 Welcome to Connecting Hawaii Business on Think Tech Hawaii. My name is Kathleen Lee, owner of Kathleen Lee Consulting, and I am your host for this program. Think Tech Hawaii is currently live streamed on ThinkTechHawaii.com as well as on Think Tech Hawaii's Facebook and YouTube pages. And viewers like you have the opportunity to ask us questions by sending them to questions at ThinkTechHawaii.com. On the show today we have my friend Tyler Dos Santos-Town. He is a chairperson for the Democratic Party of Hawaii. Welcome to the show, Tyler. Kathleen, thanks for having me. Absolutely. So as many of us may know here in Hawaii, the Democrats and the Democratic Party have been the majority party since 1962. So it's great to have you on the show for us to talk about what that means for Hawaii. But before we delve into all of that, tell us a bit about yourself. Sure. Well, I'm Tyler Dos Santos-Town, born and raised in Liliha, Nalava Heights and now resident of Kakaako. I was elected chair of the Democratic Party of Hawaii in last summer, 2020. Prior to that, I was executive director of the Hawaii Construction Alliance, which represents five of the construction trade unions. I'm also the honorary consul of Portugal here in Hawaii. And I was formerly the chair of the Neighborhood Commission Office, which oversees the neighborhood board system. That's a lot of leadership positions you have there, friend. And it's definitely an honor to have you on the show. So let's delve into one of those positions as chair of the Democratic Party of Hawaii. What has the party been up to? Well, you know, make a really good point that we've been the majority party basically since statehood. And, you know, a lot of the things that we enjoy today were enshrined in our Constitution in 1978, and subsequently, you know, have been built upon by years of Democratic leadership here. From the party side, we have about 80,000 members statewide. And they, you know, many of them are active in their communities, active in advocacy and lobbying, as well as within the party's various committees. We have a, you know, membership committee, community relations. We have events on an ongoing basis, including switching now to Zoom events over the past year. Really at the core of this, this is about a movement of people coming together to make Hawaii a better place, somewhere that's more fair, more just, to make sure that people have access in an equitable way to resources that are able to, you know, live their best life here in Hawaii. How has that gone for you? I know your position entails you talking to the different folks in the different states. So with everything that went on in 2020, how did you handle that? Yeah, well, of course, 2020 was a huge election year, not only for the presidency, but Senate races and House races. Here in Hawaii, we're very proud to have hundreds, if not over 1,000, you know, shifts of people calling, texting into the swing states to make a difference. And then of course, with the Senate race in Georgia going to a runoff, we got more of our volunteers engaged in that race because really control of the Senate came down to that. I was very proud of being able to send 25,000 handwritten postcards from Hawaii to voters in Georgia, urge them to elect Raphael Warnock and John Ossoff to the Senate. The margin of victory for those two candidates was about 10,000 voters, so our 25,000 postcards, I'd like to think, made a difference. So that's a grassroots operation that was nationwide. How did you even come about and, or how did the party think about doing that? Postcards is a very simple concept, and yet it, as we saw, it had a very powerful impact. Well, just like everything else, you know, the pandemic changed the way we're doing things. In some ways, it forced us to do more modern things like, of course, get on Zoom. But in other ways, it kind of forced us to go back to really traditional things like sitting at home and writing postcards. And of course, if you're staying safe at home during the pandemic, what better way than, you know, writing postcards and having cute little messages to people in Georgia to take voting seriously and to, you know, make a good choice? I love that. That's absolutely wonderful. I'm always a supporter of grassroots movements, because I think community always starts in, you know, our closest circles. But on the much larger scale, we currently have an administration who has a Democrat in the presidency, which is President Joe Biden. So can you tell us a bit, or give us an update of how the Democratic Party of Hawaii and the current administration are tied in and what's going on there? Sure. Well, we are about five months into the Biden administration as of today. And in that time, I mean, they've really done a great job of hitting ground running. You know, they inherited a lot of difficult challenges due to the pandemic, the economy. And since then, you know, they passed the third stimulus, the American Rescue Plan, which gave people, including about 900,000 people in Hawaii, stimulus checks, about $1,400. In addition to that, you know, there are a lot of other programs to help small businesses, to help families, to help pay for child care, extending the child tax credit. And, you know, we are plugged in on a regular basis with the DNC National League. We're also whiteouts. And every time that they, you know, do something positive for Hawaii, we try to amplify that message. Just last week, they announced $6 million for Haleakala National Park. They expand that park to make sure that we're protecting, you know, special places on Maui. Prior to that, at the start of this month, they announced plans to invest in resilient infrastructure. And of course, we're at the beginning of hurricane season. And so those are just two examples of just little things the Biden administration has been doing that are going to make a big impact here in Hawaii. And in a way that, you know, is different than the nationwide benefits of stimulus package or the nationwide benefits of a comprehensive infrastructure bill or what happens. Let's talk about the current administration's response to COVID-19 and how that has trickled down to our state of Hawaii. Can you expand more on that, Tyler? Sure. Well, if you think back just five months ago, it's January. They're very, you know, at that point, only medical professionals were getting the vaccine. And since then, we've gotten, thanks to the, you know, volunteering of so many people in Hawaii, to go and get a vaccine. You know, we're getting back to normal. The Biden administration has ramped up production of vaccines. They've made it easier to get it. And the president, of course, set the goal of May 1st as a date when any American over the age of 16 at that time to be able to get it and what he exceeded that. But, you know, there's a lot of small businesses and, you know, individuals who have been hurting. So, you know, the administration made sure that people got stimulus checks, made sure that people who have, you know, children would get that file tax credit. And then they've also, you know, made sure that businesses could keep accessing loan programs and other things to keep their employees on the payroll to make sure that they could take care of their families. That is wonderful. I know you mentioned this earlier, but can you expand more on, and I think I'll always tie the questions back to how is it pertinent to us here in Hawaii? So the two plans you mentioned were the American Families Plan and American Jobs Plan. Could you talk a little bit more about those two plans? Sure. Well, starting with the American Families Plan, this is really focused, as the title says, on families. What that means is early childhood education. President Biden wants to make sure that every child in America, every young American, has access to quality preschool education. And also that educators or preschool teachers who are supervisors in preschools, who have other jobs in early childhood education, are being paid a fair wage, starting at $15 nationwide. The minimum wage is much lower than that. But if you are in early childhood education, we want to make sure that they're taken care of. And so that's part of his plan. In addition to that, he wants to expand the Child Tax Credit to make sure that people, parents, or other caregivers can take care of their children, make sure that they have nutrition, make sure that they can pay for child care. Now moving forward to older kids, part of that plan is free college education, free community college for two years, expanding Pell Grants for those students who want to go to for your institution. And here in Hawaii specifically, one of the things that the Biden administration is doing is committing $39 billion to minority education, higher education. So that includes historically black colleges and universities around the country, but also includes institutions with high numbers of Asian American and Pacific Islanders. Here in Hawaii, that's basically every campus here. And they're going to be able to apply as part of this $39 billion investment to make sure that young Asian American and Pacific Islanders are able to complete college, have the resources, and have programs that are going to support them. And then of course, we can't forget about our seniors. And so many families, including our viewers out there, I felt included take care of older relatives. And so that sometimes takes them away from work, that takes them away from other responsibilities that they have. So part of this panel is going to be making sure that caregivers get taken care of, that they have adequate resources to make sure that they're helping our seniors age in place in a healthy way. And so it's from the very youngest to the very oldest, want to make sure that nobody slips through the cracks. That's great. The tuition subsidies that you talk about, when does that, or how can someone, I know you mentioned that was folks of Pacific Islander or Native Hawaiian descent could take advantage of that. How would they go about that? Yeah. So a lot of these funds are going to be up to those colleges and universities to apply for. They, a lot of them get grants from the Department of Education. But specifically for local families, I know a lot of them are part of the Pell Grant program. Many of our viewers probably got Pell Grants, which is part of paying for their college or university education. And so President Biden wants to increase that to $1,400. He wants to make sure that dreamers, immigrants who came to this country as kids, can access that. He also wants to make sure that part of the issue as to why a lot of Asian American, Native Hawaiian, other Pacific Islander families, students don't continue their education all the way to the end and don't graduate, is the cost burden. And so to the extent that we can have tuition subsidies, these grants, make sure that that cost burden is taken off the table, that they can study. That's really important because if they graduate with a degree, they have much higher income potential for the rest of their lives. And that's good for our economy overall. I think that's great. I know we had talked about what the administration is up to. We have a few minutes before we go on our midway break, but can you tell us about what the Democratic Party of Hawaii is up to these days? Just like a preview, I guess, before we delve into it on the second half. Well, we are in off season, our elections before 2020 and 2022, and right now we're smack in the middle of that. And so there aren't that many opportunities for people to get involved with campaigns, but I will say that a lot of local campaigns are ramping up. And so all the candidates statewide are thinking about next year and volunteers are as well. But one really key thing that maybe we could revisit is nationally. Over in Virginia, they have really critical elections this November, November of 2021 for governor and in the state assembly. Of course, Virginia is a swing state. And so we're going to be helping from Hawaii, just like we did in Georgia with postcards, phone calls, et cetera, to make sure we support not only the gubernatorial candidate in Virginia, but the down ticket candidates as well. Because what happens in a big state, a very populated state like Virginia, you know, could expand nationwide. And so we want to make sure that that blue wave of Democrat Democratic victories from 2020 continues in 2021, Virginia. Wonderful. So as I mentioned, we are going to go on break. But when we return, we'll delve more into what the Democratic Party of Hawaii is up to as well as challenges of being the majority party. So stay tuned. America Finding Its Way is a 30-minute talk show from Think Tech, Hawaii, which is streamed live at 11 o'clock every Thursday morning. The show features Jay Fiedel as host with regular contributors Tim Apachele, Cynthia Sinclair, Stephanie Dalton and Winston Welch. We discuss the issues, events, challenges and crises in Washington and around the country and the world, in the federal and state governments, in the cities and in the hinterland. We examine and evaluate the motivations and frustrations of the competing individuals and interests these days. We connect the dots, we tell the truth, and we try to figure out what it all means and where things are going. In short, we cover America Finding Its Way in the post-Trump world, which is not easy and which is sometimes a discouraging experience. We try to be optimistic but we are often left pessimistic about the future of our country. Come watch us, listen to us, email your questions to us at questionsatthinktechhawaii.com every Thursday morning and you'll see what we mean. Thanks. Welcome back to Connecting Hawaii Business on Think Tech Hawaii. My name is Kathleen Lee and our guest this afternoon is Tyler Dos Santos-Kam, the chairperson for the Democratic Party of Hawaii. Right before we left, we were talking about what the party has been up to and Tyler, you mentioned that while we were talking about what the administration was doing, well, it's all connected anyway, but you mentioned infrastructure as well. So let's delve into that. Yeah, I'm so excited to talk about President Biden's American Families Plan and get to the jobs. American Jobs Plan is being discussed right now in Congress and it's the subject of a lot of negotiations. But the bottom line is we've talked about comprehensive infrastructure plan for our country for years. We're finally at a point where we realize we need it. And so this infrastructure plan is really going to help us here in Hawaii. We have, you know, especially on the neighbor islands bridges that are deficient. We have, as anyone that's driven on our roads, on H1, H2, H3, nose, we have potholes. And then in a bigger way, you know, a lot of our infrastructure here in Hawaii, whether it's our airports, whether it's our power plants, they're all right along the shoreline. And so in an age where we have sea level rise, climate change, we need to do things to protect that infrastructure and make it more resilient. And so President Biden's infrastructure plan is really going to be focused on making sure that our infrastructure is ready for the 21st century, ready for climate change, and, you know, won't have the same failings that, you know, our crumbling infrastructure from the 20th century had as well. I love how you, you talk about that. Because people always think, well, I don't want to over generalize, right, but a lot of times people think that infrastructure is a like a local city and county issue. So it's good to know that we can tie that in with how the current administration can help us out with that. You did talk about the family's plan and the jobs plan, the American jobs plan. And we have a question from a viewer. So let me go ahead and read that to you, Tyler. Are there any new plans from Biden to solve all the empty job occupations? Right. And this is, there's a couple layers to this question. I think one is immediately, you know, from the pandemic, a lot of people lost their jobs. We still haven't been able to get all of those folks back into their current job. And so, you know, making sure that people had that stimulus earlier this year to kind of get through and be able to carefully budget was one really important step. But the next thing is making sure that whatever next job that they get into, it's going to be one that pays bills. You know, here in white, we have so many people who have two jobs, three jobs, and part of President Biden's plan not only to raise the minimum wage, but to make sure that, you know, jobs around the country pay a decent wage and have decent benefits. That's something that's really key. And that's going to be part of his plan. When we talk about the infrastructure plan, you know, those construction workers that are going to be building clean energy infrastructure around the country and wants to make sure that they also have, you know, good benefits and a good wage scale. And then, you know, all of these other things are dependent as well on changing technology. And so, you know, folks from around the country, you know, from industries that are maybe on the wane, on the way, you know, becoming obsolete, want to make sure that those people have access to job retraining programs. And that's also part of his plan to make sure that people can go back to college if they want to, that they can finish their college degree and have higher learning potential. So it's not going to be something that happens overnight, but all of these pieces together are going to help to make sure that Americans, the country and here in Hawaii, can get back to work and, you know, get in a job that keeps them ahead, keeps them in their family. Okay. And we have a second viewer question. So let's go ahead and ask this because we do prompt our viewers to ask those questions. Will Biden meeting Putin effectively? Well, we saw in the Star Advertiser, I think was today or yesterday, you know, we had planes scramble from Pickham Air Force Base in response to Russian, you know, Russian military exercise near us. I think one really key thing that's going to be a hallmark of the Biden administration is returning to the world stage, re-engaging with our allies, who is just in Europe with the leaders of the G7 and NATO. And so I think that it's going to help Hawaii in that we have allies working together. At that summit, they talked about the challenges that China was going to pose. And of course here in Hawaii, we might be the closest state to China. And China, of course, is expanding into the South China Sea and into the South Pacific. And so having good relationships with our allies like Japan, the Philippines, India, Indonesia, you know, Australia, and President Biden's longstanding with people in those countries, leaders diplomat, will help to make sure Hawaii stays safe. And of course, we have a great military presence here. All six branches in the military are here with Hawaii, including the new Space Force, you know, tracking satellites. You know, President Biden's also very cognizant of that and will be continuing while President Obama started with the pivot to the Pacific. And so it wouldn't surprise me if Hawaii plays a bigger role diplomatically and militarily in the next few years. That's something we will definitely watch out for. And I know, like I've known you for a while, and you've always been very passionate about your involvement with the community, and especially now with the Democratic Party and your other things as well. What are the challenges you think that the Democratic Party faces as the majority party? Well, being the dominant party here in the state, and of course, you know, the state Senate being 24 to 1, and the state House being 47 to 4, you know, I think all of the natural tensions that exist within the Big Ten of the Democratic Party become much more magnified when it's so dominant here. And so, you know, we have people who are very passionate about environmental issues, very passionate about labor issues, very passionate about women's issues, health care, you name it. You know, all of these things kind of come into play and my role is chair. And along with the county chairs and, you know, other folks in leadership within the Democratic Party, really it's our job to make sure that all of those voices are heard and that they all work together. Really, in my mind, those things don't have to be in opposition. And going back to the Biden administration, when we talk about his infrastructure plan or jobs plan, it's really about preparing for climate change, mitigating climate change, reducing carbon, and also making sure that those people who are working on energy plants, you know, construction workers, utility workers that they have good paying jobs, you know, we can work to try to do the most good for the most people. And I think that's really what it comes down to at the end of the day. And so it's not just balancing, convening interests, one against another, but it's how they can work together within our big tent. Right. Well, as the chair of the majority party in Hawaii, what is one lesson that you have learned in your position so far that you would like to share with our community or the viewers out there? You know, that is a great question. And I think that the one lesson that that I would share is individuals can make a difference. And it's just a matter of, you know, finding the right people to talk to, coming up with a compelling argument, and just having that degree of follow through to make you a good example today. The governor, you get assigned the bill to recognize Juneteenth, which is the day that slaves were emancipated in Texas. And it's become a nationwide celebration, right, especially for the Catholic American community. And here in Hawaii, we don't, we didn't have legislation recognizing that day. The Miss Hawaii for this year, this is her signature issue. And she approached the party and said, Hey, you know, would you guys be willing to sign on to the letter? Of course, you know, we did. But if she hadn't done that, you know, we wouldn't have come involved. And it was something as simple as that, a simple email to his chair or, you know, someone else. Similarly, there are a lot of other issues that are being worked on right now. We have our health committee, which has been discussing ways to improve access to healthcare. There's a lot of ways for people to plug in. And I think if you're passionate about an issue, come join our Democratic Party, if that aligns with your values, we'll find a way to use your talent, skill, energy, and, you know, try to put it's work in a good way to make a difference. And on that note, is there anything else that you would like to add that we haven't covered? Well, one thing that I'm really excited to announce yesterday, our executive committee approved the creation of a small business working group. And I think for your viewers out there, they're going to be really interested in this. Because, you know, as we recover from the pandemic, we as a Democratic Party want to make sure that we're supporting our small businesses. And this is the initiative that this chair, and I'm really excited about. We're going to be going out there and doing a listening tour engaging with small businesses to hear from them. We'll talk about raising the minimum wage, want to make sure that we take all of their input into consideration, making sure that, you know, if there are other issues that businesses face and succeeding and getting started and navigating some of the regulation here that, you know, we're responsive to their needs. And so, you know, over the next few months, we're going to be going out there throughout the state and listening to businesses that are owned, not just by members of the party, but also, you know, really institutions in the community to see what their needs are, to see what we can do to support those small businesses in our community. Wonderful. And if people would like to get ahold of you or the Democratic Party of Hawaii, how do they go about in doing that? Sure. Well, my email is Tyler at HawaiiDemocrats.org. You can visit our website. I try really hard to respond to all the emails that come my way. So I would love to hear from your viewers and get their input. It's really easy to join if our party is a member right from our website. And of course, if you've moved over the past few years and need to update your information with us, you can do that online as well. So we want to be a party for the 21st century. So you can find us online, engage with us there. I look forward to hearing from the viewers to make sure that we're moving Hawaii forward in the best way that we can. Thank you so much, Tyler, for joining us today. We really appreciate it. And we also want to thank Jay Fidel and the entire staff at Think Tech Hawaii for making programs like this possible. And on that note, we will see you next time. Aloha. Aloha.