 Good afternoon, welcome to Think Tech Hawaii's Movers, Shakers, and Reformers, Politics in Hawaii series. I'm your host, Carl Campania. Today, we're going to talk about politics in another way. We're going to talk about the campaigns that go on. We're going to talk about recent campaigns nationally, but we're also going to talk about how locally a number of groups are starting to organize for the 2018 election cycle that's coming up. And for that conversation, my guest today is Mr. Josh Brosch, President of Pono Hawaii Initiative, so you will meet him shortly. But to start with, we have our, this is going to be a light, Trump-dump segment. So first of all, I want to jump into the elections that happened yesterday. We have the Georgia 6th election as well as the South Carolina 5th district elections that happened yesterday. It concluded last night. In both of those cases, the Republican one. Okay, not great for Democrats on the outset, but the spin, I guess, that we want to put on that is it's important to recognize that those are both Republican Party strongholds in those districts, such that the most recent Republican that was in those seats as of and was elected as of this last November, 2016, it had a 23 and a 26-point win for the Republican. And yesterday, both of those seats were about a 3-point, 3-to-4-point win, you know, margin of victory. So therefore, it's about a 20-point wing towards the Democrats. And actually, all five of the special elections that we've had over the past several months to replace the outgoing or, I should say, the appointed positions for the Trump administration, all five have been won by Republicans, but all five have demonstrated a significant swing in Republican strongholds, once again, towards the Democratic Party. So that actually builds very well for 2018. So what I would say is, as we look at this, what it is is, you know, aside from the obvious concerns from the Russia investigations and the obstruction of justice and so forth, aside from all of those issues, we've got the healthcare concern. We've got the fact that Kansas has proven that their trickle-down supply-side economics does not work. And that's a message that needs to be really understood and get out there. In Kansas, they had to change their policy, and they had to raise taxes because it does not work. So what I would say going forward, and this is where I'll leave the Trump dump, it's going forward, the message that I will recommend nationally that we have and that we participated is got two sides. Number one, let's make sure everyone understands supply-side economics failed in Kansas. Failed in Kansas. Compare that to Minnesota and compare that to even just the city of Seattle in Oregon where they have raised the minimum wage up to $15 per hour, and in Minnesota they did the complete demand side economics, which is complete opposite of the Republican perspective. And both of those have been wildly successful with none of the fear-based, I guess, concerns that the GOP leveled at them. So anyway, that's an important one. Then the second one is if they're about to remove 23 million people plus from the health care, I don't see how that in any way is positive because that impacts everybody across the board, specifically children and the elderly. And what's more, we're talking about kids that have pre-existing conditions such as cancer, and you're about to just take that away from them. I don't see how that is a moral choice that they can make, but it's what they're making. So those two things alone, I think, should be enough to swing the 2018 election cycle nationally. Now, locally, we have a different story, and that's where we get back to our guest and what the rest of this conversation is going to be about. Locally, in Hawaii here, we have a Democratic Party-dominated state and we have a new Democrat recently transitioned from a Republican party to an independent two Democrat just this last weekend. So our party is growing, and we have a dominant position, at least as it appears. So how do we proceed and how do we address this from an election cycle perspective? Yes, there's nationally, but it's locally that we want to actually talk about how this can work. So to help me understand that and to talk through that a little bit, I want to bring back our guest. I want to actually introduce our guest, Mr. Josh Frost. Once again, president of what is it, Pono Hawaii Initiative. Thanks for joining the show. I appreciate it. Yeah, thank you very much. Thanks for having me. So first of all, so we're going to talk about the Pono Hawaii Initiative and what you're doing and how you're really doing that, what your goals are and so forth. Before we do that though, let's have the audience here learn a little bit about you. What have you been up to? What are you doing? I know you're also taking classes and so forth. What are you about and how did you get where you are now? How did I, oh, that could be a long story. So as it relates to the show, in 2004, 2005, I read Howard Zinn's People's History of the United States. And if you haven't read it, everyone should read it because it's a fantastic book. And from there, I was so sort of inspired and moved by it that I wanted to get involved in politics. And eventually I chose the Democratic Party locally over the Green Party because I actually wanted to get stuff done. And I didn't believe that the Green Party could do that. I identify as a progressive. I identify as a Democratic socialist. I've been called a communist. I've been called all sorts of things. I've been involved in local politics since 2006. I helped found progressive Democrats of Hawaii. In 2007, I helped found what would become Equality Hawaii and was one of the lead organizers in that organization for civil unions and marriage equality, something I'm very proud of. And I've been an officer and activist inside the Democratic Party of Hawaii since about the same time, 2006. OK, you've also worked at the legislature or in the governor's office. So you've been involved on that side. Yes. You've participated in policy agenda and ideas. Yeah, so I've worked in the executive branch. I've worked in the legislative branch. I've worked as an activist. I've worked on campaigns. At one point early on, actually my very first political job was I was the office manager for the Democratic Party. This was probably 2009. I did that for a while before going to work at the legislature. So yeah, I've had more than many hats and I've done many jobs. That's excellent. Thank you for all that you have done throughout all of this because that's inspiring. And it's important for people who are new to engaging to understand how things happen. And oh, you read a book. And that is an amazing book. How would it say? Yes, absolutely. And knowing that, OK, I wanted to get involved. How do I get involved? Where do I go? Who do I contact? And knowing that there are dozens of groups out there and some of them more aggressive than others. Some of them more progressive than others. There are Republicans in Hawaii with a few of them. So OK, again, thank you for all of that. So now you are president of Pono Hawaii Initiative. And that is just kicking off this year. Yes. So the executive director who is also the founder of Hawaii Alliance for Progressive Action Hapa, Gary Husser, former state senator, former Kauai County Councilman, awesome, awesome progressive. And he and I have been talking for a while about trying to change the nature of electoral politics, trying to change the nature of the legislature and city councils. And earlier this year with a handful of other activists from Hawaii, we formed Pono Hawaii Initiative. Our official sort of kickoff launch was just a week ago, but we've been incorporated for, I think, three or four months now. OK. And is that an offshoot of Hapa? Or is that related? It's not really related. There's parallel missions. Hapa is a C3 that works on issues and can't do electoral politics, can't endorse candidates, can't give money to candidates. Pono Hawaii Initiative is a C4. Our primary focus, according to the IRS, is lobbying. But we can endorse candidates. We can give money to candidates. We will, hopefully, within the next, well, by the end of the year, be starting a PAC with the intention of identifying and supporting progressive candidates who really are getting into, who want to run for office because they aren't happy with where things are. They're not necessarily looking for a new gig. They're not necessarily looking to make a splash some more or to be influential. They believe strongly in the issues they care about and the issues that affect their communities. And those are the sorts of people that we want to try to support moving forward. So what would you say? Give us the elevator pitch for Pono Hawaii Initiative. What is it about? And why should someone want to participate? Why should someone want to donate? OK, so for the people who pay attention, the last year, nationally, politics was just abysmal. We have a president who doesn't know anything about anything. Or care. Or care, yeah. And locally, in 2017, pretty universally, everyone agrees that it was a pretty epic fail for the legislature. Yeah, the entire session passed very little. Yeah, and what they did pass was nonsubstantive. And this has been going on for a while. I do agree that this year was sort of egregious in there. Workstream. Yeah, and their inability to get anything accomplished. Which is fascinating considering it's a Democratic party dominated. Well, so let me say it is. So the legislators in the legislature are overwhelmingly Democrats. I would not, as a member of the party, I would not say that it is a Democratic party controlled legislature. And I think it's a minor distinction, but it's an important one. OK, explain that. So the people in the legislature have a D next to their name. But if you were to ask them, what's in the platform? Or why are you a Democrat? I'm not sure that they would answer in specifics beyond the sort of broad big 10, oh, I care about working people and I care about making Hawaii better. Well, everybody dies in the environment. Right, right. But if you look at what they do and not what they say, if you look at the issues that they support or oppose, it took them a decade or more to do an increase in the minimum wage. This year, they wouldn't even consider a $15 minimum wage. There have been people who've been working on paid family leave for the better part of a decade. Equal pay. Equal pay. There's environmental issues and water issues. The 2501 from last year, two years ago, they basically just gave a handout to A&B for water rights. I mean, these are things that progressives, Democrats, the local people, can all get behind. And our legislature, their general approach is we'll move slowly. We've got to do this incrementally. We've got to do this step at a time. And it hasn't worked. Politics is a conversation. It is. No, and I agree. It is a conversation. We have to go through the conversation, and we have to find a consensus. And we have to work our way through so that we have a consensus. Yes. The disconnect is the consensus between whom and whom. Yeah. No, it is true. And there is a spectrum, even among Democrats, and frankly, even among progressives. There is a spectrum on how far do we go and how quickly. And when I first started, I was bright-eyed and optimistic and idealistic and thought, well, if we just work really hard, we can get everything we want. We all start there. And, right, exactly. But it is a hard slog. You have to be prepared to take less than everything you want just to move the ball forward. And for me, the perfect example was two or three years ago when we passed the 10-10 minimum wage. I was legislative chair for the party at the time and was working with the coalition that passed that bill. And we were originally pushing for $12 over, I think, two or three years. And we got 10-10 over four years. Which we're still not there yet. We're still not yet. January 2018 will finally be at 10-10, which will be just enough maybe to cover inflation. So when the legislature said, well, we'll give you 10-10 over four years, my position was, no, we're coming into an election year. And I wanted to use it as an issue. Why can't you give people a living wage? And a good friend of mine said, look, that's fine. But there are people working now who earn desperate need of a raise. Let me put a little context around that. 10-10 an hour for a 40-hour work week is $440 a week before taxes, which means we're talking $1,700 a month before taxes. How much is rent in Hawaii typically? Well, I don't know what it is. I mean, I pay $1,000 a month. You pay $1,000 a month, just yourself. Just for myself, for a small two-bedroom. And that's because my landlord is incredibly accommodating. They could get double what I'm paying. Okay, so just to frame that idea about that. So okay, we're gonna have to take a break and then we're gonna jump back and we're gonna learn more about Pono-Hawaii initiative. So thank you for joining us. This is Think Tech Hawaii's Movershakers and Reformers, Politics and Hawaii series. Thanks again for my guest, Josh Bross, for being here today. And we'll see you in one minute. You're watching Think Tech Hawaii, which streams live on ThinkTechHawaii.com, uploads to YouTube and broadcasts on cable OC16 and O'Lello 54. Great content for Hawaii from Think Tech. Some say scuba divers are the poor man's astronaut. At DiveHeart, we believe that to be true. We say forget the moan. DiveHeart can help children, adults and veterans of all abilities escape gravity right here on Earth. Search DiveHeart.org and imagine the possibilities in your life. Aloha, my name is Raya Salter and I'm the host of Power Up Hawaii, which you can see live from one to one 30 every Tuesday at ThinkTechHawaii.com and then later on YouTube. I am an energy attorney, clean energy advocate and community outreach specialist. And on Power Up Hawaii, we come together to talk about how can Hawaii walk towards a clean, renewable and just energy future? To do that, we talk to stakeholders all over the spectrum from clean energy technology folks to community groups, to politicians, to regulators, to the utility. So please join us Tuesdays at one o'clock for Power Up. Welcome back to ThinkTechHawaii's Movers, Shakers and Reformers, Politics and Hawaii Series. Once again, I'm your host, Carl Campania. Welcome once again, Mr. Josh Brosh, president of Pono Hawaii Initiative. We are here today talking about, I guess, well, we're learning about Pono Hawaii Initiative, but we're talking about Hawaii politics and how we are trying to move some things forward and chain, which change might look like. So let's go back to specifically Pono Hawaii Initiative. Tell us about your short-term, long-term goals, what you're trying to achieve. Okay, so long-term, we wanna change the culture of politics in Hawaii and we wanna get good issues passed for the people of Hawaii. By culture, what are we talking about? Culture, so specifically, the easiest way to explain it is to change the leadership structure in the legislature with bringing more progressives, solidly progressive legislators replacing moderate to conservative Democrats in the House and the Senate to move the entire legislature to the left. Try to get more things passed. How do we identify which, so you're talking about finding challengers for some of these seats? Yes, so first, so it's sort of a two-fold with respect to the election, it's identifying which legislators might be vulnerable and then identifying people in those districts that are viable, right? There's lots of progressives everywhere. They've gotta be able to win, right? They've gotta be able to put in the time, they've gotta be able to raise the money, and they need to be, I mean, it sounds sad to say, but on some level, they need to be legitimate in order to be taken seriously by the electorate and therefore win an election, right? I mean, we want wins, right? And in order to do that, we need to be very targeted in which races, which legislators, which districts we focus on. Have you, we're going to that question. As far as the electability side of it again, what sorts of things do you look for? Well, so if they've run before, we wanna sort of see how well they performed, how much money they raised, get a sense of how much effort they put into walking the district, and then look at the numbers, like how close do they get to winning in that race? And if all of that sort of is agreeable, then we have a conversation, are you looking to run again? Do you think you can do better, right? If they didn't raise enough money, do you think you can raise more money? We might be able to help with that, right? Do you have the time to do the door knocking that's really required? I mean, it's a full time, I mean, it's sadly, it's a full time job. It really is, it really is. Oh, well, you know, right? Yeah, I did, I ran last year for state senate, I did not win. But I did knock on the door, and I did meet a lot of people, and for me, what I came down to was, I enjoyed those conversations. When I had the opportunity to actually meet people throughout the district, I enjoyed those conversations. I really appreciated being able to learn what their interests were, what their concerns were, and try to find out beyond just my road needs repairs, what they were really hopeful, as far as the legislature was concerned, and those are some of the things that I appreciated the most. And I believe that, you know, they're candidates who, I mean, I've talked to people who say, oh, I need to raise $60,000, I need to raise $80,000 in order to run. And I say, well, money's important, right? I mean, you need a little bit of money to do a flyer, you need money for signs and things like that, but you don't need to match an incumbent dollar for dollar if you hit every house at least twice. And because... Like by hit you mean... Knock on, doorknock, right? Because what I, the challenge I had, because I hit a number of houses twice, but some of those houses that I hit twice, both times no one was home. So there's only so much you can do. Which is why a little bit of money is necessary. For the mailer. Right, but you're not gonna, you're not, I mean, the odds are, unless the incumbent is just wildly unpopular, you're not gonna outfund raise them. I mean, incumbents have that, you know... The power of incumbents. Yeah. They've got name recognition, they've got, they're gonna have the knee jerk support from all of the groups out there that would otherwise support you because we wanna make sure that... Right. All that. And then also, and they're not likely, because they're sort of comfortable, they're not likely to do that legwork of doorknocking that I think is required. Right, because maybe in some instances, they did it 20 years ago. Right. And now they don't do that anymore. Because they haven't had a serious challenge in forever. Many of them haven't had a challenge. Right, right. And so we wanna try to change that. We wanna do it with real solid, I mean, progressives. I mean, good candidates, but people who we think we can't. So a solid progressive agenda, someone who is willing to stand up and go out there and champion the progressive agenda, which is a more left of Democrat, certainly more left of center than most of Democrats. So what sorts of issues would you consider to be more progressive? Well, so again, I mean, $15 minimum wage, paid family leave, there's daycare, there's disclosure and regulation of pesticides, water rights, local food production, affordable housing, homelessness. I mean, the list can just go on and on and on. I hear that. And by the way, I'm all for that. What I find fascinating is a lot of that seems like it's just more common sense though, not just a progressive agenda, but common sense as far as water rights are concerned. So what's the, I don't understand the part, we don't go into, that's a whole other show, I think. You go into those things and try it. So, okay, so those are the sorts of things. You wanna have someone who's able to be conversant in one of those issues in multiple? Well, they need to have an inclination, right? I mean, most of the people that we're sort of looking at already have a history in activism. They already have a history on issues, right? Some of them have already run before. So, we're not looking necessarily for people who we need to educate and train, if only because they're less likely to be right. There is a different program for that. But people who have the experience and already sort of know the issues and can speak intelligently on them in simple language to voters. Yeah, okay. That's the, so that's the election. That's part of the electability part, actually, is how well you communicate with somebody when you just talk to them about different issues. Right, and connect with them. Yeah. Right, I mean, yeah, so that's the election side and actually not, again, sort of not the majority of the 49, 51% of Ponohua initiative. The other half will be organizing around ballot initiatives, right? So, well, so the easiest example, although we won't end up doing it, is a county level minimum wage. Now, the state law says the legislature, the state is responsible for setting the minimum wage. But if we could do things on housing, right? Issues that have to potentially have to do with rail. I mean, the rail was approved by ballot, right? By voters. So we're looking at doing a ballot initiative, I think initially on Oahu and Kauai. Oahu, I think we're looking more along the lines of homelessness, housing, economic justice. We're still trying to find the right issue. Yeah. But basically take it to the voters and say, this is something that the city council has failed to move forward on. Do you support it? And the state as well, because it's not just one. They both have to have that issue. Right, right, right. But if they're, because it'll be a county level issue, I mean, we want to sort of focus on, you know, politicians maybe just generally, elected officials have failed to move forward on this issue, whatever we end up having it be. On Kauai, I think it's going to be something more along the sort of GMO pesticide regulatory stuff. But again, that's, it's very complicated. There's timelines we have to get. I think on Oahu, it's something like 28,000 signatures. Oh, signature, signature, signature. So saying that, I will segue into Pono Hauai initiatives, we're just getting started. For people who want to help, who want to help with candidates, who want to help get signatures for the ballot initiative, they can email me. And helping comes in multiple different ways. So yeah, I definitely want to. So that's one way. So, but also if you don't have the time, we'd love to, you know, love it if you gave a donation. If you don't have the time, if you don't have the money, there's a way to help out, whether it's showing up and helping sign waving, showing up at canvassing. Yeah, absolutely. So going to knock doors, helping to do phone banking, anything possible to help doesn't always have to be money. Money goes a long way because it costs money to get the mailers out as well. Yeah, I mean, for me, the, you know, the boots on the ground, the hands-on work, and I don't want to minimize the money because we need to be able to function, but it's really for the sake of candidates and for the sake of moving issues forward, it is really the boots on the ground activist work. Phone banking, sign waving, you know, getting signatures to supporting candidates during whatever, that's really important, but people have families and lives and they're busy. And so in those cases, I say, okay, well, if you can't help us out with any of that, can you give us $20, $15, you know, whatever, because that's hugely appreciated. So how would someone who's interested in supporting, how would they contact Polno Hawaii Initiative? How would they contact you? So there is a website, PolnoHawaiInitiativeAllSpeltOut.org. I know it's kind of, it's long, but all the other good domain names were taken. So PolnoHawaiInitiative.org. There it is. All spelled out, yeah, there you go. On there, there is a place to sign up for a mailing list. Okay. And there is a place to donate through our PayPal account. Okay. So those are the two sort of quickest, easiest. So you're operational. And now on this page, on this page, you have our Facebook or on your website, you have the list of issues and agenda items you have. No, not yet. So on the website, there's a little bit about our vision and our mission and a little bit about our story of how we came out, you know, how we sort of got to where we are as an organization and why we think the work is important. The website will continue to add functionality and add information as we move forward. But right now I will admit it's a pretty basic. I mean, I think it looks nice, but it is very, this is very basic website. But you're just beginning, you're just getting rolling. Right. So we need money to come in. Sign up for the mailing list. I mean, the most important thing I'd say is if you can, give us money. If you can't, that's okay. Sign up on our mailing list. And I wanna urge people, and I know people don't like to do it, when they fill out the form online to include their residential address. I know that makes people a little... Not their PO box. Not their PO box, because as we move forward, we wanna be able to identify which districts people live in so that we can target them, go support this guy who's running in this. Because elections are about the district. Right. So, and I know people that makes people comfortable. I promise we don't sell that information, we don't use it egregiously, we don't give it to people who aren't supportive of the organization. We use it strictly to keep people informed about what we're doing, what issues are going on, events, things like that. So, please, if you sign up, give us your email address, but equally as important, give us your residential address. I'll also recommend it's not just an email address, it's the email address that you will actually look at. Yeah, well, yeah, that's true. And reply. Right. If it goes into your spam, then it doesn't really do anybody any good. We're actually towards the end of our show, I think we only have about 30 seconds left. Okay, so if people have specific questions, they can email me directly. at josh at ponohawaiinitiative.org. Okay. Josh at ponohawaiinitiative.org, if you want to have some specific questions or want to follow up with Josh directly. Yeah, and also on our Facebook, if you leave a message there, someone will get back to you as soon as we can. Okay, well, thank you for joining us. Thank you for having me. There's a lot of work in front of us looking forward to that. Anyone who wants to help, anyone who wants to be involved with and engage this entire industry, this whole politics, please. Please engage these conversations. Please contact and find out how you can help and where you can help. Yeah, we need everyone's help. Absolutely. So thank you so much. Thank you very much. Appreciate being on the show. You should come back again and let me know what is coming up and activities that you've got coming up and other things. So keep in touch and we'll have you back on the show. Definitely, definitely. Thank you very much. Thank you for joining us. This is Think Tech-A-Wise, Movers, Shakers and Reformers, Politics in Hawaii series. Thank you to the crew and thank you to the staff. And everybody here at Think Tech Hawaii, thanks again to Mr. Josh Bross for joining us. Really appreciate it and we will see you next time.