 Aloha and welcome to Ehana Kako. We're here every week on the Think Tech Hawaii Broadcast Network. I'm Kili Ikeena, president of the Grassroot Institute. Anyone observing the national scene has noticed that there has been a strong growth in the Republican Party across the nation. Not only do we have a Republican Senate and a Republican House, we have, of course, a Republican Oval Office, and houses of Republicans are growing all across the 48 states. However, there's one state in which we've seen a different direction. A blue state, which is the state of Hawaii, a Democrat-dominated state, which became bluer in this last election. Now, not only do we have a Democrat state Senate with no Republicans whatsoever, a Democrat House with fewer Republicans than we had at the election, we have Democrat-controlled unions and so forth. This is a Democrat state, which creates an interesting environment in which an emerging leader has made her mark and is making an even greater mark. I'm talking about Andrea Tupola, District 43's representative in the House of Representatives here in the state of Hawaii. She's hit the political scene and she is rising like a rocket. I'm delighted to have her on board today. And we're gonna ask her about many things, including what her views are as now the highest-ranking official who has been elected as a Republican here in the state. She's the leader of the minority leader in the state House of Representatives. In addition to that, she represents her people. Please welcome to the program with me Andrea Tupola. Andrea, delighted to have you on the program. Thank you, thank you for having me. I can't tell you how much I've been looking forward to this. I'm glad. But I've been watching your career just take off. It just seems like a few years ago you were a music teacher at a local college and then all of a sudden you hit the political scene. What made you run for office? Now you're in your second term, two-year term. Yes. I decided back in 2012 to get involved when I saw Mitt Romney take a run for president, his second run. And I got involved because I saw a lot of the policies that were happening at the national level and they reminded me a lot of a country that I used to live in. And what is that? I lived in Venezuela. I lived over a year in Venezuela as a missionary for my church. But I got to see firsthand how policies, government, can affect the whole entire society. And a lot of the policies that are implemented in Venezuela have kind of left them to where they are today. And I saw some of that coming. And when I saw an opportunity to help a candidate that I believed in, even if it was on the presidential level, and trust me, I knew nothing about politics. But everything inside of me told me that we needed to support a new direction. Well, interesting, broad strokes. What did you see in Venezuela that you may notice here in Hawaii? Well, they definitely give free education, free medical, and free, I guess, yeah, housing in some areas. So it's a high socialism state. Yes. So for the lowest class of people there, you do get a lot of free things, but you live off of the government. The reason why I bring that up is because when I was in Venezuela, at any given point in time, everybody's home. A lot of people don't work. I mean, there's a very low incentive to work when the highest class of people get taken money from them and given to the poor. And how do you see that in Hawaii? Well, I definitely see a high dependence on the welfare system. I see a high dependence on federal support, which we need here in Hawaii. Now, you live on the Bayanai Coast. Right. Your district 43 covers Ma'ili all the way through Ewa. Yes, it does. And so do you see some of that in your own district? I do. I see a lot of people really leaning to government and saying, fix this. Help us. Teach us that. But at the end of the day, I mean, we are so different than the federal government. And so I think that having autonomy, having decisions that are able to be made by the state, I think those are Republican values. And I see that in a lot of the initiatives and policy that we support. Well, I hear a different voice coming from you than I hear from most people in our state and most policymakers. You're not saying, let's go after the federal government for more money. Let's get more money from the state for welfare programs and so forth. You're actually sounding a different tune. What is it that you believe politically? Well, I think that in regards to my last comment, what I'm trying to say is that there's a lot that we can do to empower our communities to help our people, to help themselves. And it's a concept that a lot of us have strayed away from because we think the government should do everything for us. But bear in mind, when the government does everything for you and controls you, controls your health care, controls your education, then at the end of the day, who's teaching you everything that you believe or the philosophies that you practice even within your own homes? It's not local people. It's not local government. And so I'm not saying that we should shy away from getting any type of federal funding because we need that. And as Republicans, we are the only conduit to some of that access that we need to our federal government. But there has to be a balance. Well, it sounds like what you're saying is people need to be empowered, people need to work, people need to achieve, as opposed to people need to be taken care of by the government. Now, I don't hear you saying there shouldn't be a safety net. But what I hear you saying strongly is government welfare programs and so forth shouldn't be used to make people dependent. They shouldn't be abused. Yes. Because at the end of the day, those programs were implemented to help you, give you a hand up, not a hand out. And so the difference is that when somebody is able to learn and grow and then become independent, become self-sufficient, that is the goal we're looking for. Not dependence on government, not ultimate crippling because you've now had a crutch for the rest of your life. Now, when you started your political career, was it clear to you that you were a Republican or did you make a choice at a certain point to align yourself with that party? I think definitely helping out in the presidential race and then later reviewing what the Republicans believe in. I also heard a speech by Mike Lee. He's a senator from Utah. And a lot of what he said resonated with me. When I hear people speak and when they speak and it sounds like what I believe, it feels like what I believe, then I know that I'm in the right place. And a lot of what he shared I totally agreed with. And I did. I made that choice that I did align more with the Republican party. Well, here in Hawaii, whether you're looking at the media or at social media or just listening to people in the bars talk, which I don't think you hang out in that much. No. There are certain stereotypes of what it is to be a Republican, like the party of all white males and so forth. But before I ask you to address any of the stereotypes, let me let you have the benefit and the doubt. Why don't you tell us what those values are in the Republican party, the Republican platform, that attracted you to it? Well, and I'll share a few, but it's not limited to the few that I'm going to share. Know that there's a vast array of ideals and principles that we stand for. But for me, yes, I support freedom of religion. Yes, I support military support to the extent that we need it. And yes, I support local businesses, making sure that we keep money here in Hawaii. I also support the gun rights. I also support less taxes. I vote against every tax increase that they put out at the state. So at the end of the day, I really support local initiatives. And I got involved to help locally here in Hawaii. Well, most of what you say doesn't sound to me as though it really has a party label on it. Because when I hear people in Hawaii talk about their lives and the politics and so forth, they tend to value the kinds of things you just mentioned. Oh, yeah. I don't think there's anyone that would disagree with the fact that we don't need any more taxes. We don't need any more regulations and restrictions and things that make it hard for businesses to operate here. Everyone agrees that we're getting suffocated by the government. So a little more nuts and bolts. While there are many Democrats who espouse exactly what you've said, and many of them are challenging the old boys network, you made a political decision to align with the Republican Party as opposed to fight for these values within the Democrat Party. Why did you make that choice? What were you looking at when you ran for office as a Republican? I know that Republicans have an uphill battle. And personally, for me, I don't think I've ever been put in a situation where it was given to me some opportunities. I've always had to fight for it. So there was a challenge. Oh, yeah. I've had to fight for everything that I've ever tried to do in my whole life. I'm Samoan. I'm half Samoan. I'm quarter Hawaiian. People tell you that you can't be this, that you can't do that. I mean, my father was the first Samoan judge in the entire United States. I mean, people told him that as a Samoan, you're never going to become a judge. You're never going to do anything. You're supposed to be a furniture mover. You're supposed to be somebody who does yards, does rock walls. At the end of the day, when you know that you have an uphill battle, that shouldn't discourage you from doing it. You should make decisions based on what you feel is the right thing to do. And I felt like it was the right thing to do to run as a Republican. Now, the Republican Party has received some very bad press since the election of Donald Trump nationally. And this made very well me because of the bias of news media. There have been postmortems. People have been writing about the death of the Republican Party in Hawaii. In fact, when I talk about nationally, I mean, people have actually written nationally about Hawaii. And the world has looked at the fact that we've actually lost a member, Beth Fukumoto, to the Democrat Party and so forth. What is your take on what's going on in the Hawaii Republican Party? Oh, it's gotten even harder, I think. I know that you know what the voting result was for the presidential election here in Hawaii, which speaks to the fact that. Bernie Sanders. Right, which speaks to the fact of where people stand as far as Democrats and Republicans across our state. The perception and the stereotype, what you asked me earlier about why I decided that and why I brought up my father's name is because stereotypes are something we have to get over all the time in life. And I feel like even more so now that the presidential campaign has concluded, we have a huge uphill battle. People in Waianae tell me all the time, wow, you don't look like a Republican. You don't talk like one. And I ask them, well, what does one talk like? I don't know. Well, beyond the stereotypes, one of the things that has appeared heavily in our local news media is some of the conflict within the Republican Party. I mean, in fact, that appears in the media a lot more than any substantive Republican positions appear. What do you think about that? The Republican Party here in Hawaii? Oh, yes. You know, at the end of the day, we can do what we need to do at the Capitol, but our efforts are sometimes adversely affected by the disorganization in the party. I always tell people, when our caucus is dysfunctional, people don't want to be Republican. When our party is dysfunctional, people don't want to run as Republicans. So it's this vicious cycle that happens where we don't get good candidates or we don't get enough support for those candidates and then look at the results. You are a competitor by nature. I can tell from the way you talk. I wouldn't want to be the guy on the other side in a battle in a rink with you. You took on a Democrat district and you won. You won again. Not only that, I don't know if it was your intention or not, you've won in terms of leadership in your own party, in the Republican Party. You are now the minority leader in the House and you're also running to become chair of the Republican Party. Well, what is it that drives you to take such a role of prominence in the Republican Party? Well, I would say first off, in regards to my district, when I ran for that seat and I knew I was running against an incumbent and people told me you're going to lose. You're running as a Republican. You're going to lose. You grew up in Hoi Kai. Well, that must have motivated you that you're being told you're going to lose. That sealed the deal for you. You know, it definitely made me think that I have to try harder. It made me think I better have a game plan. And so yeah, in areas of my district, because it is a numbers game, at the end of the day, you need to know your break-even point in every single precinct in both elections, 2014 and 2016, I won in every single precinct. The reason, the way you do it is that you make sure you understand the data and the facts, and then you go out and you do the work. So you attribute that to smart campaigning, but beyond smart campaigning, there must be something about Andrea Tupelo that drew those votes. I think so. I mean, at the end of the day, I am there to serve the people. I didn't grow up in Waianae, but I love the people in my district. And the reason I say that is because, you know, I never thought that I would, I would move to Waianae. And when I did, and I got to know these people, and of course people from Huai Kai, oh, is it okay? Are people in Waianae hurting you? I grew up in a very different place, but I learned to love these people. And so, yeah, for me, campaigning was about how can I serve them? How can I help them? How can I become somebody that's a conduit for their voice, what they need to get done? So in my district, it's not about me, it's about what I can do for others. I'm taking it then that you didn't throw your hat into the rink and run through political office out of ego, out of a desire to do something other than a career you're preparing for with a PhD in music and so forth. You threw it into the rink because you had a passion for something, what was that? I think I have a passion to help and serve others. I wasn't student government at BYU, I was a student body vice president for 33,000 students, and I've done leadership throughout my life, but yeah, I would totally agree with what you're saying because if I was in this for myself, I would still be a music professor. I love music and I actually miss it every day. I sometimes wish I was back in the classroom. I used to live this wonderful life of singing and harmony and now I hear a lot of dissonance and fighting and ego and so it's a totally different world for me, but I always go back to why I did what I did. Well, it looks like you're trying to conduct a symphony now, at least within the Republican Party and maybe beyond that. What are your aims now in the leadership position you've taken in the house and also that you seek in the party? Well, I'll be honest, with five Republicans in the house out of 51 representatives, we got to think about our effectivity. We barely have enough representatives to cover our committee assignments. We actually have to leave some committees empty because we don't have enough people to go around. So yeah, people say, oh, you should just worry about your career, just be an elected official, but for what? If we're not getting more people elected, if we're not spreading our cause and getting more people to rally our cause, then what are we doing? Well, I'm going to come back after the short break and ask you a little bit more about that because I think the public who we're watching right now are very interested in watching your career trajectory and what you're doing with a party that to many people doesn't seem relevant, but you're making it as relevant as it can be. My guest today is Andrea Tupolo, House of Representatives, District 43 here in Hawaii and we'll be back right after the short message. I'm Kaylee Ikeena with Ehana Kako on the Think Tech Hawaii Network. Don't go away. I'm Carol Mon Lee and I want to welcome you to our newest series called Education Matters, where we will explore education-related topics that touch everyone, not just formal programs in K-12 and higher education, but also broader issues and information that affect our community. Hello, I'm Dean Nelson, host of Planet of the Courageous. From a Tibetan point of view, we chose to be on this planet because we enrolled in a sort of graduate school for courage. Just that we may have chosen this adventure is a leap of logic. The question is, how do we spend and make sense of this precious human life? We are as a species extraordinarily successful, dominating the planet and now with planetary-sized problems that our existence itself has created. It takes courage to face not only the uncertainty of life, but also the challenge of sustaining this gift of life for future generation. Join us every Monday at 3 p.m. on Think Tech Hawaii. Aloha. Welcome back to Ehana Kako. I hope you had a good break learning about some of the other programming here. Think Tech Hawaii produces about 35 hours of live programming from downtown Honolulu and beams it across the world. You can also see it on the website, thinktechawaii.com. At the Grassroot Institute, we look for collaborators like the Think Tech Network because we're looking for people who want to build a better economy, government, and society. And that's why we say Ehana Kako, just like that venerable old Hawaiian saying, a pule kako, which is let's pray kako together. At Grassroot, we say Ehana Kako, let's work together because think of the terrible alternative if we don't work for a better economy, government, and society. And that's why I'm so pleased today to have Andrea Tupola here with us. She's the house minority leader. She's a rising, I think, political star in our state. And if you were watching the first part of this program today, I think she showed her heart quite a bit. I didn't want to embarrass her. She teared up a little bit, I think, when she was talking about the needs of her people in her district and why she ran for office. But while she's still composed, I hope. Yes. We'll welcome her back to the second part of our program today. Andrea, we were talking a little bit about the Republican Party of Hawaii. And it's no secret to anyone that there are quite a few challenges. There certainly is a public relations problem with the party because if we look at what's being reported about it, I don't think anybody in the party could like it. Now, you are running for chairperson of the party. What in the world is that position? And why did you choose to run for it? Well, the chairman of the Republican Party is supposed to be the leader of this movement to get candidates elected, to help them with resources, to get them trained. And so when I won in 2014, and I was the only person to unseat an incumbent, most people would be like, you should be so happy. The night of the election, I distinctly remember thinking, man, I don't think anybody made a plan because I was the only new person. So there was no plan to get anyone else in. And that was a year when Duke ran, when Charles ran, and when not everyone had these high hopes that all these Republicans would get in and then one person wins. And she's the newbie. Yeah, and so immediately when I stepped in, I thought, great, nobody has a plan, I better start making one. Okay, so you say that the role of the chairperson, which by extension would be the role of the party, is to get candidates elected to office. Right, yes. So really, it's not so much about running an organization. It's not so much about having power in an organization. It's really about doing the work of getting Republican candidates elected. Well, and that's how you should base whether or not the party is doing what it's supposed to. 2014, we had eight. Then we lost our minority leader, seven. And then in 2016, we go down to six. Now we just lost our minority leader, five. So all of these results need to let us wake up and say, okay, something needs to change. So I hear you saying that the problem with the party is not so much what's going on inside in terms of conflict, although that might be a problem. You're saying the problem in bottom line is the metric of do we get candidates elected. That's what it is for you. Well, what has to change? In your vision, as you offer yourself for leadership, what are you saying needs to be changed? And what will you change? Well, and I would add to what you're saying is that, yes, it is about getting candidates elected, but it's very much so about how the internal organization works. So there's seven positions under the party chair that get elected. Secretary, treasurer, coordinating campaigns, candidate recruitment, coalitions, community service, and communication. So these seven positions are also elected that run honestly with this chair. And each of these people are supposed to have expertise in those areas. You bring up the fact that the Republican Party is not doing well with messaging. OK, so we have an elected chair person over communications. Now, what is the communications plan? Who is helping the communications plan? Do we have journalists? Do we have guys that have web design background? Do we have print guys, design guys, radio guys? How are we getting our message out there? Are people intuitively and creatively crafting message so that it resonates with this district or that district? No, we don't. And when we have candidate recruitment, are we targeting districts where we can actually win? Are we using a strategy that's based upon numbers? We don't need a guess. We know what areas are trending Republican voters. Are we purposely making a strategy to have that happen? Andrea, you obviously believe that something can be done to revive the party and turn it into a candidate winning an elections winning organization. But I wonder about that for a moment. Let me tell you why. I'm not so sure that parties make great candidates. But maybe great candidates make great parties. I'm thinking back to Linda Lingle, for example, the last governor elected here who was a Republican. And your election as well. From what you said, it really didn't happen that you got elected because your party went to bat for you or funded you or did anything for you. It was Andrea learning how to be smart about elections and having the kind of engagement of her public that got her to defeat an incumbent. So... And I would agree. One of the seven positions is coordinating campaigns. And one of the biggest things that I tell people is we lack mentorship. We lack the ability to mentor and help and teach somebody how to become a winning candidate, how to have messages that resonate with your district. And so in the event that we have elected officials that are distancing themselves from the party and these guys have run and won for office. But they are not mentoring. They are not helping. We are not recruiting. We are the guys out on the field playing the sport. We have the best insight on the game, but we are not part of the party. In that film, Chariots of Fire, there's that famous saying, you can't put in what God's left out. Are there the candidates out there? Are there the Republicans out there who have what it takes to win? I think so. And when people say, oh, we want to get more people like Andrea elected because this, that, whatever, I always tell them, the only way you're going to find more people like me is you have to have a purpose and a cause. And you were a graduate student in music at the time that you threw your hat into the room. Well, if you have a purpose and a cause and you're getting people to rally this purpose and this cause and we stand for something, then people will come out. But we've been standing for nothing. We have a platform that no one really knows about. We don't really, you know, get our message out there like how you said. So if we are able to do those things, then yes, there are people ready to run. Well, you obviously have stepped out of the mold to run for party chair while you are a sitting incumbent because that's not a conventional thing. No. And in fact, you've received some criticism for that. So it must be something that really drives you to do. Yes. Do you want to talk a little bit about that? Yes, I do. I mean, honestly, a lot of people say, okay, this is unprecedented what Andrea is trying to do. But at the end of the day, I look at where I work at it. I think about my effectivity as a legislator and we need somebody that's going to be able to go in there, mentor these candidates, but also diversify our caucus, meaning get people recruited that have multiple expertise and background. I've been in conversation with the majority leader in Arkansas who was actually in a similar situation. There were four out of a hundred Republicans, four out of a hundred and they are now up to 76. And it wasn't by accident. So when I talk with them about it, a lot of them are telling me that the strategy to make an effective caucus so that Republicans can do something in your state is far greater than what the party can do because you have to learn how to mentor these guys, teach them, make sure you got a doctor, you get a businessman, you get a lawyer, so that on all basis of law that you have coverage to make good policy. Who's thinking about that? Yeah. Do you think you could be that great candidate around whom a great party can be built? Yeah, I mean, I definitely feel like- I put you on the spot there. Well, I definitely feel like, if there was somebody that I felt like could lead, step up and get us to where we needed to go, I would stand down. But the more I look out and the more I see the party functioning, the more I think, if I don't start helping in doing something now in 2018, we may as well call it a wash or a loss. Well, it may be uphill for you that battle within the party in terms of party politics, but let me switch venue for a moment, go back to the House of Representatives. As minority leader, you're leading a very tiny minority. How many members? We have five. And how many members of the House are there? 51. 51. And if we put that in broader context, how many legislators, including senators, are there? 76, I believe. 76. And five of you down there, as the opposition vote in a body of 76 people, what is your strategy of being able to do more than simply say you wear the hat of being the chair? Well. Or being the minority leader? I think definitely I've learned that when you work together when you can, work alone when you have to. There are multiple Democrats that we see eye to eye on issues. And yes, you have to reach out and you have to say, you know what? On this issue, I agree with you. What can we do to work together? But you know what? On another issue, we don't agree. And that's fine. I respect your views. You respect my views. When we work together, we can. When we have to be alone, we do. So you're building a coalition around points of commonality when you can't agree? Well, it has to be that way. Because even though people think that the Democratic caucus is this huge body, they're not united either. So they have their differences, their discrepancies, their factions. So in the event that you can work across the aisle and get good public policy passed, you need to put down that guard of, oh, you're this, I'm that. And you need to start working together. And that's not just in the House of Representatives. That's across the state. That's with agencies. That's with city and county officials. This is the way we get things done. And everyone knows in Hawaii, it's about relationships. Building good relationships with people, finding ways you can work together. Let's zoom ahead. We've got a minute left. Let's say you're in politics 10 years from now. What will you like to have seen happen here in the state of Hawaii through your influence? I definitely hope to see more vision. What kind of vision? A vision for what? I think that in every department throughout the state, I don't know if we even have a vision of what we can become or what we want Hawaii to be. And obviously with a two year turnover for reps, four year turnover for senators and sometimes a four, eight year turnover for governors. There's a lot of missing, you know, moving pieces, but I would hope that we could envision a Hawaii where we not only get more local community involved in our government, but that we also get 20 to 40 year olds involved in what we're doing because there's a huge gap. Not only is this gap not participating, but they're moving to the mainland. What's the biggest problem we're facing that the legislature could do something about? Is it the economy? Is it housing? Is it cost of living? I think hands down quality of life, which is affected by all of those. So yeah, I think that addressing things that have to do with the economy and give or take maybe a bill or two bills won't do it, but the, I think the revenue, projected revenues for this year, 300 million shortfall. That's right, but we need solutions and I think you're part of the solutions. Andrea, thank you so much, Representative Topola, for being our representative and also being on the program today. Thank you. Glad to have you. My guest today, Representative Andrea Topola from the 43rd District, representing from Ely all the way out to Ewa Beach, has been with us and we're very, very glad for that. I'm Keely Akina with the Grassroot Institute. Until next time, on Think Tech Hawaii's Ehana Kako Aloha.