep the incumbents in office. There's just one other feature before we jump off of the OHA race. There are trustees who are at large, four of them. They run across the state, they represent the whole state. But there are trustees who represent each of the islands. And yet, if you're a trustee representing an island like the Big Island or Molokai or Kauai, you have to run statewide. You have to collect votes from all the other islands and most notably from Oahu to get in. And the numbers show that Oahu determines who wins. Now, how does that, in fact, affect incumbency? Well, I mean, again, I think it has a similar effect, which is that because you're even attracting votes from other islands where they're even less likely to know who you are, again, it's name recognition. And if there's no other way to make your decision, voting for the incumbent is a pretty rational way to do it because you've heard about them. They've been in the news. They've been on the radio. You know those names. So unless you have a cause to dislike them, that's usually where people default. Well, let's go back to the mayor's choice. Does incumbency there give the incumbent mayor Caldwell an advantage or could it be a liability when there is a very controversial issue that he's been identified with? You know, that's a really interesting question. And I think in this case, the incumbent mayor does have a disadvantage because he's so associated with the rail project. I mean, Kirk Caldwell was associated with rail before he became mayor. But those big projects, people tend to punish the folks at the top. This happens at the presidential level too. When the economy isn't doing well, that becomes a real problem for a president when he's running for reelection. But members of Congress tend not to be punished in the same way. And so I think for the most part, rail criticism really hurts the incumbent. Well, as you observe the incumbents going into the primary race, and there were not just three, but your media. So are you media? Are you outside media? I'm outside media. I'm not real media. But media has focused on only three candidates, really. As you've seen their platforms, how much do you think they have been affected by short term political posturing? Oh, I mean, I think, well, if you have some examples, that would be great. Um, you know, how I mean, I think in part Charles Dijoux got into this race because he saw an opening. I mean, that's often how candidates develop their, I mean, raise money. I mean, they find an issue that's compelling. Charles Dijoux has long had problems because he has this R attached to his name, which in Hawaii politics is pretty poisonous. But a nonpartisan race, by Republican, yes. You can't even say the word. And so in a nonpartisan race, he doesn't he doesn't suffer under that, you know, partisan label. But I think for the most part, I mean, most politicians, if you're going to be good and win, you really do have to campaign on short term issues. Now, I don't raise this issue as any criticism of Charles Dijoux's campaign, but you point out that rail was looming there as an issue to ride, so to speak, into into political strength and so forth. Obviously, he was not involved in rail policy, didn't necessarily have a policy paper in advance. And so a lot of the policy had to be developed on the fly in the campaign. To what extent are candidates in general really addressing the long term policy needs in their campaign? I think they rarely are. I mean, if I were advising a campaign, I wouldn't suggest that they do that. I mean, that's really not how voters vote. You tell them it has to fit on a bumper sticker. Yeah, exactly. I mean, that that that I mean, that's the complicated thing, right? When you're running for office, you really are playing to people's hopes or their fears, actually not being particularly specific about what you're going to do can be an advantage. That's why my campaign team tells me that it's not going to fit if I start back in 1778. No one no one will be reading, you know, extensive white papers. So when we get into office, when candidates ultimately have to perform in the public policy realm that they have been elected to, how much are they held held to or how much are they affected by the way they've campaigned and the way that they have crafted the issues to get into office? Well, I think I mean, this is what frustrates voters so much. This in part is why why Americans hate politics because politicians will tell them stories about what they're going to do. They're going to fix trail. They're going to cut your taxes. And when they get in office, they can't do those things either because there's opposition from the other party or because it's simply not possible. And and this is why people feel frustrated because they feel like they're buying one thing and they never actually received that and candidates know this. I mean, there is a certain amount of strategy, but also it's a little cynical. I mean, they know very well, they're not able to do all the things they're promising. But this is the way you win. You've observed the culture of politics and it's very easy to say they're all bums. They're all liars. Politicians don't know how to tell the truth and so forth. But but you've seen these people as real human beings. Is there a pressure that ultimately affects even individuals with with character and integrity is the campaign pressure and the fundraising pressure that great that it causes them to to fudge a bit on their message? I think so. I mean, I think for the most part, most people who get into politics do it for the right reasons. I mean, they really do care. But to make a difference, you have to get elected. And so I think that's always kind of the moral dilemma for most politicians. You're not able to make the sort of change you want to make if you can't actually win. And so winning means that you have to raise money. Sometimes you have to raise money from people you don't like. Sometimes you have to say things that aren't exactly 100 percent accurate. So very often the short term bid for office can interfere with doing good public policy. This is calling more that we're listening to. And when we come back, we're going to take an example and look at it extensively. And that is the emergency decrees that have been issued by our governor regarding the homelessness situation. I'm Keely Akina. We'll be right back on Think Tech Hawaii's Ehana Kako after this quick message. Hey, everybody. My name is David Chang. And I am a new host for the show, The Art of Thinking Smart. I'm really excited to be able to share with you how to get the smart edge in life. We're going to have awesome guests in the military, business, political, nonprofit world. So no matter what background you're from, we have something for you. Please join us every other Thursday at 10 a.m. at thinktechhawaii.com or on the art of thinkiesmart.com. I look forward to seeing you. Aloha, everyone. I'm Maria Mera. And I'm here to invite you to my bilingual show, Viva Hawaii, every other Monday at 3 p.m. We are here to show you news, issues, and events local and around the world. Join me. Aloha, everybody. My name is Mark Shklav. I'd like you to join me for my program, Law Across the Sea on thinktechhawaii.com. Aloha. Welcome back to Ehana Kakao. As I've said many times here, Ehana Kakao was inspired by a venerable Hawaiian saying, a pule kakao. Let's pray kakao together. Well, at the Grassroot Institute, we also like to say Ehana Kakao. Let's work together because think of the terrible alternative, not working together. And that's what often happens because of politics. But today, we're going to take a look at a different trade-off. Now, as Colin Moore, professor of political science at the University of Hawaii and the director of the UH Public Policy Center, addresses the tension between short-term politics and long-range policy, especially in a very important issue here in Hawaii, and that is homelessness. Well, Colin, we have seen the rise of homelessness here over the last several years in our state. And at one point, we had one of the largest or the second largest homeless tent city and the federal government came down and declared that that's what was the case. What are some of the longer-term causes of homelessness here in Hawaii? Well, I mean, it's certainly all about, for the most part, the cost of living. It's just a tremendously expensive place to live. And the wages aren't that high to compensate for the expense of living here. I mean, there's really sort of three groups of homeless, I think. I mean, there are folks who simply can't afford to buy or rent a place. There are people who have drug and alcohol problems. And then there are people who have serious mental problems. And that last category is the most difficult to deal with. So it's important for us to understand the various causes. And you've identified three and some people get even more specific and identify up to seven or eight different causes and even include veterans and post-traumatic stress disorder and so forth. For the most part, we have methodology for dealing with the type of homelessness, except for a very small amount of that we really can't deal with very easily because of our laws and so forth. But how long have we had the problem of homelessness? In other words, what I'm asking is, is it a sudden emergency or is it something that has been systemic with the kind of economy that we have in Hawaii? Oh, I think it's been systemic. It's gotten worse over the last few years. But it's certainly nothing new. This getting worse, so it's not so much a sudden change. It's just the condition is becoming so severe that we're starting to notice it more. It's becoming more apparent to anybody who walks down a city sidewalk or goes to a park. That's right. And I think it really reached this crisis point when the homeless population, for example, in Waikiki, grew fairly large and it really was hurting this central economic engine of the state. And so I think that's where it really got political attention. It was a problem that existed for a long time, but all of a sudden it started to actually threaten the economy. Well, talking about short-term remedies, one that is amusing, but also really tragic when we think about it, was when the APEC Association of Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation came to Hawaii and there were 13 heads of states here, heads of state here. There was the emerging homelessness problem at that time and homeless encampments at the doorway of Waikiki. So the city arranged to have them moved to Thomas Square, which is in central Honolulu, right across from the Honolulu Art Museum today with the Academy of Arts. But the coordination was fairly poor and the opening event for the heads of state was held at that art museum. So people arrived and actually saw the homelessness problem at the very beginning of the APEC event. Kind of amusing, but tragic as I say, to what extent has this kind of short-term thinking been our approach to dealing with homelessness as a government here in Hawaii? Oh, I think it really has, until recently, I mean, it really does describe how we have dealt with homelessness and Hawaii isn't unique in this regard. I mean, lots of cities simply want to remove homeless people to places where they can't be seen. I mean, because it's embarrassing and it should be embarrassing that we've let our fellow citizens down like this. But the question is how can we best respond? And I've been a bit critical of Governor Igay's disaster, I mean, rather emergency proclamation to deal with homelessness. Well, we'll go to there in just a moment, but following up on what you've just said, is the perception that all government is doing and it's a generalization, but how accurate is the perception that government simply seems to be moving the homeless around? I talk with a lot of people that's their perception of what government does. I mean, it's not entirely inaccurate. I mean, it's just, first it's very expensive and difficult to build adequate shelters here. I mean, there are some people who have a variety of problems who are difficult to house. I mean, there's been real policy innovations in that area. Housing first is the most famous example, real efforts to house veterans. So we are making incremental improvements, but the population is large, it continues to grow. And it's a very difficult problem for any government to deal with. So, I mean, we can't just blame, ineffective state policies because it's a tough nut to crack. Well, Hawaii's current governor, David Ige, inherited many conditions in the state, one of them being a growing homelessness. And you've taken exception to his approach, basically the issuing of multiple emergency decrees. But why wouldn't someone see homelessness as an emergency? Or is that political speak? Well, I think that, I mean, it is a crisis. But the reason the governor is given these powers of emergency proclamation usually is to deal with a natural disaster and something so the state can operate very quickly. So they're not dealing with union collective bargaining issues, the usual sort of procurement rules because something has to happen right now. So this declaration of an emergency state allows the government, the executive branch, to take certain actions that it otherwise would be restricted from doing. You mentioned, for example, getting around the rules we have for union labor and so forth. That's right. I mean, and so by lifting those rules, I mean, the theory is, and this is how Governor Ige would justify it, that it allows the state to be nimble, to act quickly, to deal with this problem without waiting for months for bids or the other sorts of things you have to do when the state is acquiring services. The problem with that is, though, that this can be a very slippery slope. I mean, the emergency proclamation powers give the governor some extraordinary powers. I mean, we should be careful in how we use them, particularly when you see them continued month after month after month continually reauthorized. So what we see here is a challenge to the balance of powers. In other words, we're bypassing the legislative branch over here, and we're also making ourselves somewhat immune to the judicial branch by giving ourselves a free pass in terms of certain actions and giving great power for the executive to do what it chooses to do. That's right. And it's not as if this isn't a laudable goal. It is. But we have to be careful about what precedence that sets. I mean, this can become a standard tool for governors in the future, simply when they're dealing with a tough policy problem to declare an emergency proclamation and then act as they'd like to. If we were to translate this dialogue we're having to a federal national level, this is where people in the battles between conservatives and the progressives would be talking about executive overreach. That's right. That's right. And so this has happened at the presidential level. And what the interesting thing is, and this is what concerns me about Governor E. Gay's emergency proclamation, is that it kind of has this ratchet effect. And so once one president expands his executive powers, the next president builds on that. I mean, this is one thing Republicans and Democrats can agree on when they're in the office of the presidency is that they want more executive power. From a pragmatic point of view, how effective is emergency action in solving something which you've already said is systemic with the economy? You know, I really don't think it is that effective. I mean, it's such a complex problem and it requires a long-term approach. I mean, so this might get some folks in houses sooner than they otherwise would be able to. But that isn't what's really gonna address the long-term problem. I think the root of this and why you have to declare an emergency proclamation is that our state government is so ineffective that the only way to get anything done in a timely manner is to issue one of these extraordinary declarations. So it's not so much a solution, but it's the only way of navigating during a dysfunctional time in our government. That's right. And what we really should- That's a great defense. Yeah. I mean, what we really should be talking about is why are the normal ways the state can go about doing business, why have we reached the point where they're simply incapable of doing anything? Well, you know, as part of the Grassroot Institute, I would hope that policy makers would sit down and talk about land use policy, the supply and demand of land, affordable housing, long-term issues that ultimately impact whether there's short-term housing. But these emergency measures tend to work against that, would you say? I think so. I mean, it's something that can be politically appealing. I mean, this looks like the governor is acting and acting aggressively. That's popular. Well, that's like a president going to war. Right. Right. The war on drugs, the war on poverty. Or appointing various policies, ours, and things like that. But I don't think it solves a long-term problem. And it introduces these other things, which are troubling, which is the expansion of executive power, which kind of, I mean, is really, I think, inappropriate. Well, it's an election year, so let's go to perceptions by the public of what they want their leaders to be doing. Does this play well in the eyes of the public? It does play well. I mean, the public actually likes expanding executive power. They don't like the messiness of the legislature. I mean, that's the funny thing about the American political system is that people find American politics so frustrating because it's so slow. But of course, that's the way it was designed, to slow down the process, to make us think more deliberately about these policy solutions. Again, jumping back to the national elections, doesn't at least one of the candidates for president, Mr. Trump, pronounce, similarly measures, pronounce short-term emergency solutions to problems. He absolutely does. And this is why I find Mr. Trump of a fairly dangerous figure. From a policy-want point of view. From a policy-want point of view from someone who wants to honor the Constitution. I mean, frankly, the Constitution is set up to make sure that someone like Mr. Trump can't enact the sorts of policies he wants to enact. Now, equal time. Like, can you see the same thing in any of the pronouncements of his opponent, Ms. Clinton? I mean, I think that the Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Secretary Clinton has a similar, you know, has some similar liabilities. I mean, she operates in a different way, which is more about secrets and avoiding transparency. Well, there we go. The equal time just saved you from getting hit by tomatoes. All right. Which goes back to perceptions in Hawaii. So some things play well politically, whether it's national or locally, but they're not necessarily good policy in the long run. That's right. Well, what can we do as the electorate, or unfortunately in this state, as a very tiny percentage of people who actually vote, what can we do as citizenry to help encourage our policymakers to consider the long-range solutions rather than just short-term politics? Well, I mean, it is a matter of becoming more informed about the complexity of these issues. I mean, electing people who are more deliberative, who seem more careful than simply trying to win their next election. Well, Colin, thank you for your insights. Always great to have you on the show. My pleasure. My guest today is Colin Moore, professor of political science at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, the director of the UH Public Policy Center and a friend. And thank you for watching today. Ehana Kako, let's work together. We're here every week on the Think Tech Hawaii broadcast network. Until next week, aloha.