 Welcome to Beyond the Lines, I'm Rusty Komori. We broadcast live on Mondays at 10 a.m. from the Think Tech Hawaii TV studio in the Pioneer Plaza in downtown Honolulu. This TV show is based on my book, also titled Beyond the Lines, which is about leadership, achieving and sustaining success, and finding greatness. My special guest today exemplifies all of this. He is Lieutenant Governor Doug Chin, and he is running a campaign for United States Congress. Today we are going beyond Lieutenant Governor. Lieutenant Governor. Hi there. Thank you for being here today. Thank you for having me on the show. It's great. You were born in Seattle, and you grew up in Seattle. That's right. Immigrants were immigrants. They came from China, and they moved over to Seattle, actually at a time when there was a lot of nation of origin quotas that made it difficult for people to immigrate. But then I grew up with experiencing a lot of diversity and a lot of different types of communities because of that. Oh, that's great. Now, when you're growing up, did you play any sports or instruments? Yeah, I did Little League, and I also, I still run to this day, so I got involved in that. And then I got involved, as far as instruments were concerned, I played the violin, I played the piano, and then the other thing that I've always done is my family's very musical, so I've gotten really involved in acapella singing, which is something that I do to this day. Great. Now, what did your parents do? What were their occupations? My father was, he was a civil engineer, and my mom was actually a university librarian for 40 years. So both of them worked. My sister is a nurse right now, but they really taught me a lot about working hard and studying hard. Wow, great. And what college did you end up going to, and what did you study? Okay, I went to Stanford in the 80s, right when, like, the dot-coms were taking off and everything, but I didn't study computer science, so I said, back to what I did as I studied English, which is, I'm not quite sure why I picked that major, but what I will say this is that studying English actually taught me a lot about really liberal arts and questioning values and making sure that I always had just understood what was the right moral compass to be able to follow. And then after Stanford, you went to University of Hawaii Law School. Sure did. Why did you choose to pursue law? Oh, my goodness. Well, it was such a great opportunity for me to be in a courtroom. I mean, I guess I'd always liked watching on TV people who were arguing something in court and I thought, I can do that. You know, I hope I can be involved in that, so that's kind of what got me started in my career. Great. And you have a great family. Can you tell me about them? Oh, sure. I'd love to. My wife and I both work. I've been married to Kathleen for 22 years. Great. In fact, our anniversary is coming up on Friday. She works as a project manager for a construction company. I've got two kids. My daughter is 19 years old. She's attending college, taking out student loans because I've been a government worker of most of my life and she's in Philadelphia and my son is going to be a senior next year. Great. Wow, that's fantastic. Now, you've been involved in AYSO soccer for a while and you received the volunteer of the Year Award twice. Right. Can you tell me about your connection with AYSO soccer? Right. So when my kids both played soccer when they were growing up and to me, I became a big proponent of AYSO because of its philosophy of just having everyone play regardless of their talent or ability. It was just a great way to be able to get people together. And my parents had always taught me that whatever you do, you got to give back to the community. So I became the commissioner for the Honolulu AYSO League, which is, it's kind of, you ended getting a lot of complaints. I guess that started me off my road to being able to reach out to the public and it was good. It was an awesome experience. Well, I don't know how you do it all, you know, with all the work that you do and then the volunteering that you do and then that's just one part of volunteering. I know you serve on the boards for other organizations. Yes, that's right. If we fast-forward a little, how did you get your start as a city prosecutor? Oh, sure. Well, like I said, I really wanted to be in a courtroom and so I interviewed at both the prosecutor's office and the public defender's office and Peter Carlyle, who was the prosecutor at the time, he actually became a really good mentor to me and he hired me on. He's actually somebody who taught me a lot about making sure that I'll tell you this, this is the one lesson he taught, which is to make sure that whatever I do, I got to do the right thing, regardless of people's criticisms or the politics of it. I just got to make sure that I do whatever is the appropriate thing for the people and that's been something that's followed with me to this day. Well said. I always say that there's never a wrong time to do the right thing. Yeah, that's true. Now, you received the Top Gun Award for winning the most trials in a calendar year out of 100 Honolulu prosecutors. What's your secret for winning so many trials? It's all about just listening to people and connecting with them. And what I, I remember something, another mentor had actually told me as they said, you know, people don't really care to know until they know you care. And so I always made sure that in whatever trial that I was in, that whoever ended up on the jury, that I really wanted to make sure that I knew what was important to them. And that's been a lesson that's followed me all the way through the rest of my career and to even what I'm trying to do now is to make sure that I'm listening to people and really responding and connecting with them. Simple but very impactful. Yeah, well, it's hard to do because it requires you to have to, you know, kind of put aside your own ego and kind of say, this is what I want to talk about and really instead listen to what people, what's important to them. That's what it means to be a public servant. Yeah, definitely. Now from 2010 to 2013, you became the managing director for the city and county of Honolulu. That's a tough job with big responsibility and you were great. Can you share with me some of those experiences? Oh yeah, I mean, you know, being the city manager means handling everything that happens in the city, whether it's small, whether it's things like potholes, sewage problems, trash pickup, anything like that to very large scale events. So for one of the things that took place during that time was the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperative was sponsored by President Obama first time in the United States. And so he wanted to have it in his hometown. And so what that ended up doing is it brought in the leaders of Russia, China, Australia, Japan, as well as like another dozen other countries. And I think what everybody who remembers during that time is the biggest thing was it was like bringing in all of these world leaders into a place where we still had to run the city and still have people get to work and make it there. So one of the things that I got really heavily involved in was making sure that we were able to let everybody know these are the roads that are closed. These are the different events that are going on. We want to make sure that everybody's able to get to work on time and doing what they needed to do because no matter what, as much as we were having that kind of large scale event, we wanted to make sure that we were taking care of the people of Honolulu. You did an amazing job as managing director and you oversaw the budget of over $2 billion. That's correct. And 10,000 employees, so, but I got to tell you that working in the city is when I really learned to appreciate the public service. And I know that they get a bad rep and really, I mean, being in the city or working for the state is a very complicated job, but I completely salute the people who have gone into public service because they're making the financial sacrifice and doing it because they want to serve the community. Definitely. Can you share with me one more significant experience that you've had as managing director during that time? The APEC was absolutely huge. But can you share it with me one more thing that you were doing? I know you have a ton. Yeah. I would say the biggest thing that was involved was really making sure that people's needs were met all throughout. And I always remember it was like this back in the 2000s, there was this game called the Sims, which was this game that even when you were a kid, you would always be able to see that if you touch one thing or if you impact one thing, it's this ripple effect that affects everybody else. And so you always have to be thinking about that. So to me, that is a big lesson that I had to learn in running the city. And then later on, even becoming the attorney general, what was that? You always have to step back and look at the big picture. You do one thing, you always have to think about how's this going to affect everybody else. I'm not sure every leader always understands that, but that was a lesson that I really had to pick up. It became part of my own analysis as far as what's the right thing to do. You've got to listen to people, you've got to think about how does that affect the big picture and then you do the right thing from there. And there's so many effects off of effects, like you said, it's like a domino ripple effect. And there's so many things that you have to look at multi-dimensionally. Now in 2015, Governor Iggy appointed you as our state's attorney general and you were unanimously confirmed by the state senate and you've had incredible, amazing success as attorney general. Can you share with me some of your proudest accomplishments as attorney general? Sure. First of all, I felt very honored and humbled to get the chance to become the attorney general. And it was an amazing three years that I was able to serve in that capacity. There was a couple things that took place that I'm really proud of. One was that there was a conservation easement. And basically what that meant was up on the north shore of Oahu, a lot of people were very concerned about future development and especially future development happening around the large major hotel that's in that area. And so what we were able to do is we were able to dedicate over 600 acres of state land just for conservation. And what that meant is that from anybody who owns that land from here on out, they have to make sure that they just they leave it alone. Conservation doesn't actually mean like active public parks or anything like that. It actually means just leaving open green space. And I think for all of us who live on Oahu, especially, I think we all understand how important it is to just have open green space. And so that was a really that was something I really cared about a lot. Something else that happened was when there was a molasses spill that took place about four or five years ago that took place by a large shipping company here. It destroyed a lot of coral reefs. And one of the things that really I took very seriously was the importance of making sure that we're protecting our environment because I know that's actually what makes Hawaii so special is the fact that we have this absolutely beautiful environment that if we don't protect it, then we're under threat from either climate change, whether or other types of manmade types of issues. So one of the things that I was able to do was work out a $15 million settlement that resulted in a restoration of those coral reefs. Fantastic. Saved 10 years of litigation that would have happened, taking the things up to the Hawaii Supreme Court instead of that. We were able to get with that shipping company and say, look, just put in $15 million. Let's restore those reefs now and make sure that we're taking care of that. And to me, I'm thrilled that we were able to protect the environment that way. Well, you're definitely a man of action. I mean, you look forward to challenges and adversity situations a lot, and you deal with it greatly. Yeah. And can I say something about that, too? Because I feel like that's something that a lot of times people will complain about people in government. They'll say, people don't actually do anything. They always end up complaining about something or just getting things caught up in bureaucracy and red tape. And I get that because, honestly, the government is really big. I mean, whether it's the city and county of Honolulu, where I was the managing director or the state of Hawaii, where is the attorney general, that's a lot of employees. It's a lot of regulations and things to sift through. But one of the core priorities that I've always cared about is making sure, you know what, I think what the people really need is they really need a solution. So I don't want to be someone who just constantly stands up and just complains and says, this is unacceptable. You know, we can't have anything like this. I want to be someone to say, well, let's do something about it. Let's find a solution. Because ultimately, we need to get to that resolution and not just be stuck in everybody complaining. Sure. Lieutenant Governor, you've been giving great insights. We're going to take a quick break. You are watching Beyond the Lines with my special guest, Lieutenant Governor Doug Chin. We will be back in 60 seconds. Are you tired of sleepwalking through life? Are you dreaming of a healthier, wealthier, happier you? You're not alone. And that's why thousands of people tune in each week to watch RB Kelly on Out of the Comfort Zone Tuesdays at 1 PM. Make a change. Get the help you need. And stop sucking at life. The Army, we're going to go live. Hello, it's 1 PM on a Tuesday afternoon, and I'm your host, RB Kelly. Welcome to Out of the Comfort Zone. Hi, I'm Bill Sharp, host of Asian Review here on Think Tech Hawaii. Join me every Monday afternoon from 5 to 5.30 Hawaii Standard Time for an insightful discussion of Contemporary Asian Affairs. There's so much to discuss. And the guests that we have are very, very well informed. Just think, we have the upcoming negotiation between President Trump and Kim Jong-un. The possibility of Xi Jinping, the leader of China, remaining in power forever. We'll see you then. Welcome back to Beyond the Lines on Think Tech Hawaii. In case you are just tuning in, my special guest today is Lieutenant Governor Doug Chin. And he is running a campaign for United States Congress. Lieutenant Governor, again, I appreciate you for being here. I want to ask you that last year you made national news when you let a suit on behalf of the state of Hawaii against the federal government when President Trump imposed a travel ban. Can you share with me your reason for it? Well, last January in 2017, just right after President Trump took office, he issued an executive order that for national security reasons ended up barring people from entering into the country. And to this day, it's actually an unprecedented bar that's never occurred before. 150 million people right now, as you and I are sitting here, are not allowed to come into the United States because they are presumptively considered a terrorist. And it doesn't matter if they're a baby, or if they're a grandmother, or if they're somebody who is suffering a physical disease where they really could need some medical attention in the United States, they're all considered presumptively terrorists. So to me, when I heard about that, it just reminded me exactly of the national discrimination and religious discrimination that my own parents have faced. But it's not my own story. I mean, I think there's so many people who are the children of immigrants or the grandchildren of immigrants who faced exactly the same type of discrimination, the same kind of scapegoating that is just wrong. And back in World War II, for example, it resulted in Japanese-Americans being who were citizens, actually, for the United States, being placed into internment camps just for national security reasons. So I felt like I had to take a stand on that. I was the first attorney general in the United States to challenge the revised travel ban. Other states ended up joining in as we got involved in that. But we were able to get a good decision from a federal district judge here in Hawaii, Derek Watson. And then it went up to the Ninth Circuit. They agreed with us. And now we're in front of the United States Supreme Court with a decision that could be coming out any day now. Amazing. I can see your passion for it. Yeah. And I got to say this, too, is that I'm not, it's funny. Since then, United States Attorney General Jeff Sessions has gone on Fox News. And he's branded me an activist AG. An activist attorney general, or just that I can't believe that an island in the Pacific would do this to the rest of the country by having this kind of thing happen. But to me, this was an example where I just felt like, we have to do the right thing. We've got to stand up to the bully. We've got to stand up to this kind of scapegoating. Because if we don't do that, then we're talking about another generation of discrimination. We're opening the door to bringing back a time that so many of us have fought to get away from. I mean, I think Hawaii is all about inclusiveness and diversity. And so I really believe that, I absolutely believe we're on the right side of history on this, that when our children and grandchildren judge us, they're going to look back at this time and realize that Hawaii did the right thing for the country. Great. Now you became Lieutenant Governor in January when Shansetsui resigned. And you have a campaign for United States Congress. Why did you decide to run for Congress right now? Well, I had already decided that I was going to run for Congress when I became Lieutenant Governor. So I was already kind of going down that road. But I'll tell you, it was this. It was a lot of, here I've been a public servant all my, basically most of my career, 20 years. And all this time, it's not like something that I really wanted to go to DC or anything like that until I saw everything that was happening. And I realized, 2018, this is such a critical time where we have our environment being threatened, Hawaii's environment, our oceans being threatened because of decisions that are coming from DC. We have our immigration policies that were so nondiscriminatory, now being turned into something that's very prejudicial, very dangerous, it's a really bad road to go down to. And I felt like, hey, if whatever I can do as the Attorney General, I wanna keep doing that when I go to Congress. I wanna say a few things about my time as Lieutenant Governor because that's been really a special opportunity. Shansetsui, before he stepped down, he actually started this great farm to school initiative. And basically what it just means is it's taking, away the canned shipped food that comes from the mainland that sits on the shelves for weeks and then just gets dumped into people's public school lunches, students' public school lunches, and replacing that with fresh local produce. And it was a great vision. And one of the things that I've really seen just by being able to continue with that program started up in Mililani High School. We're serving 2,000 students every five days a week with fresh local food. This is the third prong. This is the revitalization of agriculture in Hawaii that we've been missing ever since we lost pineapple and sugar. So to me, tourism is always strong, but you gotta have other prongs that are keeping the economy going. So one of them would be energy. And I can talk a little bit about that later. But certainly agriculture is something that has always been characteristic of Hawaii. And I just feel so strongly about wanting to carry that message, not just as lieutenant governor, but if I go to US Congress, really making sure that we're promoting a strong agricultural economy so that we can have food sustainability, food security. We can be teaching our kids that what they're growing on the INA is something that they're actually consuming in the schools. That's a really good thing. So I've been excited about that. Now you also care very deeply and you have big respect for our veterans. And you've attended an event recently where some of those veterans received the Purple Heart. Can you share with me some of those experiences with you talking with the veterans? Sure. I was so delighted to be able to be at this event where many veterans, actually thanks to our congressional delegation, were able to get recognition and a Purple Heart that they had not received for a very long time. And so many of these people, they give up their lives. They're so patriotic. They're really the true patriots. I mean, I'm so amazed by what they do. And I absolutely felt like this was an opportunity to be able to thank them for what they've done. But I also want to say this, too, is that just in talking to this group, as well as other groups, I can see how we have such a large veterans population. And I'm 100% behind making sure that they're getting the health care that they need, whether it's at Tripler or through other avenues, because they paid such a price by sacrificing for our country so that we could have the values that we've had and that we're going to fight for so that we don't turn back the clock. So to me, really supporting our veterans is just a number one priority. Oh, thank you. You've already received a number of great endorsements for United States Congress. What else are you hoping to accomplish in Congress? You mentioned a few. Can you share with me more? Right. So I've gotten the endorsement so far of the Machinists Union, the Laborers Union, blue collar workers. Like I said, both me and my wife work, we completely understand how important it is and how you actually need to have two jobs in order to be able to just even survive in a Hawaii economy. We get that. Our kids, they're going to have to take out student loans when they go to college, when they go to college, because we're going to make sure that they do that. So I've got to say this is that some of the priorities that have come to me have been really making sure that we keep Hawaii, or that we make Hawaii affordable. The cost of living that people have when they're here is just unacceptable. And I think one of the things that I've said to the different labor unions is how we've got to make sure that for working families, if they're working 40 hours a week, they should not be struggling to make it. That's unacceptable for our students who are going into college. And my own kids are part of that group. If they're going to be able to make it through college, we can't have them graduating with student loans that are just out of control. And so for that reason, I've been very much in support of reduced or even free tuition at some of our public universities. But I think it's been because of that I've gotten the endorsement of those laborers unions. I've also gotten the endorsement of Ocean Champions, which is a national organization. And that's largely because of my commitment to the environment. I actually believe 2018 is an absolutely critical year. US Congress is going to be the key player in making sure that we are protecting our environment because our president is not doing that. And so I've gotten the Ocean Champions endorsement because of the stances I've made to really protect the environment. You really care about such a wide range of situations that affect all of us here in Hawaii. What are your thoughts about energy and environment that we touched on earlier? Oh, yeah. So to me, I look at it like those are the three prawns. So tourism, that's doing great. Agriculture, we talked about. I really believe in what Hawaii has to say. Hawaii is such a special story in terms of being able to be sustainable and the commitment that it's made to be 100% renewable energy by 2045. The leaders here believe in that. And I believe in it to 100%. And to me, the reason why I believe in it is because I think that by pouring more funding at the federal level into research and development and into really developing the infrastructure to support battery storage for this type of renewable energy, Hawaii not only can set the example for the country, but it can set the example for the entire world. You mentioned earlier about having affordable housing here. What are your thoughts about the homeless issue that we have? Right, right. I think it really does come down to building more units that are not just luxury units, but units where people are able to afford living there. I think the other thing that at the federal space where we can be able to help out is to really be able to find more ways for federal funding and state funding to work together so that that type of funding, which is out there, is used and as most efficient as possible. So I believe I'm really well set up for that because of my time working in the city and county as the managing director and then as the attorney general. I've got the experience of being able to find solutions to be able to support our affordable housing. That's for sure. And you have so much experience about jobs here and our economy. What are your thoughts about the jobs and economy at the moment here? You know, I mean, we have a very low unemployment rate, but my concern is just we need more diversity. So not only do we need more diversity in our country because that's what I really believe in clearly, but we also need more diversity in our economy. And I think the concern about only pouring our resources into tourism, we gotta support them. We gotta promote that. But ultimately that's not good for the long term. That's not good for our generations. And I believe that to my core because my children are about to enter into their careers, I want so badly for them to be able to come back. My son is totally into computer science and STEM. I want him to feel like when he graduates from college, he's not gonna have to end up in Pasadena or something, nothing wrong with Pasadena, but I just don't, I want him to feel like there's a job for him when he comes back here. And so it's not just my family, but just what I've heard from other people. We gotta make sure we're taking care of our next generation. Yeah, well you've laid out a great vision that you have for the future of Hawaii and the people of Hawaii. I mean, the experience that you've had, you're definitely an incredible strong leader because of all that experience and such a wide range of positions as well. You've achieved great success in every job you've been in. I'm excited for your future and the amazing things that you really wanna accomplish for the people of Hawaii. I'm excited. And I really appreciate you being on my show today. Thank you very much, Rusty. That's been great. Yeah, great, great, I appreciate it. And thank you for watching Beyond the Lines on Think Tech Hawaii. I'm Rusty Komori reminding you to find your greatness and help others find theirs. Until next Monday, aloha.