 Aloha. Welcome to Talk Story with John Whitehead. Today we have a special guest. I'm even, I'm sitting here just excited. I never thought we'd ever have a real United States senator with us this morning, and we have Brian Schatz. And this is the day before the big election, and what I say, folks, this is the story. He and I share a passion for things political. So we like to talk about it, not only about policy, which he's very good at, but at how elections may go and how elections may turn out. So senator, I am going to take advantage of your presence in this morning and talk a little bit about tomorrow. Well, this is going to be fun for me, because I'm sort of an amateur pundit data guy. And normally when I talk about elections and politics, I try to stay on the policy side. But I mean, what is on everybody's mind is, you know, what's going to happen tomorrow. Well, first of all, I want to, I totally believe you're going to win the election tomorrow, okay? Well, I feel somewhat comfortable. So now we can talk about other people. Yeah, let's do that. Well, first of all, obviously, on the national scene, we got this election going on between Trump and Secretary Clinton. Ian, what's your prognostication? Well, I feel more comfortable now than I did probably even a couple of days ago. I think Director Comey's sort of inexplicable original letter 10 days ago or so, followed by a Sunday letter, you know, two days prior to the election, which essentially said, never mind. An absolute departure from normal FBI. Yeah, it seems like the whole thing just got tangled up. It was either really bad mistake or very diabolical. Right. It was either intentional or not. But either way, it was inexcusable. But I do think that there were, look, I don't think most people are concerned about your email protocol, but I think you're talking about a game of inches, right? And so it doesn't have to matter to most people in order to impact the election. And what we saw after the Comey letter hit was that Hillary probably lost a point or two, and our Senate candidates lost a point or two. And just to give you a sense for how much that mattered, there are seven or eight Senate races that are all within the margin. See, that's really why I wanted to go with this. You know, what do you think was the downside impact of all of that? Well, we think we're recovering, but I'll just kind of run down the Senate races. Yeah, I'd love to. So we have probably eight pickup opportunities. A couple of them are pretty nearly in the bag. The first on the list, I think Hawaii people will be happy to know is likely to be Tammy Duckworth from Hawaii. Yeah, that would be great. She's in a very comfortable position. She's in a, you know, sort of a deep blue state. So I think she's going to be the new senator, junior senator from Illinois. Russ Feingold is returning to politics and probably going to win in Wisconsin, although that's a little bit tighter. Then there's a kind of batch of races where we are ahead, but not by a lot. So what about Catrin? Oh, Catherine Cortes-Masto is doing really well. And the really, to me, the gratifying, exciting thing that happened over the last four or five days is that it looks like Latino turnout. It's like nothing anybody could have predicted. Well, I suppose if somebody starts their campaign by insulting a whole community of people, it's not surprising that they would rise up and express themselves through the process. But, I mean, I was watching every blow by blow on my phone on Friday night, and there's a sort of Mexican grocery store called Cardenas in Clark County in the Las Vegas area. And they're, as long as you're in line state, so in other words, they won't close the polling place until everyone who is in line gets a chance to vote. So they were going to close at six, then they were going to, then they postponed it to 10, and then they postponed it to midnight just to allow people to vote. There is a nearly doubling of Latino voting in both Florida, Nevada, Colorado, Virginia. And Catherine is, Catherine is from Nevada. She's, yeah, that's right. And the, she will be the first Latina in the United States Senate. So that's really exciting. Fantastic. You know, and what's interesting about that particular state as well as Washington and Oregon is that there's so many people from Hawaii living in Nevada, Washington and Oregon. So, you know, is there, what kind of impact you think the Hawaii voters might have on the race? You know, they're pretty decisively both, because especially in Hawaii, the Hillary Clinton campaign was actually calling into Nevada to try to identify people with a Hawaii affiliation. But the other group that has most decisively moved into the D column nationally is Asian Americans. And I think there is just a recognition that Donald Trump is dangerous for people who have any relationship to immigrants, right? On the family level. And remember that, you know, Asian American immigrants were not always decisively in the D column, right? Especially on the mainland. But what's happened is that they're starting to make an impact in a couple of key states in Virginia, interestingly, in North Carolina as well. Certain parts of the South, there are growing immigrant Asian communities, and they're, they're all in for Hillary. So not only has the Latino community really sort of risen up, but the national Asian community is now strongly democratic. And it's not because all of these folks come from places where the government is actually communist, right? So they're not, they don't show up inclined towards a view of government that is more expansive, right? So the Republicans should have a fighting shot at a Chinese immigrant, a Vietnamese immigrant, and all the rest of it. Oh, you would think so. You would think so. But they're not articulating a small government tolerance, right? It's all intolerance. It's all fear. It's all an undermining of the legitimacy of your physical presence in the state. Do you think then, and I'm assuming this, I'm getting this from your conversation, that if Hillary Clinton wins the presidency, there's a good chance that the Senate of the United States might turn over to the Democrats? Yeah, I think we are in a very good position to get to about 50. So if it's a 50-50 tie, then Tim Kaine actually breaks the tie to make sure that Chuck Schumer is majority leader. But I think we still have a chance to get to 52-53. Now, let me tell you something. The Senate has this unique 60-person closure rule, right? Which means that debate cannot be cut off unless you have 60 people voting to do that. So that has always given people that are in opposition to what's ever being proposed, sort of an advantage. Right. Well, the idea of closure, right, is that in order to pass anything in the United States Senate, for the most part you're going to need 60 votes, and therefore you're going to need some bipartisanship. And that rule is sort of the foundation of the Senate in terms of forcing folks to work together. You cannot just pass something on a 50- But what do you do in this current situation where you have people who don't want to work to, who just won't do that? Well, it's really interesting because I've been doing a lot of thinking about that. I like the way the Senate is different from other legislative bodies where if I have a good idea for a bill before filing the bill, I've got to find a Republican. I have to find someone who likes my idea enough. And vice versa. And vice versa. And so it forces folks to work together. And so on that level, I like that because it distinguishes the US Senate from every other place where this rule causes you to be totally ineffective if you're not willing to work with the other side of the aisle. And so it has caused me to develop relationships and improve legislation because I've got to talk to conservatives. It's great. But your question is a different one. Well, what if they just won't? Yeah, what if they just don't want to, and we have the same kind of stealing? Well, so there's cloture for legislation, the 60-vote threshold for legislation. And then there's a 60-vote threshold for advice and consent to get judges to get some pretty good justices. That's where this question's heading. See, I think that all of this depends on good will and good faith. And so if there's good will and good faith on the legislative side, and there still is some remaining good will and good faith, then I think we retain that 60-vote threshold. But if they come into a conversation, for instance, about President-Elect Knock-On-Woods' ability to nominate and confirm her own cabinet, or to even have a full complement of Supreme Court justices. Yeah, there's some conversation saying that some people don't care if we have a full complement. Which is, I mean, just outrageous, but in my mind... It's totally outrageous. And at that point, I'd be forelowering the threshold to 51, because it's one thing for us to set our own internal rules, and that's sort of our prerogatives, because it's the U.S. Senate, and we get to make our own rules, but to the extent that our rules prevent the other branches of government from even functioning. In other words, you can't have a cabinet, or you can't have a Supreme Court, because every Republican is so afraid of the Tea Party that they won't vote for anybody. Then with the moment we get to 50, if those people follow through on their threats, then I think we have to change the rule and say, we're going to get Supreme Court justices, we need a cabinet position, we've got to govern. We have to govern. And you know, it's one of the interesting to me, is that, okay, let's assume that something awful happens, and we have a Trump presidency, right? You know, I've been thinking about the fact that people don't realize that in many instances Trump's position doesn't necessarily coincide with his Republican colleagues. For example, traditionally Republicans have been in favor of free trade. In fact, all of the free trade agreements of the past really happen as a result of Democrats eventually agreeing with Republicans. So now we have a president who goes exactly opposite on that issue. There are other issues, a strong Russia policy. Republicans have been, always stood for strong anti-Russia. Now we have, if Trump was to be elected, we would have a president who's soft on Russia, saying it kindly. And so what do these people do? I mean, how does all of this work together? I have no idea. I had such great difficulty in noticing, believing, and certainly in predicting Trump's rise. I mean, I had, in my little pool, I had Jeb Bush as getting the nomination. Me too. That's why we vote wrong. That's why we're talking about it today. So I don't know. But I think you're right that there is now a real rift in the Republican Party, and it's not at all clear how that would play out in a legislative context. Well, some people I know have been suggesting that it doesn't matter who gets elected president, that there'll be some kind of impeachment movement. Hopefully not, but there's been this suggestion. And I thought about it. It seemed to me that if there was an impeachment movement against President Clinton, Hillary Clinton, that you wouldn't, not a single Democrat would vote for impeachment in the House or the Senate. But if there was an impeachment movement for President Trump, you might find Republicans who would prefer having Mike Pence as president and therefore be more willing to join the Democrats than otherwise. Am I just like crazy? Or am I just a fantasy? Or is this a possibility? I think if you're imagining an impeachment scenario on both sides, my own view is that one would be sort of a manufactured, sort of pre-ajudicated outrage at the fact that Hillary Clinton's president. If it were Trump, I can imagine a high-crimer misdemeanor against the United States government. Especially if you're passing information over to Russia. Right. And so there are Republicans in the Senate and the House who are patriots and worry, forget the policy side, right? Free trade or anti-TPP or whatever, tax policy, those are all important elements of what we do. But there is a foundation, right? Which is the rule of law, which is respect for the Constitution, which is respect for institutions. And believing that the alliance, especially in the international context, that the alliances that we've built over the last 50 to 80 years are worth retaining. And there, I think, really are Republicans, if Trump were to win, who would forget impeachment for the moment, who would push back as vigorously as they could against stuff that they basically disagree with. The problem is that even if Trump loses decisively tomorrow, he will have gotten 45% of the vote. And that is a non-trivial number of people to contend with. And then going into the midterms, that's, I think, who Republican members of Congress fear the most. Fear the most. So we are going to take a short break right now. We're going to come back, Senator, and we're going to start putting this same kind of heavy analysis on the Hawaii races. All right. Okay. So we'll be right back. Hello. I'm Marianne Sasaki. Welcome to Think Tech Hawaii, where some of the most interesting conversations in Honolulu go on. I have a show on Wednesdays from one to two called Life in the Law, where we discuss legal issues, politics, governmental topics, and a whole host of issues. I hope you'll join me. Aloha, everybody. My name is Mark Shklav. I'd like you to join me for my program, Law Across the Sea, on ThinkTechHawaii.com. Aloha. Aloha. I'm Kawe Lucas, host of Hawaii is my mainland here on Think Tech Hawaii every Friday at 3 p.m. We address issues and importance for those of us who live here on the most isolated landmass on the planet. Please come join me Fridays at 3 p.m. Mahalo. Aloha. Welcome back to Talk Story with John Waihe and our special guest, Senator Schatz. And, you know, by the way, if you want to ask a question, you can call our hotline, which is 415-871-2474. Or you can tweet us. And mix me all up. But anyway, the tweet is ThinkTech Hawaii. H-I. And we have a tweet. And this is Bert Lum. How you doing, Bert? If you get a chance, please ask Senator Schatz about... You've got to do this, Senator, because I don't even understand the language. So Bert's asking me about the open data bill that I've done, actually, with Senator Ben Sasse, to illustrate the point about the need for bipartisanship. Ben Sasse is the fourth most conservative senator in the United States Senate. He's a young guy. And he and I did a bill and it's actually pretty straightforward. It just requires that all government data that is collected that's not classified or otherwise protected, you know, under HIPAA or whatever it may be, be collected in a way that is interoperable and machine-readable. And the reason that that matters is that, you know, we're collecting all kinds of really important data sets that the public actually owns. But for the most part, the way you get that data is you have to go to a government building, right? Right? File for... For the file. Or at best, they'll send you a PDF. In this big data world with all kinds of apps that can make really interesting use of data, what we want is all of it to be in the same format so that people can get data sets about whether or real estate or transportation systems and start to do things on the private sector side smarter. So I'm really excited about this and then the sort of conservative argument for this, which is why I got a good conservative to co-sponsor the bill. You know, what is the conservative argument for this? He thinks that the more transparency there is in terms of the government collection of data, the more that waste fraud and inefficiency will be rooted out. And I said, well, I would have no objection to that. None of us would object to that, right? That's right. Except if we were the people being accused of waste and rest of it. Yeah. So it's moving along and we hope to get it past the... Well, you never know. It's the Senate. So you've got one supporter. You know, there's Bert out there and he thinks you're doing a great job. I understand the concept. I understand the concept and I'm all for it. I just don't understand what... How it will work, that's all right. But then I don't need to. It's like my... Anyway, let's talk about Hawaii. We got some exciting races and then we also got the fact that I think most of the state legislature will probably be all the incumbents coming back, right? I mean, I don't know. Is there any interesting... Yeah, I think there are very few interesting state legislature races. Obviously, Sam Sloan versus Stanley Chang is an interesting one. Yeah, that's sort of an interesting one because Stanley's a young guy and trying to make his mark again. And Sam is the only... Yeah, but he's the only Republican in the state Senate. Yeah. So I think there are a lot of people who are wrestling with the question of, well, do I vote for Stanley because I agree with him? Or do I vote for Sam because I believe in the idea that there ought to be at least some opposition to the Democrats just to keep them honest. Right. And so it'll be interesting. One of the interesting guests that I had here was Beth Fukumoto. Oh, yeah. Who, unfortunately, is running against a real solid Democrat. But nevertheless, as a person and as a Republican, she in my mind personified what I believe the new Republicans in Hawaii ought to look like, progressive, Hawaii-oriented, and the rest. And yet she is under a lot of attack by her own party. So I don't know how much of that, you know, what do you call it, Brett Bratt, that alt-right situation is actually permeating in Hawaii. Well, I think it's not as bad as it is in other places, but I gotta say, locally and nationally, the people who I feel really bad for in politics are thoughtful, patriotic Republicans who are trying to survive primaries, trying to keep a coalition together that is fraying internally, massively. I think they've sort of duct-taped over it because they've been able to unite against the idea of a Clinton presidency and a liberal Supreme Court. So they sort of have papered over this just to kind of get across the finish line. But these divisions are real. And there are, I think, a lot of conservatives who feel that this kind of revolutionary alt-right, Breitbart universe where analysis is failing people, where there's very little in the way of real expertise, respect for science, respect for institutions, you know, the kind that, when I represent a Makiki tantalist and Manoa, there's a pretty significant conservative Republican community out there. But they're not, you know... They're not the alt-right. But they're thoughtful folks. I mean, they study, they read The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, they keep up on things, they just have a different view than I do. What's so interesting to me is that all of a sudden the Republican parties getting associated with being anti-immigration, and yet one of the great stalwarts of Asian immigration was Senate the Fawn from Hawaii. I mean, if you wanted a local Republican hero, there he is. Pat Psyche was in favor of this sort of thing. But anyway, I hope that negative doesn't start creeping. That kind of negative doesn't start creeping into our politics. We got the mayor's race. Yeah, so I think Kirk Caldwell is going to be successful tomorrow. I'm obviously a supporter of Kirk as you are. And I think, you know, here's my, now, just on the pundit side, because I won't use this as a commercial for Kirk. But I think that... Unless you let me. A little bit, you know. So I think that, you know, in the end that Charles didn't paint a picture of how he would actually govern. That he was sort of... That his opening salvo, as it usually is, is relatively precise, disciplined, effective, you know. He's very good at the critique. But there was no next paragraph, right? And there was no... I can't tell you how Charles would govern other than that he thinks he would do a better job, and that he has a basic inclination towards smaller government. But I think where he failed, and I think there were a lot of Democrats and independents who were open to him leading the city and county, given that it's hard to lead a city. I mean, there are always challenges. And so I think any incumbent mayor running for reelection shows up with probably 40% of the public, you know, willing to vote for someone else. So you just got to get that last 10%. But I think where Charles failed, frankly, is he just couldn't describe what he would actually do if he were in office other than that he would do better. Well, I noticed one thing. First of all, you got great television commercials, you know, and all of that. But as I listened to the radio and other places, you seem to be talking more about electing Bob Lindsay to the Office of Hawaiian Affairs than you are about getting votes for yourself. What's that all about? Well, I feel really strongly about Bob. He has been an incredible leader at the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. We've worked together on a number of things. But, you know, just and you know this, Governor, that this is a time of incredible transition, not just for OHA as an institution, but for Native Hawaiians generally. And I think that there's going to be a range of opinions about how to move forward on self-determination. There's always a range of opinions about how to utilize OHA's resources, best natural resources, questions come in. So there's lots of disagreement as there should be in any community. There's a lot of importance to these issues. Right. And anytime something's important, you're not going to just have people sitting around, you know, just melting into agreement. Right. That has to be some discussion. But where I think Bob has displayed the leadership that the Office of Hawaiian Affairs needs and also that the state of Hawaii needs is its disposition, you know, its temperament. I mean, I saw a lot of stuff online saying, you know, I disagree with Bob about X, Y, and Z, but he's a good leader. And I think, especially in the Native Hawaiian community, which I think it's fair to say, you know, I'm not a member, but they value a diversity of opinions. They value the process. Well, that's what I thought. No, you are, though, a member of the Indian Affairs Committee for the state, for the Senate. Yeah. And the Indian Affairs Committee is where, you know, all matters related to Native Hawaiians as they, as they intersect with the federal government come through our committee. And OHA has been really good to work with. When, when the president, when we basically hit a brick wall on the so-called Akaka bill, I sat with you, I sat with the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, and there was an effort to come up with an alternative strategy that took into account the fact that we have Barack Obama in office, and we're unlikely, even though Secretary Clinton is going to be great for Hawaiians, it's unlikely we'll ever get anyone who's better on Hawaiian issues than Barack Obama. Then Barack Obama. But, you know, I think people ought to realize that your interests doesn't only center on governance issues. I mean, you're talking about education, money for education, money for housing, all of those kinds of resources. Yeah, and conservation. I mean, you know. Right, the monument. Yeah, so the last time that Papa Hanamo Kuakea was established, the Native Hawaiian community, I think it's fair to say, was not consulted, and that was unacceptable. And so as we begun the process around the expansion of the Marine Monument, we basically went back to the Department of Interior and said, you have to have a voice for Native Hawaiians here. And they, for the first time in their history in terms of establishing monuments, put an organization such as OHA, they put OHA as a co-trustee of federal waters. Now, you've got a state agency or quasi-state agency being a co-trustee of federal waters, and that was Bob's leadership to make sure that Native Hawaiians... Well, it's actually your leadership too, Senator. Well... And we are at the point in our discussion where I get to say all good things must come to an end. And we appreciate very, very much your presence. I know you've taken off time from an important election that you're involved in, and so we appreciate your being here. So... Well, let me... I know we don't have a lot of time, but Governor, you have been an incredible leader for Hawai'i for a very, very long time. I think it's hard once you're out of office to continue to lead in the right way, and I think anybody who's looking at how they ought to conduct themselves in so-called retirement, they should look at John Y. A. And they should take up a show like this. Yeah. So thank you all for joining us and, you know, being a part of this exciting conversation with Senator Brian Schatz. Thank you.