 I'm Marcia Joyner and we are navigating the journey. Today's journey is into yesterday's election, which was or is the most important election in most of our lives, or at least not mine, but this generation. So we want to talk to Laura Nevitz, who is the Executive Director of the Democratic Party, about this election and what it portends for the future. So welcome, Laura. Thank you very much. Laura is the Executive Director of the local Democratic Party, but you have worked at other parties all over the country, which is why I wanted to talk. Well, I haven't worked four, but I've worked with. I have worked in five other states across the country over the last 20-plus years. Primarily spent a lot of time in Wisconsin and Minnesota, and kind of my home bases and where I started working, but have been— Are you originally from Minnesota? I am not. I'm a base brat. My dad was in the Air Force, and so I always kind of my short spiel. I was born in California. I spent my childhood in Texas, grew up on the East Coast, graduated high school there, then went back to the Southwest. Ended up in the Midwest after falling in love and have spent many, many years there, but have worked in the Deep South in Louisiana and in Michigan, the specific Northwest and Washington state, and now Hawaii. So I've been kind of a lot of places. Well, let's talk for Hawaii. The woman that was elected Governor of Guam. Oh, yes. Very exciting. And the first time I believe in a while, they've had a Democratic governor, and I was just reading a report. Part of my job is I actually get to be in touch with all the executive directors of all the state parties all the time. And so it was, you know, yesterday getting emails from the Guam ED that they were very excited that this was happening for them. Yes. Now, Guam is a territory? It's a territory in the United States. So they have a representative in Congress, but they don't vote. Is that correct? Correct. I believe that. Very much like Puerto Rico, right there. Like Puerto Rico. Let's see if I have a name for their person. Okay. Mike Nichols is U.S. Congress. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so that person gets to go to D.C. But they don't have a vote. But they don't have a vote. So yeah, we have 50 states and seven territories, and they, it's kind of an odd that they elect somebody to Congress, but they don't actually get to vote on it. So it's strange. They said we more often hear this in reference to Puerto Rico than we do in the District of Columbia. In the District of Columbia. But we forget that we have, you know, the Mariana Islands and Guam and American Samoans. Yeah. What about the rest of the Mariana Islands? Saipan, Rototinian. Yeah. So they're collectively, we call them the Marianas. And then they have, same thing that they've kind of... They have a representative? I believe so. I mean, I'm not. I don't quote me on it. Not on my territories as much as I have. But we do have a representative from Samoa. American Samoa. Americans more. And Puerto Rico. And D.C. And Guam. Yeah. There are a few others. I just think we have seven territories. I can't name them off the top of my head. Okay. Anyway. All right. Okay. So that's, I'm excited about that one. We elected over 100 women to Congress this last night. I mean, it is historical. The number of women... 100 women? Over 100 women. I got elected to, you know, it's historical, the number of women who got elected last night. Unprecedented numbers for the... And women of color, which is pretty amazing to watch. We elected our first Native American out of New Mexico. We elected our first Muslim woman out of Michigan. We elected our first Somali Muslim refugee out of Minnesota. And the list goes on. I mean, it really is, you know, the thing, if you want to look for the good things that happen this week. The young lady in New York. The one we can... Yeah. First Latina, youngest woman elected to Congress. Yeah. I mean, it's just, these are the things when you're looking for hope and you're looking for positive change. What happened yesterday really was historical. While there were some very disappointing losses in places, we really thought maybe we could do it. And those were heartbreaking for many reasons. And there were also just many amazing clouds of, like, silver linings that happened. We took back a lot of governorships in states that were once read. We took back the House, which was really the main goal. And so Democrats should be really proud of that work. We set a goal and we achieved it. And we're looking at over probably 35 seats when we're all said and done, which is huge. And we've kind of, you know, we've now have some check and unbalance on what is going on in Washington to see that we didn't have before. Do you think, given the way Mr. Trump acts, he thinks he's a dictator, but the number one, number one in the Constitution is the House of Representatives. Right. And it tells the function of the House of Representatives and who they are. Right. And the only thing it tells about presidents is how to get rid of them. Right. Yes. So it is the power of the House of Representatives to start impeachment processes if they want to do it. Right. That starts in the House, not your Senate. Of course, you know, given the news of this morning with the firing of just sessions and the shake-up and the DOJ, it's going to be interesting now to see what happens in the next 48 hours. I mean, when I left this morning to come to work, Rod Rosenstein was on his way over to the White House, so we have yet to see kind of how this... He's got rid of him, too. But it will then become, you know, it will become, when we get a new Congress in January, it is incumbent upon them to kind of take up that charge. If we think what's going to happen is going to happen, and this really is an attempt to get rid of Mueller, it will be their responsibility to kind of take that charge back up. They go to D.C. next week. They will go to... Yeah. When are they sworn in? Not until January 20th. Yeah. I can't find the dates always. Yeah. Well, Colleen Anabusa said just last week about what she was looking... Because she's still in Congress. Yep. So she had to go back, and she said, if this were to happen, the confusion and all of the things that have to happen to make that transition. Yeah. So that was why she had to go home. Yep. Go back. Yep. They'll go back, and they'll figure out who...they'll elect their new speaker. They'll make sure all their chairmen ships are in place. They'll make sure they're all going in strong when they're elected on the same page, because they know they have a fight ahead of them. It doesn't end because they won the House yesterday. There are still now lots and lots of work to do, and I think they're trying to be very strategic and understanding that they have to walk a very tight rope in, you know, they now are the president's foil, which he loves. He loves nothing better than having a fight, and so they really have to be clear and strong at the same time, calm and resolute about what they're going to do and making sure they all stick together. It's the only way we're going to be able to move forward. Let's go to the governors. Yeah. My favorite one. I don't want to talk about all the others. Just one. Just one. Yeah. Wisconsin. Yes. Yay! Exactly. We can all thank the Lord, right? You know, and for me, he's a union buster. He's a union buster, and you know, I started my political life in Wisconsin, so I have a place in my heart there. And to have watched when I was there, you know, it was Tommy Thompson, and then Governor Doyle, Democrats took it back, but then after he left, it has been Scott Walker, and to have watched that state go completely into ruin. And interestingly enough, I had since moved to Minnesota, so you know, I always lived in this comparison of Mark Dayton, and Scott Walker got elected at the same time, and to watch two completely divergent paths happen under Democratic leadership and under Republican leadership, and watch one state thrive and survive an economic crisis in Minnesota, and a governor who ran on taxing the rich and implemented that, and it actually created great economic opportunity and sustainability for Minnesota, to then watching a governor in Wisconsin who went completely the opposite way, and to have that state now in financial ruin, union busting, costing workers and people, jobs, lives, healthcare, all that kind of stuff. So it is quite to watch yesterday, to watch a superintendent, a teacher. Actually, now interesting, both Wisconsin and Minnesota have teachers as their governors. Oh, shoot. Yeah. So I think that... Do we have who that is? Tim Walsh, who was a former congressman and was a former teacher out of Mankato, became the governor, and your first Native American lieutenant governor in the state of Minnesota. But Wisconsin, so it was fantastic to watch that happen in Wisconsin, to finally see that shift the tide finally. Well, what about the legislature? Wisconsin. Wisconsin. I don't know the final turnout of it. They had been a solid red. Yeah, they had supported him. And I'm not sure how the House seats and state senate turned out in Wisconsin. I know in Minnesota, they took back the House, but I think did not take back the Senate, but that's, you know... Two out of three. Two out of three, yeah. But Indiana seemed to be more red than ever. Yeah. Yeah, I think, you know... It's home. Yep. And I think, you know, we cannot... We constantly kind of underestimate that... And I don't want to call him Trump voters because I don't really know. I think he just brings out whatever this is, but you know, he went and campaigned in Indiana. And, you know, we cannot underestimate that effect because it does... He has an impact, and we can't ignore it as much as we would love to because what he is saying is completely offensive. But I think as a party, we've made some dents in those red states, and we need to look at what that is and how we expand that. We have to understand that there's always just going to be a certain majority of people. We are never going to convince to support us. But how do we expand our electorate and how do we bring more people in? Well, I think when you look, Mitt Romney is now a senator. Senator? How do you tell yet? But he's... He's such a... I hate to say nice Republican. He's what they call a moderate Republican, right? We don't have a lot left anymore. Yes. That's what I was going to say. I remember when they were all like... Exactly. Like that used to be the... Yeah, it's kind of a shame. I mean, I grew up... My dad was a lifelong Republican, but he was what we tend to refer to kind of that old-school social justice Republican. And they don't exist at all anymore, right? So that's kind of... I was very proud that before he passed away, he voted for Barack Obama as... Because he was that social justice and really felt like... As a country that we... It was inconceivable to him that we would not elect someone just because of the color of their skin, which I laughed because I wanted to be like, I don't know where you live, but clearly that happens a lot, but it spoke to that need, you know, for him it was... It was time. And I think he would not recognize Republican Party today if he were still alive. No. And in 1964, which, of course, I remember, it was the Republicans that really supported the Civil Rights Act. Absolutely, right? And the Democrats... LBJ said, we've lost the Democrats for generations. Right? You had the Dixie Crats back then, right? So it was a totally different... They left, yeah. But it's interesting, those were all your Southern Democrats who are now your Southern Republicans. Right. So the same people just shifted parties. So it's kind of an interesting... And now we're saying that although, you can see the movement in the south finally happening, and while we didn't win-win outright, you definitely see the shift happening. You've got contested Governors' Race in Georgia still happening, and they're going to take that to a recount. You've got now the Senate... the Governor and Senate seat in Florida. Titus could be, and it was also going to go to a recount. We probably won't know for weeks. But you definitely see that demographic and the shift. And even if you look into Kentucky and Tennessee, while those Senate seats lost, the gain in the percentage point of the number of voters that are Democrats has substantially increased. I think as much as I hate to say this, I think that we have to thank Trump. Oh, yeah, for sure. Because from the day he was elected, I have not seen this kind of mobilizing energy, what not, since the 60s. Yeah. Well, I think, you know, sometimes as human beings, we have our bad that it takes to we're on the precipice of losing everything we have before we finally do something. And I think that's what he has motivated, that we're really understanding that our rights as people are at risk. We need to take a break. Okay. And we will be back in 60 seconds. We'll see you. Aloha. I am Howard Wig. I am the proud host of Cold Green for Think Tecawaii. I appear every other Monday at 3, and I have really, really exciting guests on the exciting topic of energy efficiency. Hope to see you there. I'm Jay Fidel, Think Tec. Think Tec loves energy. I'm the host of Mina, Marco, and me, which is Mina Morita, former chair of the PUC, former legislator, and Energy Dynamics, a consulting organization in energy. Marco Mangelsdorf is the CEO of Provision Solar in Hilo. Every two weeks, we talk about energy, everything about energy. Come around and watch us. We're on at noon on Mondays, every two weeks on Think Tec. Aloha. Hi, Marcia. And today, we are talking to my dear friend, and you all know I only talk to dear friends, Laura Nevis. Who is the ex- Nevit. Nevit. Nevit. Nevit. Only one Nevit. That's her. She is the executive director of the Democratic Party of Hawaii. And Laura, we are talking about yesterday's historic election. I know. It didn't all turn out, but most of it. Yeah. Listen, let's talk about other Democratic victories. Kansas governor. Seriously, I mean, I mean, you want to look at, I mean, Kansas. Kansas. One of the reddest, reddest states, just to look to the Democratic governor. I mean, it's shocking. Right. But yay. In a good way. A woman. And Laura Kelly. Yep. Yeah. You know, unceded Chris Kobach, who was the, you know, the architect of many, many, many voter suppression laws. And we had to head it up, Trump's right, his voter suppression task force. Oh, wow. Right. And so, yeah, I mean, that one is truly a, thank the Lord, you know, there is hope for all of those things. Oh, Jackie Rosen. Jackie Rosen out of Nevada. Yes. Yeah, fantastic. That was a late one. We didn't know. I didn't see it till this morning. But she's openly gay. She's openly gay. And yeah, she is right. So, like I said, we have, there are just so many things about yesterday that you can look at that are just amazing, amazing. That I think outweigh the kind of, like I said, the disappointments that we've had. The craziest things I read was about the man in Nevada that got elected and he's been dead since October. Yep. Yeah. Isn't that funny? Only in Nevada with a brothel owner, first of all, to be able to run for the state house, die and still get elected. So, it was kind of funny. And Trump, campaign for him knowing he was dead. Right. So, it's kind of, it's Nevada what you want to do. Yay. Yay. I just love that story. It's just, just precious. But it's also what makes, you know, doing politics and elections fun. It's all, this stuff happens, it's, you know, up and down and all over the place and ultimately everybody puts in their work, campaigns work hard and their staff work hard and go out and knock on doors and phone call and text which you all get and get annoyed by. But it's countless, countless hours of that put in. But at the end of the day, it's kind of a crapshoot because it's up to the voters to go to the polls and cast their ballot. And we don't know ultimately how it's going to turn out until the results come in. And so you get some of these fun surprises that are like, really, you would have. We have the women in New Mexico, native, first Native American women to go to Congress. I mean that, I mean, again. But I have a question about that. Yeah. Because Camilla Harris is also Native American. She's in the Senate. Oh, okay. Different house. Right. So this is kind of a, but again, another historical. We had many, many firsts last night. I actually got to meet Deborah. And when I was in Chicago this summer for a DNC meeting, phenomenal woman. And she's going to be, that's just about time we had always. Connecticut. First black woman. First black woman to Congress. Oh, wow. Yep. I think we got our first, who's the first openly game governor? Oh, shoot. Now I've lost. I can't remember what state now. Anyway. I know. I saw him. I know. I'm totally, I'm like too many, too many going on. I can't remember. Two Muslim American women. Yep. So one is out of Michigan, she's from Pakistan. And the other is a woman out of Minnesota and she's a Somali refugee. So not only is Ilhan Omar our, you know, second one, we kind of have two. I don't know if she's a woman. Omar came when she was 12 years old. Well, nobody, keep going the first Muslim. Only one of them can be first. I think the woman from Michigan. It says first two. Right. So, but Ilhan will be our first refugee, Somali refugee at Congress, which I think is, you know, given caravan, all this kind, I think is a voice much, much needed to be in Congress. And I, and I'll just give a shout out Ilhan I know personally have known to say that. She's going to be awesome and is, you know. Well, now yesterday in the middle of the election, I saw where Ms. Abrams running for governor in Georgia. Correct. They filed an emergency lawsuit. What does that mean? So, it was an emergency stay, because polls closed at a certain time and they had such problems, especially in a couple of precincts of voting machines not working, all sorts of continued voter suppression tactics and such long, long lines of people waiting that they had to actually go get an emergency order to keep the polls open so that people could continue to vote. And so, they were casting ballots in Georgia well past 10 p.m. last night, which is part of why we don't also have full results. And I, another place where I got up this morning and they are saying, you might actually see a lawsuit happen in Georgia against Kemp and voter suppression tactics, but we'll get all the votes counted first and see actually how it turns out and then go from there. Yeah, well, they did have voter suppression to begin with. Oh, yeah. We knew that going in. Well, they tried everything in the book, right, and then when that failed, it was just, you know, that Hawaii we always talk about low voter turnout when really there's nothing to vote for. Yeah. Well, it's hard in your general here, right? Most of your high turnout turns out in your primary. Yes. That's the big day. That's the big day here and that turnout tends to be pretty good. But then we already know. Then you already know going into your general, although 51% in Hawaii in a general is up from what it normally is. We are looking what we are comparing. Right. Are we comparing 51% of registered voters or 51% of the people eligible to vote? Well, it's 51% of your eligible voters voted. I don't think that's right. I think it should be 51% of people that bothered to register. Well, that's what it is. It's if you registered to vote. If you registered, but not those that are eligible you can count them anyway. You don't count, right? So you only look at your people who are registered to vote and who actually then turned out voting. But it's still up an increase for Hawaii, which is fantastic. And, you know, it's still that work to do. Oh, yes. So a long way to go. But an increase will take an increase and that clearly shows people more engaged to the cycle and participating. And I think, you know, I'm a big fan of lots of campaign campaign activity because it does that. It engages people in different places and it helps to energize the electric problem. Well, now we, I know we are the Democrats, but I was pleased to see two Republicans win. Yeah, I know. Just because. Obviously, I think, No, I don't expect you to, but I, you know, I think that just because there is, you know, a place for having healthy discourse and competition and I think a little bit of voter apathy is that when you don't, when there isn't anything to drive that, it, that's kind of what hurts us. So. Yeah, because that's where we get, oh, there's nothing to vote for. Right. Except this time there was the con con and the increased. Right. Yeah. So, people actually read the questions. They did. And I actually got a lot of calls. We got a lot of calls of the office, people wanting, because they wanting information, which was helpful. And so I think we do see where people get energizes around issues. It's not really around candidates. And I think that's also why you saw Democrats winning across the board is they were actually out talking about issues, not, they weren't, they weren't talking about immigration. They were talking about job. Right. And when they did that, they won. And we saw that here in Hawaii. I think what increased is being able to talk about issues that are important to Hawaii. The con con was a very interesting debate to have. You know, someone who's not obviously not native to Hawaii. I found it fascinating, this idea that you have enshrined in your Constitution putting this to a vote every 10 years. Right. And so, that I think is, it creates a space every 10 years about what's important to Hawaii. And do we want to change what our existing rules are? Or do we think they're okay for now? And I think that's an okay question to ask. It is. Right. As a party, we decided, right, that we wanted folks to vote no on that. But having that conversation is good. And even the con and discussion ultimately not, the courts decided it was an invalid question, always important questions like, how are we funding education? How are we paying our teachers? How are we making sure that our students, every student in the state of Hawaii has an education that is worthy? Right. Well, I have a question about that. $2 billion in the budget for the Department of Education. Right. And yet, we have 573 classrooms in deferred maintenance. That includes the university. Mm-hmm. Deferred maintenance. Mm-hmm. We have teachers that say they're not getting paid right. Mm-hmm. And all these other things. Where does $2 billion go? Exactly. I think that is the question for your state legislature. That is my question. Right. I know. Where does $2 billion go? If we have deferred maintenance, teachers complaining, we lost 400 teachers last year, they have, right? They're a legitimate question. Legitimate question. Legitimate questions and discussions to be having about the funding of our education system in Hawaii and how we do that and what it looks like. You know, it's interesting, Hawaii's one of the few states that there's no automatic funding mechanism for education. A lot of states have it, some do, some don't. But certainly one of the things we know that a properly funded education system is a healthier education system. We know that paying our teachers an adequate wage makes for better teachers and so, and better teachers means a better education for your kids. These are people that spend eight hours plus of their day with your children. Yes. You would think you would want them paid adequately. They should be number one on the pay scale. You would think, but it's interesting that that is often not the case. Okay. Yeah. One more thing I thought came to the fore as never before and that was Oha. People really got involved in that one. Yeah. And, you know, it's a challenge for the Democratic Party because it's the nonpartisan race and so we don't take, you know, we don't get involved. And most of them are Democrats. And most of them are Democrats and so we would never take sides against one member against another. But I do have to say it was actually lovely to hear the amount of conversation going on around those statewide, you know, there's statewide seats so they should be and as a party we have nonpartisan member, members who run in nonpartisan races. So, because I think the whole city council runs it. But Oha won in particular again, that's a vital piece of Hawaii and we, you know, there should be more conversation about it. I would hope more people would learn more about their Oha candidates and vote on those. I think a lot of people feel like I'm not native Hawaiian, I does not my, the residents of Hawaii and the work they do impacts all of us, whether or not you're a native Hawaiian or not. And we should be supporting that work. Yeah, and they get what, about 14 million a year and, yeah, a lot of years and the DOE gets to billion. Right. Hello. Yeah. Something, something's not, but I was impressed with the numbers of young people that got elected in Hawaii. Right. And that happens. We're seeing a generational shift just across the board and everything. And that happens and it's a good thing. We need to not be afraid of young people coming in and getting involved because we're not, you know, you, me, we're not going to be around forever. You know, other people need to kind of come do this work. Well, one last thing I saw in the young lady, the Republican Andrea Topola reporters, they're all young and they're all excited and even last evening when they knew she wasn't going to win, the excitement in that room, the energy, that's the new movement and not just her, but we saw that in Oha. We saw that across the board. Right. And I think Democratic Party that's part of our work, right? How do we tap into that? What are the issues that we need to be talking about that we're not? How do we engage them into leadership positions? How do we get them, you know, we had a lot of young folks who ran for office in the primary. They unfortunately didn't make it past the primary, but we need to build on that, right? Their voices are important and they need to be at the table. Well, thank you so much, Laura. This is always a pleasure talking to you. We have fun. Anytime. Anytime. Yeah. I have not missed an election since 1958. So, I am a political junkie and I love it. That's your hook, you got it. Thank you so much and we'll see you next time. Aloha.