 Aloha. Welcome to Think Tech Hawaii's Movers, Shakers, and Reformers Politics in Hawaii series. I'm your host, Carl Kimbanya. In our country, in our state, we have a party system for our politics. And the two primary, I guess, strong parties that we have, and it seems to be only a two-party system, would be the Democrats and the Republicans. There are other parties. So it's not as, you know, I guess, digital as that. It's not one in zero only. There are other options, but the two strongest ones are Democrat and Republican. And some people think that's good. Some people think that's bad. I think it's good to have a lot of viewpoints. So today we're going to talk about, I guess, what these parties are and how they work a little bit. But we're going to focus that question on the Democratic Party of Hawaii. And today our guest is Ms. Laura Nevitt, who is the new Executive Director of the Democratic Party of Hawaii. And we're going to hear a bit from her about what she's done, what her role is, and a little bit about what the party really function is, and really what role the party plays. So this is probably very similar from Democratic, Republican, and other parties. There might be some variances, but that's what we're going to learn today. So thank you for joining us, and thank you, Laura, for joining us on the show. Thank you for having me. It's great to be here. Excellent. So first of all, welcome to Hawaii. Thank you very much. Happy to be here. Can't believe I'm here most days, but in a good way. But very happy to be here. Excellent. So how long have you been here now? I arrived on February 7th. So Super Bowl Sunday actually is when I arrived and have been kind of here. So that was, I make two months now? Yeah, about two months. Two full months, yeah. And where'd you come from? I came from Minnesota. So why? You came from snow. I came from snow. Actually the day I left, it was 20 degrees in Minnesota. So it was quiet lovely after a long journey here to arrive in a beautiful, sunny, tropical place. And I think it was probably about 75 degrees, 8 degrees. So it couldn't have been better. It's about normal. It's about 80 degrees, 80 to 84 degrees in the sunny most days. I love it. I love it. Excellent, excellent. So okay, speaking about that, then let's talk about your journey. What has gotten you here at all? What have you been doing? Tell us about yourself and what has gotten you to this place? A long journey, a good journey though. 20 years I've been doing this work started when I moved to rural Wisconsin in 1985, no, 1995, sorry. And got involved in my local Democratic Party. I was doing an internship at a women's shelter and my local county unit chair came and introduced himself when we got chatting. And he was like, oh my God, you got to come and get involved. And I was like, okay, I had no idea what I was doing and mostly just did it as a place to get engaged in my community. And that's kind of how I got started and ended up getting involved in a gubernatorial race that year. And they then brought me on board because we did some local organizing and then off I went and haven't looked back. And I've gotten to go to a lot of really cool places and meet a lot of really amazing people, which is mostly what I remember is the people and the stories that I get to learn in different places. So I've worked in Wisconsin and Minnesota and Michigan and Ohio and Iowa and Louisiana in Washington state and now Hawaii. And so I've gotten to be all over the place and that's really what I enjoy. I like that. I like to hear people's stories and learn about them and learn about their communities and what they need and what they want and what they're trying to accomplish and help facilitate that. What would you say, looking at all of those different locations, what would you say some of the similarities are and some of the differences are? Is it an easy way to do an assessment? It's kind of, I say they're all, they're the same, but yet different. It is kind of an interesting, just different flavors, right? It's basically what you learn and being around a lot of different communities is most everybody wants the same thing. They're trying to do the same things. They want to live in a good community or a better community or improve their community. They want good jobs so they can take care of their families and educate their kids and do the things that make them happy and feel productive in their community. They want access to health care. All of that stuff. Most everybody does. How they go about it, the flavor is the cultural flavors of being, you know, getting to spend time down in New Orleans, right? With Creole communities. It's different than spending time with nurses in Detroit. It's kind of as the same as when I lived in a rural community for eight years. Meeting with, talking with farmers and hunters is not the same as living in an urban setting when I lived in St. Paul, Minnesota, right? So, but that's the great, to me, the great journey and the great experience. And I really have been very privileged to be able to go and be in a lot of different places and do a lot of different things and meet, you know, I got to meet Max Cleveland who was a congressman or senator from Georgia who, you know, blew off three of his limbs in the Vietnam War. And I got to meet him through my county chairman who turned out had been the man who had saved him on the tarmac in Vietnam, right? So those are amazing stories. I remember the farmer in La Crosse, Wisconsin when I worked for Senator Cole who used to come in every day and quiz me on milk prices and bean prices, right? And so having to learn why that was important to farmers, why that is relevant to their life, to the retired Catholic priests who used to come in and talk to me about choice and education. As someone who's very concerned, he considered himself a Democrat, but of course was anti-choice and for school vouchers. It was a really interesting, but to learn his story as a child who grew up in poverty and what saved him was being able to go to a Catholic, you know, school, right? And so that was what you understand. It was being down in Louisiana and talking to small business solar energy people about energy in an oil state, right? It's the stories of the members when I worked at a union in Washington state. Nurses all over the state and hearing their stories about their biggest concern was patient care, right? And what they were fighting for is a union member and hospitals that are making profits off of their labor and trying to kick into the curve, right? So all of those things, those are the things I take with me. And all of those values tie back to being a Democrat. I started as an activist in the Democratic Party. That's who I am. Has all of these or have all of these experiences grown your strength in the party, grown your position in the party? Absolutely. How does it affect it? Has it just made it stronger? It just made it stronger. More deeply rooted? Deeply rooted, because I hear those stories and those connect, those are exactly the values that we as Democrats carry with us. And what we're fighting for are those workers and those farmers and those people living in poverty and those nurses at those hospitals and the patients at those hospitals, right? That's who we fight for. And those are the policies we're trying to implement as a Democratic Party. And yet we have a disconnect right now, which not a lot of people fully understand. And I think a lot of people are still trying to figure out how to bridge that again. And I think we bridge it by learning to tell our stories. What we've forgotten are the stories and the people that make us a Democratic Party and the values that brings along with it, right? Everybody has their story about why they're a Democrat, right? But it's the value we have forgotten. We've gotten away from the value piece of it. We've gotten too much into data points and talking points and facts and figures. And while that's important and that's good tools to have to back up your story, first and foremost is to be able to tell your story about why you are a Democrat. What it means to you, and I think if we can teach our members and our folks to be out there doing that and talking to their neighbors and their family members and their coworkers, and that's where we will then bring it back to where we need to be. I think we've lost that ability. We've lost that skill. But it's a skill that we can teach people to do. It's a skill. We're not connecting face-to-face the way we used to be. Well, it's also people have gotten afraid of having political conversations with people they know, right? And so I always was amazed being out doing a lot of campaign work. People come and volunteers coming in a doorknock and they'd be like, but I don't want to go doorknock in my neighborhood. And it was just like, but that's, people know you there and that's where you're more influential. But of course that was uncomfortable. And we saw, so you know, over the last couple of years, it's the having the uncomfortable conversation about race or sexism or whatever it is, right? Choice, whatever you want to be talking about. And because people don't know how, we've lost how we do that. And so I really see, while I absolutely wish we were not where we are today nationally and a certain gentleman was not our current president. I do now, you know, after some time in reflection really see it as, you know, what do we need to learn from that to be better? And for me, that's what it is. We need to be better about teaching our folks how to tell their story and connect it to the values of why Democrats are good. Reconnecting with our roots and our values. And so if we can do that and then people feel better about and make it easier and more comfortable for people to go talk to their, like I said, it's talking to your neighbor and your coworker and your family. It's not picking up the phone and the blind dial or the doorknock and, you know, where you are most persuasive is to people you know, right? And so, you know, we have to, we have to get. We've gotten to a place partially with the, because of the internet people have found a way to distance themselves. But then also because politics has gotten to be so divisive that people don't want to engage with it because it's going to be difficult and hard. It's not just uncomfortable. It's hard. Yeah. Well, it's painful in some places. And you know, social media has created an interesting dichotomy, right? On the one hand, it's connected us to a lot more people instantaneously, but it's disconnected us from that personal interaction. And so, you know, it creates a great place. I can sit on my computer at home in front of a screen and say all sorts of stuff, good, bad, or indifferent. But I'm not actually talking to a real person. No. And it's also subject to that person's interpretation. Right. They can't hear how you're saying it. Or see it. They can't see it. Exactly. They don't know if you're yelling or unless it's all bold or capitals or they don't know if you're being sarcastic. Right. Exactly. They don't know the intonation of what you're saying. Right. It's created, you know, an interesting place. I mean, again, it's a great tool for organizing and it's a great place to feed out information. Yeah. But it's not a good place to have conversation in terms of... Yeah, real, real... In depth conversation. In personal conversations. You have short, low conversations. And if you know somebody really well, you can. Then you can. Different. But for people you don't know, it's not a place, right? No. It becomes more... What I have seen, and certainly with Trump's whole situation, it's more of cult of personality stuff gets built. Yeah. More than anything else. Exactly. And that's problematic. Yeah. Not just because of him, but it's just a problematic approach to politics, I think. Yeah. So, okay, tell... Then, okay, so over the years, over the 20 years, what are some of the things that you have done? Or do some of the actions or activities, some of the organizing that you have done? All sorts of things. So I've worked on everything from school board to presidential and have probably done every role on a campaign there is and have doorknocked in ice storms in Iowa. So, right? So it's kind of... But project-wise what I've worked on that are some of more of the interesting. I get to be the state director for Howard Dean in 2004. Oh, wow. 2003, 2004 in Minnesota. And that was really one of my more prouder projects is because that entire effort was volunteer-driven and no paid staff ever Minnesota. But we were probably one of their most productive states and bigot, like organizing-wise. And so set up that structure and kind of oversaw that process. And while, unfortunately, he dropped out before we got to Pocas in Minnesota, it still reverberates today in terms of the people I see that got involved with the Democratic Party in Minnesota and became leaders there and are still engaged. And so that still goes on. My other real fun one was the project in Louisiana because I went down... You're talking a big oil state, right? And went down to work on the clean energy bill in 2009. So you can imagine trying to talk about clean energy in Louisiana. Not the easiest of tasks, right? Not the easiest. Because actually for two reasons that actually meshed together actually. Number one, it's an oil-producing state. So therefore they don't want to talk about any but oil. And number two, pricing for oil and for electricity and fuel is cheaper there. As a result of its proximity. Actually it's not. It's not. No. I've seen... Well maybe they changed it. When I was there... I've seen price charts that actually show the further away you get from those oil hubs. Louisiana? It was an interesting... Louisiana has a... And it was a debate when I was there. And maybe they fixed it to them because, again, you're talking almost ten years ago now. But they were having an interesting debate there back then that it was... The oil would get bypassed out of Louisiana and then have to come back in. Oh that's ridiculous. It was like a really strange thing. But really the challenge in Louisiana around energy, any sort of energy, is that it is financially driven by oil. And I learned this actually talking to the labor, the president of the FLCIO. I went in. Originally it was about... There was a clean energy bill on the table and it was Al Gore's Alliance for Climate Protection and they were targeting folks sitting on the energy committee. And so we originally started out as a lobbying effort trying to get one of the congressmen and one of the senators there to vote for this. But we quickly discovered healthcare was also going on at the same time and it was just sucking the air out of everything. So there was like, no, nobody wanted to do anything else because they were really trying to get that passed, right? And so as we were trying to figure out what else should we be doing and I was making the rounds, I was actually talking to the president of the FLCIO like, how do I get labor on board to help? And he was the one that finally pointed out to me that part of the problem was this. One, when you say clean energy, nobody knows what you're talking about because they don't have any scale-wise... So it's education getting people to understand what... So we didn't understand what it was because they don't. And two, was really understanding down to like state... because all state dollars are basically... So even your like state employees, their paycheck comes out of oil money, right? So it was like this really... everything. So yeah, so it was like, okay. So what we did is we went back in and said, we're going to kind of go back to the beginning and let's talk about what is a clean energy job. Hi, I'm Tim Appichella. I'm the host of Moving Hawaii Forward, a show dedicated to transportation issues and traffic issues here on Oahu. Join us every other Tuesday at 12 noon. And as we discuss how we try to solve our traffic headaches, not to include just the rail, but transit and carpooling and everything in between. So join us every other Tuesday, Moving Hawaii Forward. Thank you. Hi, I'm Nicole Alexandreinos, and I was born three weeks ago. Congratulations on being there for me for some of the few weeks of my life. I'm starting a new show, The Millennial Mind, every Wednesday at 2 p.m. for the month of April, where we'll go over some of the reasons why millennials are some of the most anxious and frustrated people at the moment. Welcome back to Think Tech of Hawaii's Movers, Shakers and Reformers. Sorry, we had a quick break there. Okay, so we were talking about the party politics stuff and the differences there. So we were just talking about organizing and how people get involved and engaged and what our new executive director has been doing. So Laura Nevitt is our new executive director for the Democratic Party of Hawaii. So what I want to transition to now for our last 10 minutes here is as the role of executive director here in Hawaii, what do you do? What is your function? What's your job and responsibility? Tell me what you're doing. What do I do? What you want to do. Basically everything because I'm the only paid staff person with the Democratic Party of Hawaii. So I help with communications, I help with data, I work on volunteer recruitment, I work on messaging, I work on relationships with other state parties, the DNC, the ASDC, I sit in on the Association of Democratic Chairs. And so I'm kind of all things right now as since there's no other staff people. So it's administrative. So what sorts of things are you trying to accomplish? Right now we're cleaning our data and moving databases so we're to give some better function for local units to be organizing and organizing tools. So doing that and also just making sure our voter data, so when we get prepping for election cycle, and then that working for the candidates that that data is clean. So that's kind of going on. Member engagement is a big one. We're right as you know, we're right in the middle of county convention season. So attending those, making sure members are getting signed up that they're processed, that asking for their voluntary membership fees and doing that kind of thing. We have a demo program, which is the Donate Every Month program. So I'm a member of it. Yeah. And so part of my job is helping raise funds and figuring out how we do that in a multi-faceted way. Individual donors, small donors. Basically your job is everything. My job is everything. And the other thing, we started to work on last night and it's coming together, which I'm excited about is this idea of telling stories and actually trying to record our members talking about why they're a Democrat. I think that's a great idea. Yeah. So we're hopefully at the Oahu County Convention, we'll have a camera and we'll be starting to film folks. That would be great. I think that's excellent. Yeah. And then... What's going to be the end result of that? Where will that go? We're going to use it. I want to use it for a couple of different things. One is just for social media, right? Is it great? Just people telling their stories. Yeah. Two, I'd also like to use it for State Convention next year. It's kind of a larger video montage thing for members to see. And it'll just be an ongoing project. I think it's just one... It goes back to that storytelling and really helping people tell your story, right? Does any place to talk story Hawaii is the place? This is right. So let's use that to our advantage and do that thing. So that's kind of... Those are a couple of things I'm working on besides just day-to-day, you know, operational... Making operations happen, keeping the door open. Yeah, exactly. Answering the phone. There's literally like nobody... I answer the phone. I answer the phone. You call the Democratic Party of Hawaii. I most likely will be the one answering the phone and, you know, answer people's questions. I know that every time I show up, you're the one there. Yeah, my staff, the office, and yeah, all sorts of things. So hopefully that will... Tell me about as far as... One of the things I heard you say is you're coordinating with other state organizations. Yeah. What are you trying to accomplish, I guess, in that regard? Most of it is, as an ED, there's actually an association of Democratic executive directors. So we all... Part of it is just networking, sharing best practices, getting information. Good place to ask questions is someone who's new to being an executive director of the state party. I have lots of just sometimes functional questions of how to, like, do this thing or where to find an answer or whatever. So it's a great resource then. It's a great resource. So, like, you know, we recently did a forum on the DNC thing and had Chairman Perez and Deputy Chairman Ellison do a video. That was spectacular. You were able to pull together. And so, but that came through those connections and I maintain, that's part of my, is, you know, maintaining those networks so that we... You're maintaining the national connection as well as Tim Bandevere. Yes. He does that as well. Yes. So a bunch of us do, but that's, you know, they all have other day jobs and I do not. And you don't. Well, this is my day job. We all have other day jobs. Yeah, exactly. So this is my day job. Which is great. More of us would like that. I know. It's a fun job. I actually like it. People are, you know, always sort of think it's, you're a little crazy when you do it. But I enjoy it and it's why I decided I wanted to go do this job. Yeah. As I'm a party, the Democratic Party is my home and I'm kind of a party nerd. And I, you know... Many of us are. Yeah. Well, when I come, you know, Minnesota is, we have conventions and caucuses up the Wazoo, right? And so this is how I'm like, I wouldn't, they were, I went to Maui last weekend for their convention. They were all like, oh my God, I'm like, this is my own time. Literally. I wasn't like... Because it's fun. Because it's fun. And I like, that's, you know, it's meeting people. It is just meeting people and meeting the members and finding out what's going on and, you know, in where they're at. Because I don't live there and it's a good way to stay in touch with what everybody's doing. Excellent. Excellent. And I like that. All right. So, so now let's, let's transition. We have, I don't know, about four minutes left. Let's transition to, okay now, when it comes to politics, any scale we're talking, county level we're talking, school boards we're talking, you name it, from that all the way up to president, all levels of government, what is the role of the party? Well, that's debatable and I think it means a little something different to everybody else. For me, a state party functions a lot. It's about a place to engage people around the process, right? Election process, civil civics process and being involved in government because those are all places where decisions affect their lives, right? Every decision at a city council board or a school board or a unit, whatever it is has a direct impact on people's lives and most people don't connect that, right? It's hard to see it. And it's hard. Especially when you see the language of all the bills and resolutions, like I don't know what I'm reading. Right, exactly. I'm trying to learn how that works. Right. So I see on the one hand the parties, that's what they're there for. The other part of it is purely electoral. It's about helping Democrats get elected. But they tie together for me is the reason we want to get Democrats elected is because they bring the value to the table. The value of the legislative agenda to achieve the balance. That's making the decisions, right, that are affecting people's lives. So that is the work we do and that's, and we, and engaging people on that, engaging people to run for office, engaging people to do and to do that work. And helping others who are running for office. So what's the hardest part from your perspective? What is the hardest part of getting people engaged and what's the easiest way that you have seen that have actually gotten people engaged? Yeah. Yeah. The hardest part, I don't know that's really hard. I think it's just the challenge is the engagement piece, right? But that's mostly, and that's the challenge I enjoy. It's finding how to, what's the connection to the person that's going to pull the trigger for them because it's different for everybody. Different for everybody. Right? And you kind of, we have to get a little bit away from this cookie cutter thing all, right? And because it takes more time. It takes more time being out in your community and having conversations with people and finding out. This goes back to what you were saying. You have more influence with your neighbors because you know them. Right? So this is where, right? You're around and you're engaging. The easiest part is, and then the, that gets people engaged is to simply ask. Believe it or not. You know what? That's actually. All you have to do is ask and most people, right? And In the, we have like 30 seconds left here, I think. But in the, in the world of sales because in a way politics is sales in a very specific way. In the world of sales. Anybody who's learning how to become a salesman, the hardest thing is actually asking for them to actually pay for something and buy something for them. So you say that's the easiest. But it's the easiest, no, but it's the easy way to get them to do it is you have to ask. Ask them to come do that. Right? If you don't ask, they're not going to, it'll never happen. Okay. Apparently we have about two minutes. Okay. So yeah. So engaging. So that's, the whole point of it is to, reach based on our values and our principles. Mm-hmm. Talking with people and trying to understand better. Right. Trying to build bridges. Right. Throughout our communities. Right. And understand where the differences are, where we disagree, but then still trying to find bridges there. Yeah. So that's, and that's what we could be doing. That's what some people are doing. And that's what, as a party, we all parties will open that up. All parties. Probably try or should be doing something. Well, I think the struggle is, is every, because everyone has a different idea of what a party does or is meant to do. Right. Yeah. So it's also a little bit of a challenge is getting everybody to agree that like we, this is the thing we want to do. Right. And then we're going to move forward on it. And it changes every election cycle. It changes whenever you have change in leadership because now you have a new leader who now has a different idea of what they want to be doing. So it's not a simple thing. It's not a simple thing that people are able to do. It's messy. It's not a clean. There's never simple answers. And part of it is also being patient with each other, being willing to listen and good lines of communication that we're just, it's flowing back and forth. So that you hear from me, I hear from you and we find common ground. I think that's the greatest, most important skill that anybody involved in any industry actually needs to have and that's We have, have you ever heard of the step up, step back? Step up, step So like if you're in a big group, right? So the step up is, you know, if you're someone who doesn't talk a lot, step up. If you're someone who talks a lot, step back. So that we allow each other. But part of that is just listening. It really is. You need to know how to listen and you know how, in the queues that go on and all that stuff. It's okay. We actually have to wrap up now. So I know, we're going to be with Jack James, the executive director of the Republican Party and have a nice conversation. It'll be fun. Thank you for joining us. This is Think Tech Hawaii's Movers, Shakers and Reformers, Politics and Hawaii series. Thank you again to our guest today, Ms. Laura Nevitt and again thanks to the entire staff and crew of Think Tech Hawaii and we will see you next time.