 If you want to have a talk show, let's have a talk show. 4 p.m. talk show. This is Think Tech Hawaii. I'm Jay Fidel, and we are having a visit with candidate, or maybe I should say former candidate, Kim Coco Iwamoto. That's the primary election on the 8th of August. Welcome to the show, Kim Coco. Thank you so much, Jay. Appreciate your invitation. Well, I wanted to explore with you how it was. You've been through a number of elections, and you've touched government in many ways. So it's not like, you know, this is strange territory for you. And so I want to talk about your political career. I want to talk about this election. So the first question is, why do you want to serve in government? I mean, have you nothing else to do? Well, you know, I've been a community organizer since I returned home after law school. And I've been working, building relationships with the community, hearing about the hardships that people are having, whether it's, you know, our homeless neighbors, our foster kids, our public school students. I just become more, I feel a sense of responsibility. I think on some level, I feel a sense of gratitude. Like, I've had a lot of support in my life in different ways. And at some point, you just feel like, well, gee, I want to help, and look, I can. I think I can help do something about this. Or I feel like I can communicate what the problem is and identify what the various solutions that the community stakeholders are proposing and put it together in a way that more people can understand and more people can get on board and building those coalitions. And I really enjoy doing that. I really enjoy connecting people, connecting causes, you know, fighting the fight on behalf of people who, you know, are often marginalized, either by economics, racism, you know, so many different, you know, traditional power structures, patriarchy, all of these things. I just feel like I'm a born fighter and I just want to get in there and fight. And, you know, I feel like I'm always thinking about a box solutions and just kind of wanting to get in there. And we spoke about this briefly before the show about just getting in there and shaking up the status quo to, you know, like, come on, we need to do something more urgently. So that's why I wanted to get involved in government. The first, the Board of Education was a totally organic kind of transition from foster parent to being a foster parent and having kids who were in the public school system and being their advocate. And from there, I just kind of, I just saw all of the problems in government from that position. And I knew that we needed more people to speak out about how government could and should be. Yeah, you remind me of some of the very short chapters in this book I've been reading called On Tyranny by a guy, history professor at Yale. It's the best seller right now. His name is Timothy Snyder. And he writes, he says, you know, the way to avoid tyranny is speak out. Don't let it happen. Don't be a wallflower. Get in there, get in the mix. And if something bothers you, do something about it. And I'm afraid to say that you're in a little tiny minority because most people don't in Hawaii included, maybe especially. And we have to do that. We have to get out. So what I get is that that's part of your DNA. You're not gonna sit as a wallflower. You're gonna use your critical thinking process. You're gonna use your power as a lawyer, your articulate power to actually go after it. So my question is this though, you said fight the fight. What's the fight, Kim Coco? What is the fight about? What is wrong that you're trying to correct? Well, the fight I tried to get into an advocate for initially with this specific race. And as of today, it's Thursday around four o'clock, Thursday after the primary election. And from my understanding, my race still has not been called. So I mean, my opponent does have more than 100 votes than I, but for some reason, even the New York Times has not called my race. And regardless, the work still needs to be done whether it's having an office in the square building or being standing with all of my neighbors in the bottom and in the streets and in front of the building and protesting. But the fight initially was about minimum wage because we spent, all the foundations spent so much money on the Alice report, right? That came out, that was based on 2015 data. So it was already like five years old. And that Alice report said $14 an hour was the amount that families and the person need to make in order just to survive. And then we heard last year, DBED said, oh, it's actually closer to $17 an hour, right? And then we were supposed to have a $15 an hour minimum wage approved last year, but because of leadership, they totally failed us and they sided with the corporations. And then the beginning of this legislative year, you probably remember the legislative leaders came out and said they struck a deal with the Chamber of Commerce and other corporations to continue to pay poverty wages all the way until 2024. And obviously that was not their words. Poverty wages is in fact, the reality of the $13 an hour all the way to 2024. And simply because of this, today, if a single mom sends her kids to the public schools today, her kids would be eligible for free and reduced lunch from the federal government because under federal guidelines today, a person making $13 an hour is considered poverty as in terms of free lunches from the federal government. So to say we're gonna wait till 2024 to offer to allow corporations to continue getting away with paying those low wages. And right now it's $10 and 10 cents. And so with that didn't even pass. I mean, and you know, the first safety net for many working families is their own wages. So if we keep paying poverty wages when disaster strikes or a pandemic hits, people usually tap into their savings like that's where they go to first. But what we've known is that at least 51% of Hawaii residents are living paycheck to paycheck, which means there is no savings. And so then the people who are the lowest wage earners and that's a lot of women, a lot of immigrant women who are getting paid like poverty wages. And we are even the state was doing that. Even the state was paying poverty wages. Like why would, and I asked the superintendent when I was on the board of education, I said, is the state, do we have DOE employees who are earning poverty wages? Whose kids are eligible for free and reduced lunch? And she said, absolutely we are. And I just don't think that is sustainable. And it's not, it's really quite disgusting actually that we would actually build our state budget on the backs of working people like that. I don't think that's acceptable. Why do I feel I'd like to ask you about the cost of occupancy in this state? Cause that's the flip side of all of this, that land prices are too high, rent is too high, as against salaries that are too low. And the result is the poor guy in the middle can't, do you think about that at all? Oh my God, absolutely. And you can trace a lot of those origins to again, really poor government leadership. Number one, you know that 40% of all privately held land is held by people and entities that are not based in Hawaii. That means that local families are bidding against, right? Out-of-state investors, out-of-state investors, including these people who invest through REITs, who don't even pay taxes on their profits, you know? And so that really, and all of these government policies really work against local families. And yet we keep electing these leaders back into office. It's because we are not connecting the dots for enough people. And that's what my campaign tried to do, really connect the dots so that more people were making an informed choice this election. But really, so the root cause of a lot of this, when you say, well, it's the cost of living, well, let's start there. Well, why is land so expensive? Because we're competing. First of all, Hawaii's property taxes are in some cases 10 times less than other jurisdictions. And I'm not saying we need to jack up all the property taxes without also increasing the personal home exemption, right? If you live in the home that you own, your exemption should be so high that the only person punished for owning property here would be out-of-state investors. Like that's who we want to dis-incentivize, investing in Hawaii. We want to keep land in Hawaii for local families for their first home so that they can expand and have their families live here too. So many generations are leaving Hawaii, and then who's taking care of the elders? Oh, you're a policy wonk. You should run for office. So it's so simple, right? If you just, if so many just stops and bag pedals and talks about Hawaii. Well, aren't you afraid that if you say these things that people who might support you, the people with the checkbooks might say, oh, no. She's too liberal. She's too progressive. She's going to shake things up and turns to another candidate. So here's the thing that is amazing about this pandemic. I mean, it's horrible in so many ways. But what it's really kind of, it's been a wake-up call to you how interconnected we are. Interconnected in a way that transcends ownership class, labor class, all of that. Because when you go to a restaurant, when you go to a grocery store, you realize that you're dependent on these firsts, on these frontline workers, right? You're dependent on people hopefully putting themselves in positions where they can choose to keep themselves and their families safe. So when they interact with you, if you're a wealthy landowner, then hopefully you're not being cross-contamined. I mean, there's all of this layers and layers. Is it getting worse? We know it's getting worse. Do you mean are the rates of the disparity? Oh, yes, absolutely. That's exactly what we're seeing. And even now, I know for District 26, some areas are 30% unemployment right now. I mean, obviously we're only 2% in January, 2% unemployment. So now 30%. People are super scared about becoming, getting evicted. A lot of the legal aid organizations are doing these mass trainings for pro bono attorneys to kind of be ready, on the ready, to represent some of the huge wave of tenants who may find themselves in. What's the defense? Active God doesn't really work. Unless there's something written into the lease, what's the defense? Well, one of the things I've been, and everything isn't always, I don't think everything needs to be antagonistic. One of the things I've been, one of my mailers for my campaign, I educated landlords and tenants on the same flyer. I wanted to make sure that tenants and landlords both knew the pros and cons of what's happening right now. For instance, just because you evict a tenant doesn't mean you're gonna find another tenant who can pay the full rent. So many people are unemployed. So the question I would pose to a landlord is, if you get rid of the current tenant you have, who you've built a relationship with all of these years, and you bring somebody else in, who's to say that person you're bringing in is gonna be able to pay their rent? And wouldn't you wanna just continue the relationship you have? Find a way to make it work. Also, one of the things I've noticed that there's been a lot of landlords who've discriminated over the years against tenants with section eight subsidies. Today, those are the ones who are gonna balance. That's very ironic, isn't it? No, and that's important. I mean, my business experience says to have a diversified portfolio, meaning you have half section eight and maybe half not section eight. You wanna make sure that your income stream is somewhat protected, I believe in the strength of diversity, and that goes for business, but also for people and ideas and problem solving, all leads to a stronger solution if it's a more diverse space. So is there a little voice in your head, Kim Coco, that says, gee, I'm glad Josh Green got to be the Lieutenant Governor because this is really a hard time. And gee whiz, it ain't easy being Lieutenant Governor. It's dangerous politically. It's hard to do the right thing. And the end of the day, maybe nobody really appreciates what government does at all in these times. What are your thoughts about that? Well, you know, I liked Josh Green and I was happy for him when he got elected. Obviously, I wanted to be Lieutenant Governor, but you know, it's gonna be a hard, any elected position right now, it's gonna be challenging. And I bet you in two years, there's gonna be a lot of long-term legislators who are gonna wanna maybe exit gracefully because it's not gonna be pretty. No matter the solutions, it's gonna be challenging. And I bet there are some who probably said, what am I getting, why am I returning to this? Why is this gonna be the end of my legacy? I am, however the ballots get counted and the results of the 2020 election, I am gonna run again in 2022, whether it's as an incumbent or as a challenger. So, you know, I'm already launching my 2022 campaign, but you know, because I'm not afraid of, you know, the fight of the challenge of working together. And we, again, you know, I said this earlier during our pre-show banter, but you know, we really need bold new ideas. We cannot rely on the same old, same old, getting us out of this unprecedented crisis. So back to Josh Green, yeah, I think it's great that we have him as Attorney Governor right now. You know, so, yeah. And also I'm really happy that I run because we would have, you know, if the way things work out, if I didn't run, we may have had a different Lieutenant Governor. So there's all of these other kind of things that play out. Yeah, what if, what if kind of things, yeah. Well, no, I mean, you know, it's more than just, you know, random guesses. You can actually look at some of the numbers and some of the patterns and stuff like that. Now, and the thing with the 26, I hear you that you would run again. I mean, we kind of all saw that in the first five minutes of this show that you're dedicated to, you know, do some stuff. And will you run for the 26 again? Will you run for another office? What's in your mind at least now? Oh, well, you know, I love District 26. I've loved meeting our neighbors. I felt totally, totally. Well, number one, obviously there were a lot of my neighbors who did vote for me. And I, because they met me because they were able to, and that's the thing that's really interesting. I started door knocking in early February. So before the whole pandemic shutdown happened. And I got to meet a lot of people face to face. And then I started phone calling people, but speaking to them and hearing their stories and their concerns, I really want to make sure that they are heard and represented. So I definitely feel that connection with them. So definitely for 2022, I am running for District 26. I just hope I'm in the district because, you know, with reapportionment arranged here. So we'll see where those lines are drawn and we'll see. But, you know, I'm committed to that seat right now. So when you went around, talked to people, you know, when you put your platform out, this kind of liberal thing that I like so much. I do, I do, I'm with you on this. You know, did you get traction? Did people say, oh, wow, Kim, that's what I'm looking for. I want to see some disruptive change in same old. We've had enough same old. We've got to reinvent ourselves. And frankly, especially now, especially in COVID. So do you feel that people responding to that message? Oh, absolutely. I think when people, well, first of all, they would say, well, who's our current representative? That was a huge problem. And I would ask, have you met our current representative? And they said, well, who is that? Well, I'm like, that's a problem. And I would have to educate them and say to them, actually our representative district is the smallest or the sole purpose that your representative is actually supposed to speak with you and meet you. And that's why that district is the tiniest. And then there's the state Senate and then there's the city council. And then it just gets bigger and bigger. But your representative is the one you should have the most kind of engagement with because how do they know if they're representing you if they're not speaking to you? Right? So I would start with the education there and make sure they knew what they were paying for and help them kind of evaluate if that's what they've been getting or not. And I have to say that maybe five people who actually spoke to Scott Psyche and then they found out. You know, that reminds me of a poll that was revealed yesterday after, well, maybe a couple of days go in when Biden selected Kamala Harris, took a poll and there was various categories of answer on the poll. But the one that really struck me was the possibility of checking the box that said, I don't know who Kamala Harris is. Okay, 20% is national poll. 20% of the people who answered that survey said, I don't know who Kamala Harris is. I said, it's extraordinary. This is like Jay Leno was Jay walking routine years ago. You would ask people who the vice president was and nobody knew. I said, you know, this is really sad. And I put it back to the schools because although it's nice to hear from your parents at the kitchen table, the school, you kind of assume the school is gonna train people to be sensitive to what's going on in the political system that governs their lives. You know, let me just share with you though that when Obama gave his first State of the Union address, I was on the board of ed and I remember the superintendent was told not to let it air throughout the school because it was too political. I'm like, wait a minute. How is that possible? What are you talking about? Like, as if we're forwarding some kind of democratic agenda and like he is the actual, you know, interesting, right? Like, you know, you should have critical and now a discussion afterwards but people should be able to hear it. So yeah, I was shocked by the lack of civic engagement that kind of discussions about democracy, you know, how we've moved away from that. Yeah, and it is hurtful but also we've just get so bombarded with so much information. Oh, ain't that the truth? So how do you feel about the election coming on? I mean, this is getting crazier and crazier. Our president, maybe not mine or not yours but our president said today that he fully intended to cut off the funds to the post office because he didn't want the mail to arrive because the mail has mail-in ballots around the country and only Democrats use mail-in ballots. That's what he said. You'll see it on the news tonight and I'm saying this is getting crazy. And the question I put to you is how does this affect state politics? How does this affect the way the legislature works? How does it affect the way you think and the choices you make politically? Well, let's start by acknowledging that whenever Donald Trump actually over talks it actually shoots himself in his own foot when it comes to actual litigation, right? So we've seen the courts cite his tweets or cite his, you know, his malintentions that he admits to as being, you know, then they say, well, that's so therefore everything that you're saying now you're saying your reasons have legitimate reasons but you've already disclosed that your reasons were illegitimate. So you can't take that back. And so it's great. I love the fact that he's so open with his contempt for democracy because in theory it makes it easier. And I feel the same way in Hawaii. There are so many times when our democratically, you know, Democratic Party run state makes so many choices that I'm like, isn't that exactly what Trump would do? Isn't that what Linda Lingle did? Isn't that, I mean, I'm just always so blown away by we claim to have a totally blue state but everything they do, like even the Ponzi scheme with the whole rainy day fund is exactly what Lingle did when I was on the board of Ed and we got the rates of the top money and she was supposed to supplement the race of the top is supposed to supplement public education funds, but she used it to supplant, you know, and I called it a Ponzi scheme then and we're still doing the same Ponzi schemes. So, you know, and I'm not, again, you know, I guess, you know, people are not comfortable with me putting it out there when I call out this kind of shenanigans and hypocrisy and, you know, and everyone just ignores what's happening and I just feel like I can't do that. And I know you're the same way. That's why we're talking about this issue. That's why I think tech, you know? Right. So, okay, so this 26 that's got Psyche had you, or if you, if you, because they haven't finished counting. So if you succeed or had you succeeded in this, that would have changed, would have changed things in the legislature. It would have had implications beyond just the one race. Am I right? It's not that you intended it that way, but it would have happened that way. Oh, no, I knew what I'm, I know what I'm doing. I mean, I know I definitely knew I was challenging the speaker of the house that I was not naive about that. But, you know, given our close, close numbers, I think this is hopefully inspiring. Maybe I'm hoping it's actually showing that he is not unquestionable. Like he should be challenged, not just by me, just a community activist, you know, a lefty liberal, whatever dismissive term somebody wants to put on me. And if I'm able to get these kinds of votes by connecting with people, real people, what then, what are the jobs of all of the electeds in the house right now? What is their role and their job when they're elected to give a voice and then leadership and their hierarchy, and they're kind of punishing, you get rewarded if you shut up and you just go along, and if you get punished, if you raise anything out of order, then, you know, like how is that silencing working? And I'm hoping this is gonna erode that kind of, that ivory tower element that- Well, how do you feel about the thing with the chair? I've always been interested in that. If the chair says, let's do this, everybody comes right along and does that. Well, I'd love it if there were co-chairs. I mean, that's what I'm really hoping that different actions or different kind of ways of looking at issues are, so if every committee had co-chairs and one vice chair in order to do all of the tabulating, but definitely have co-chairs and not from the same group, like having, again, the diversity, where people are forced to collaborate, where people are forced to say, yeah, let's hear both, or what about if we combine these two bills and we look at it this way, but not, you know, we're all following my lead, and if you don't, I'm never going to tell- Yeah, yeah, totally agree. So what did you learn? You've been through a couple of these elections already, and I'm sure you made an impression on a lot of people. And my question is, you know, what impression did all of that make on you? And what have you learned about the experience? What I was disappointed with, right? I am a little disappointed in some of the media. So I know PBS contacted at first, unfortunately, they first contacted Scott Psyche and said, we want to do a forum with you and Kim Coco. And so Scott, of course, so Scott, because he just did not want to give us any opportunity to have a comparing contrast. You know, he's, I think, you know, he seems like a nice person. I don't know him why I've never had a conversation with him because he doesn't, if he's in a crowded room, he doesn't like come over and talk to, he kind of skirts around and he does it. I think he's generally more of an introvert. And I think he'll come across that way. I think he'll come across kind of a little snarky, a little bit, you know. So I understand why he wouldn't want to do a debate or a forum, a shared space with me, but one of the things I love, like I love debates. I love comparing. I love seeing the way different people answer or don't answer a question. You know, I love to see how they handle all of these and what kind of data they use and how are they reframing or spinning things. And I love the opportunity. Like if I said something that mischaracterized his actions or his record, I would love for him to say, well, actually that's not what happened. You know, I love, I would love for him to have the opportunity to correct me. And then when if he says something like, oh, I, you know, got all these volunteers to go down to work on the unemployment insurance backlog, I could say, well, are they volunteers if they're paid state workers? You know what I mean? And I could correct, you know. I was scandalous, I might add. That was what happened was scandalous. Yes, so all of that, you know, so I would have loved that, but he basically blocked us from having a debate on PBS. He blocked the party from doing a debate and all of these issues. And at the party, let him get away with this, the PBS, let him get away with this. Everyone just let, and I just found that to be unacceptable. I mean, if you, you set a time, you say, hey, both of you give us three times that will work for your schedules and we'll have you both on. And if one of you doesn't want to participate then the other person will get all the time. You know, there's ways of doing it and they never did that. And I really, and it just kind of basically reinforces the status quo. And then also the political analysts who basically analyze no data and right around, right as people are voting, they basically threw it out there for my race that I was such a long shot. And I'm like, wait a minute. And I actually had to ask the producer, the person who put the piece together, what data did your political analysts analyze in order to come up with that conclusion? Did he look at the polls that were done in 2018 and 2019 when Scott was Speaker of the House that showed that we had the lowest, that the legislature had the lowest approval ratings lower than Trump, lower than, lower than EGAY. I mean, the legislature has such a, you know, like people are obviously disgruntled with our legislature and therefore our leadership and seeing them not doing things and making these huge, like he said, scandals with the unemployment insurance. And you know, that happens because a year after year over decades of basically slapping down departments when they ask for funding to revamp their systems. They, you know, they get hit around and the chairs of finance will say, well, who do you want us to take the money from in order to give it to you? Instead of saying, well, let's close these tax loopholes so that we can pay for government services to repair our safety nets, you know? So years and years of leadership and the legislature basically creating a dysfunctional system and then turning around and then pointing the finger at the departments who were told they couldn't have the money for years. So why would they ask for it? So going forward in your next campaign for the 26th or whatever it might be, how would you treat it differently based on, you know, I mean, all experiences are learning experiences. And so what kind of changes would you make in your own campaign? Well, we had no idea. I mean, this campaign when we first started off that we're gonna be limited to like we couldn't do as much door knocking. So obviously you have to be flexible. We had tons of volunteers and we'll have more volunteers even next time. And the thing that's interesting because I came out of a lieutenant governor race and I had the database of 300 volunteers and, you know, I had, I think more donations than Scott did between January and the election. So I had more individual donations, obviously more volunteers on my campaign. So that'll keep on building every, you know, I'm on the board of HAPA, which is Hawaii Alliance for Progressive Action. And one of our programs is the Kuliana Academy. And so we actually get other young, fresh, you know, voices and ideas to run for office and take on some of the status quo legislators. And so one of the things that I would stress to a lot of the people who are entering politics is every single campaign is not about that officer running for, it's about setting up for the next campaign, relationships, infrastructure, knowledge, all of these things you build and you, and you bring to the next campaign. You're in the ecosystem, yeah. You've made a commitment to be there. So what are you gonna do between now and two years from now? And I asked this with one thing in my mind, I just want to add that thing before you answer this. You know, you could be a host for Think Tech in that period, you know. You would be happy to have you as a host for Think Tech. So you can articulate these views and bring on guests who might also want to articulate these views. Anyway, we're gonna do for the next two years. Thank you. I'm gonna do what I've been doing, which is building community relationships and voicing changes. And most importantly, one of the things I noticed was once I entered this race, Scott Psyche and his role as speaker became way more active on-ish and became more responsive to the community. I wish we had an election every six months. You know what I mean? You need to really keep him responsive to the community, to our community. So I'm gonna keep showing up. I'm gonna keep writing editorials, keep working with other community members, other organizations, businesses. Obviously there's a lot of opportunities to really step in and help our neighbors. Okay, Kim, if we can help you in that, if you have a commentary you wanna make, if you wanna come down and express some views, even if you don't wanna be a host, you can still come around and I will always have you. I only wanna make one other point before we go and that is back in 1965, I met my wife, she was from Kauai and she took me for this fantastic romantic experience at the Coco Palms and little did I know, I don't think you were born yet, little did I know that I would be talking to somebody who was named after the Coco Palms today. Yeah. Yeah, I just had to mention that. Thank you. Yeah, no, that's actually one of the most, I would say that's one of the easiest ice breakers to have is how I got my name. Okay. Thank you, thank you. Thank you, Kim Coco, really appreciate you coming down and I do wanna do it again. Aloha and the best to you. Thank you so much. Thank you.