 My name is Peter Adler, I'm a planner, a mediator, an arbitrator, and I'm also a member of Think Tech's board of directors. And for the last several months, I've been on a walkabout doing a reconnaissance on one of the biggest issues coming up for all of us on November 6th. I haven't decided which way I will vote, and I'm not going to ask our guests that either, but I'm committed to understanding the question and making a recent decision. And I'll do that on November 5th. This special three-part Think Tech series is called Hawaii's Big Choice Should We Have a New Constitutional Convention? That question, along with a second one regarding a special property tax to fund education, will be on the ballot when we vote. Today's series deals with the first question, which is, should there be a Constitutional Convention? And we've had three of those to date. The first one was in 1959 when we became a state. The second was in 1968, and the third was in 1978. 68 and 78 produced important amendments and revisions to the Constitution, especially 78. Since then, 40 years have gone by, and we haven't revisited the Constitution. Should we? Is it time? If con-cons are a mirror of the times and reflect the issues of the day, are there challenges and problems that a Constitutional Convention should take up? That is what you will decide when you cast your ballot on November 6th. In these three half-hour segments, we are looking at different aspects of all this. In the first one, my friends Avi Soyfer and Rebecca Soon gave you a better understanding of what is at stake and how a con-con works mechanically. In the second one, Colin Moore, Kitty Yonone, and I inventoried some of the proposals that would likely come on the table if voters approved one on November 6th. And in this third one, I want to try to confront and name some of the bright hopes and dark fears that are embedded in the whole question. The con-con issue is not simple, and has many different faces and nuances and textures. In fact, it's a little like the proverbial blind men trying to figure out what an elephant is. If there is one big Uber message to all of these discussions, it's this. Let's get informed about what kind of elephant we are dealing with. Think about the big yes or no choice, and above all, get out and vote one way or the other, more on that a little later. Meanwhile, to get us started, I've invited two friends and colleagues here to help think it through. Neil Milner is a retired professor of political science from the University of Hawaii, an election night commentator and a regular columnist for Honolulu's Civil Beat, and he's also a theater buff and a drama writer and so on. He does a lot of things. Brendan Lee is the former chair of the 2016 Native Hawaiian Constitutional Convention and past president of the Association of Hawaiian Civic Clubs, a very vulnerable organization. And he's a candidate for trustee at the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. So let me start a question, feel a question to both of you. And the question is, what are we hearing? We're a little just over a month out. What are we hearing? Are people alert to these issues? Are they paying attention to it? What's the buzz on the street, if any? First, a couple real quick things. The first Constitutional Convention for the state was in 1950, not 59. And I was never the president of the Association yet. What? I'm the sitting second vice president. I don't want people out to go, wow, he's just promoting himself. He's an important person. We can have a vote right here. We can have a vote right here. We can have a vote now. But I am hearing chatter out there in circles that I move around in. When I deal with the general public, no one really seems to be talking or even know anything about the con con. But in circles that have influence and have a vested interest in a con con, they absolutely are talking. There's a very great buzz amongst them. Welcome back to that. Neil, what are you hearing? I'm not hearing very much. I think there's two kind of meta reasons why you're not hearing very much that go beyond this issue, one of which is that state and local politics is much less important than it used to be. There's all kinds of studies on that that show it. People don't have, they have less knowledge, and they have less interest. Second, and related to that, reinforcing it is the obsession with national politics, and especially with Trump and Washington. And my group that I see around my part of the public that I see who tend to be pretty interested in politics are totally wrapped up in that sort of thing. In the national scene. In the national scene, in the Trump scene, and there doesn't even seem to be any room for it. Now, remember, this is a fairly astute. These are not people who are apathetic or don't follow politics. But they don't have room for it. It's just not there. Now, maybe they'll have room if we begin to talk about it more, because it's pretty early in the game. But right now, nothing. So it's October 1 that we're filming this and talking about this, and the election's November 6. So that means there's a month and six days, or 37 days to run up. What can we expect in terms of mobilization? Will we see a rise in people paying attention to this? Who's talking about it? Who will mobilize around this issue one way or another? Well, I think that you mentioned it before, and then the part of who will mobilize it are people who are organized for prior things and have a very clear vested interest, which is one of the troublesome dynamics of this that we can come back to later if you worry about worse fears. The rest of it is not really, it's really not that clear to me what will happen when you try to mobilize the other groups. Who's going to do it? If people are attentive to newspapers, if people are attentive to those kinds of things, then they'll begin to pick up stuff like that. I'm not sure, I'm not just, I'm not saying it can't happen. I'm really not sure the way politics works in Hawaii right now, and the lack of interest in certain things, what the mechanisms are for doing these things. I mean, word of mouth can do a lot of things. Word of mouth really got David E. Gay to beat Neal Abercrombie in the primary. There was a lot of intensity there, but I don't know, I'm really puzzled about what it'll be. And I would agree about being puzzled. You know, November 6th is a month away, but October 13th is 12 days away, and that's when the absentee ballots drop. And historically, our state likes to vote absentee. So this decision might be made a lot sooner than November 6th, although we won't know the results of that until November 6th. Mobilization has started already. Like I said, you know, I've heard buzz around, great buzz in those circles that have a vested interest. I've attended three union meetings already that they're talking with their membership about Akankan. The Association of Hawaiian Civic Clubs has had many meetings already about the repercussions of a constitutional convention. I know OHA sent out an online survey through email to their server list about that because I received it. We don't have results yet though, right? No, I haven't seen any results, but the talk is there, and the actions and excitement around this issue is growing. As we sit here and shoot this episode, I know that there was another, the Women's Voter League had a forum on this on the Hawaii Island. There's another event this evening that I'm gonna attend right after this at UH Law School about Akankan. You were telling us mentioning some of that. Right, so momentum is picking up just for the conversation. There's much more conversations now starting to happen about this issue. So would it be fair to say that those who are opposed, whether it be unions or business groups and so on, will be much more organized than those who are in favor? You know, I haven't heard groups coalescing around. That's been the pattern in the past, I think. And do you think that'll hold true again? I think it'll hold true again because it's just easier, because it's not that they're opposed, it's the fact that they have mechanisms there. You're talking about labor unions, right? I think the interesting, it may be small, but a possibly significant group here is whether the kind of progressives in the state, the left wing, let's say, of the Democratic Party, organize in any way in opposition because there have been two pretty influential progressive politicians who have come out against ConCon. And they both run for office. They're both well-known. They're both very articulate. And there has been this kind of movement that emerged after the Sanders election. They're floating around out there. They're not necessarily that visible, but I wonder if something is gonna happen with that. And if they coalesce with some other groups, say some environmental groups who get really worried about things. Would you think, and the question, would you think that the fact that the primary election was very important in terms of future determinations that people are gonna go, this was all a done deal, why should I vote? I mean, is there some risk to that? Is there a risk around that? Absolutely. As you stated in my introduction that I'm running for an office, that's a big fear for us because typically we live, not typically, but we live in a Democratic versus a Republican state. And typically when big races, a Democrat wins that big race in the primary, the majority of the public here in the state assume, oh, then this race is decided. There's no point in me voting in the general election. So the fear is that the voter turnout for the general is going to be even lower than it was for the primary. And we all know how abysmal those numbers were. And they've been declining historically. Yes, absolutely. So the voter turnout could be a big factor in this people's general ignorance about the apathy and ignorance about the issues. People say it's already done deal, why should I vote, and so on. So those are gonna be factors on this. Do you think there's anything that would change that game between now and November 6 that would kind of press the button and push more voters to pay attention to this? I do. What would that be? Money. I think if some of the national PACs that have a tendency to pump hundreds of millions of dollars into an individual issue started showing up in Hawaii that people... Between now and November. Between now and November. Yeah, that's interesting. People would take notice. That's what happened on Maui with the GMO. Absolutely. And that's one of the things that the left worries about and with good reason. You know, the Koch brothers, that very well-financed and extremely sophisticated national organization has gotten very much involved in referendum this is not a referendum in quite the same way. I mean, ultimately, ConCon. They're very anti-public transit and they've been very successful in Nashville and in other places organizing to defeat referendum. So, and that's different from 1978. I mean, 1978 had a lot of political dynamics and a lot of passion, but you didn't have the PACs. You didn't have the Koch brothers. You didn't have that same kind of big money. I don't know. What are the Carpenters gonna do? I mean, if they tossed almost a million dollars in the direction of Josh Green, do they have, they certainly can see themselves having a stake in this. But I don't know what they're, we haven't heard anything about that. So far. So far, right. Sure. And would the Carpenters be able to monetarily compete against the Koch brothers? Yeah. No. Are the Koch brothers, let me make sure I understood that, are the Koch brothers their anti-initiative referendum recall? No. And I don't know if they're that. What they are is they're anti, they're anti, well, they're anti lots of things and pro lots of things. But in this case, that I've been paying some attention to, they're anti-public, all public transit. Yeah. Okay. And so- They want to just see the privatized, they want to see- Whatever. Yeah, and they also are in the oil business. So, I mean, cars can make them a lot of money. So that in places they've pushed, they've fought against referenda that would give money for public transit, for mass transit in Nashville. So here they may be less interested in stopping the concon from going, but they may be, and it may be the same with some of these others. They'll figure that's not a big deal, but if it does pass, we'll put a lot of money into certain things. So let me just make sure I got it. So the appearance, the public appearance of a fair amount of mainland money or PAC money or super PAC money could certainly rise the tide of interest in this, as it seemed to do on Maui with the GMO and the pesticide issues over there. I think so. Sure. And since we were talking, you were talking earlier about greatest fears and greatest aspirations, the greatest fear with that super PAC money comes a ton of misinformation, where it could make one side or the other look much more favorable or not so favorable than it actually is. So thus far, we haven't seen any of that. Not yet. We don't see any real signs popping up or jumping on. Yeah, I mean, that's why I'm beginning to wonder because those campaigns are actually, the Carpenters did better in the Caldwell campaign than they did in this one, in terms of sophistication, but those are kind of long term, they do a lot of prep for them, they do a lot of surveys for them and I don't know if that's happening. They're, and they don't usually talk about it very much, but it may be that this is just too small potatoes for that kind of stuff to get in. Or too deep blue. Or too deep blue, I'll ask them to stick the money in if it turns out that it passes and there's a chance for them to get something or for them to stop something. So we're gonna go to a break in just a minute, but one more quick question. If there was to be, we've talked about who might mobilize for and that's where the big money starts to come in. Is there anybody out there who would mobilize against? Absolutely. Who will let the big money? Who will that be? No, if we said, I'm not being clear, if we said there might be big money coming in from the mainland that says, let's have one of these, we love it, it's good for your state, good for America. Who would mobilize against? Is it the same groups we've been talking about? The unions, the business round table, those kind of guys. Absolutely, unions for sure. Unions for sure. They have a lot to lose. Yeah, the native Hawaiian organizations obviously, I think the National Environmental Lobby definitely would get hugely involved. There's a kind of interesting way to think about unconventional politics, and this is an, that is, it's not the day-to-day stuff. If you have good access into the conventional political system, which certainly unions do, and lots of others, and maybe not even the environmental organizations, then you're less interested in more frightened of unconventional ways. Political protests, for example, people protest, yeah, sure, there's passion there, but it's because they don't have any other access in. And so, in a situation like this, one of the things, one of the dynamics is there are things we want to get, we don't like the way the legislature does it, it's not transparent, it's slow, it's corporate interest, and so we'll go somewhere else and try, which is exactly why those people who do get access, like the unions and so on, don't want to get involved in this kind of hustle and bustle of unconventional politics. We're gonna pick this up in a minute, we're going to a break and we'll keep talking on it. Hello and welcome to Out of the Comfort Zone. I am your villainous host, RB Kelly. Today we are playing two truths and a lie, and I will tell you two truths, and you will tell me which one is the lie. Truth number one, this is a real mustache. Truth number two, I want you to watch my show on Tuesdays at 1 p.m. So tune in and let me know which is the truth and which is the lie. I'm RB Kelly with Out of the Comfort Zone and show up next Tuesday to see my mustache live. Hello, my name is Stephanie Mock and I'm one of three hosts of Think Tech Hawaii's Hawaii Food and Farmer series. Our other hosts are Matt Johnson and Pamai Weigert, and we talk to those who are in the fields and behind the scenes of our local food system. We talk to farmers, chefs, restaurateurs and more to learn more about what goes into sustainable agriculture here in Hawaii. We are on a Thursdays at 4 p.m. and we hope we'll see you next time. So we were just talking in the break about the legislature actually could do a lot of the things that might pop out in proposals. And in fact, one of the ideas of a con con seems to be that you convene citizens because they can override things in when the legislature doesn't do things. That seems, in 78 there were a lot of issues that came out from 78 that legislature could have done previously. So that seems to be one of the functions and the others that it launches new careers and new political wins and political generations. Well, what was interesting about the 1978 con con? Just for transparency, I was in third grade when this happened, but- You didn't vote, huh? I didn't vote. Me too. But one of the things that the legislature did not expect to happen was every single thing that came out of the con con passed, the legislature did not expect that to happen. They fully believe that some of this stuff is not gonna go through or we'll be able to control. And to some extent, some of the things they were able to control, like some of the wording was changed a little bit. And so those that are entrenched will always find a way to remain entrenched. So one of the theories that's been floating around is that constitutional conventions, when they come about, tend to be a mirror of the times, the temper of the public mood. And 78 was a good example of that, the war in Vietnam, lots of environmental issues, native Hawaiian issues, plenty of things running. What's the temper of the times now that either leads to one or doesn't lead to one or makes it probable or improbable? What, the question is, what's in the public's mind? A word of caution before I take a chance at the answer. The word of caution is that I don't know how much in retrospect we saw the temper of the times and how much what was actually happening every day in the convention. And con con to me in 78 seemed really pretty amazing. You had this strong leader who kind of emerged, Bill Pei, who knew how to put coalitions together and the Hawaiian issues emerged and so on. And the graduates of the law school. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, that's right. In fact, you had them in order to get into the law school. But I don't know if there is a temper of the times right now that's relevant to con con in the way that we now see the temper of the times relevant there. When you say the war in Vietnam, that got filtered through an increased interest in community organizing, grassroots participation, political protest, Kalama Valley was certainly an example of that. Great example. Yeah, I don't know if there's, I don't think there's anything like that now. I don't think the temper of the times is what's happening in Washington, how much we don't like the other side. Tribal. Tribal, yeah. And the very important issues that should be dealt with here, I'm not sure people pay enough attention to that. I actually think that's the temperament that is here in the state right now. They're looking at the national, what's going on the national level and how all of these protections that have come about over the last 10 years are all being stripped away with a stroke of a pen. They were hard fought things that took decades to get in place that are being stripped away literally with the stroke of a pen, which is why I think the temperament now is fear. Everyone is afraid of, we open this up. It'll get crazy. What can get taken away at the snap of a finger that we're hard fought to get in 1978? Well, what about the opposite side of the coin that we see that as a continuing effort that started here and particularly in other states that have more power like California? The strategies that you have to use is assuming that the national government is going to do bad things to you, the kind of counter source that you can do and whether people want to use the Constitutional Convention to create protection from the nationals. Yeah, that's right, from the national stuff. And if the general public was a much more educated public, I would completely agree with that. But as we both said earlier, the apathy with voting, the non-interest in local politics doesn't lend itself to that. Plus, yeah, plus a lot of these changes are these incredibly important changes and steps back are done in the kind of rule-making administrative level, the sort of bread and butter things that most people don't pay attention to and it's extraordinarily important. So the temper of the times is, there's no temper of the times. Or it's not much. It's a different, it's a different area. So let's say I want to go to one of the heart of the things I wanted to get your thoughts on today. So let's imagine we had a group of people in here that were really in favor of a con con. What would be their highest hopes? What would be the things they would, what would be the hearing from advocates in favor of having a con con? Fix the legislature, much more transparency within the legislature. Structural changes. Structural changes. The sunshine law that was written in 1978 was meant to have transparency. And then once that passed, what the legislature did was just said, okay, well, we're gonna exempt ourselves from that. A con con could strip that right away from them to exempt themselves. And then now everybody has to abide by the sunshine law. So people would get, if they were, if we had a group of pros, we'd say they're mad about the way government locally functions and there's some polling that seems to reflect that. And people would want to find fixes and trying to create a game change. Ways to streamline the legislature. Ways to make it much more transparent. That would be a good place. Get rid of conference committees. Absolutely. Put in place term limits for the legislature. So if you decide to run and you want to step forward and serve, you know that you're on a clock. So I have an interest in getting my work done because my time is limited on which I can affect change. I think there's another thing that would drive a lot of people. And it's, I mean, I can spend a lot of time being critical of it, but it's really powerful and it's very emotional. And that is giving the power back to the people. The phrase that this gives the power back to the people as I don't know what you want to say, historically overblown that idea is never mind. It's a powerful myth in American society. And you believe that this is a way to return to a form of popular democracy that lets those of us most affected by it have a role in it. And they'd say we've been cut out and it's time for some reports. That's right. That essentially the more you have this kind of thing, the more you're reflecting a true kind of democracy. What about the other side? Let's imagine we had a whole group of people here who said, no way, we don't want one. What are their worst fears? We've talked a little bit about some of those. Yeah, we don't have enough time. Well, let's get to a few of the ones that rise to the top of the list. For myself as a native Hawaiian, the first thing that comes to mind is the repeal of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. Repealing native Hawaiian gathering rights, repealing native Hawaiian Olalo Hawaii as an official language of the state. Pretty much any minority rights, period, getting retracted through a concoct. That'd be a particular issue for all the native Hawaiians who've been paying attention to native Hawaiian issues. We know there's some that are not. But many have been and that's been building for the last 25, 30 years. Absolutely. Native Hawaiians take it for granted that I have the right to go into the ocean to collect things for sustenance when even though it says that there's no gathering in this particular area, that could be stripped away. And we don't care that your ancestors have been living on this plot of land for the last 2,000 years. You have no rights, because the law says you can't go. So it's a loss. I mean, there's loss. The fear of loss is one of the drivers. And that would be true with environmental groups and some of the unions who enjoy collective bargaining. Right. I think that's generally the driver. It's a fear of losing something that you have now that might disappear by accepting totally at this stage unknown and uncontrollable process at this stage. So you have to decide if a person sees stuff that he or she would like to get and also sees things that would, you know, there might be Hawaiian groups or whatever that are interested in making the legislature more transparent, hard as that is to believe. But at the same time, so there are choices that are going to be made here. But the kind of progressive opposition to, and in some ways, Tom Kaufman's opposition to having a con con is based on those two things. You're going to lose some really good stuff. The constitution is fundamentally good. Don't take a chance by letting the enemies come in and destroy what you've already had. So one scenario on November 6th or on the 7th when all the votes are in and they've been counted or midnight when you're still there talking about it. Well, one scenario is that it's all, it didn't pass. It died. That's the end of it. And it goes back on the 10-year clock and, you know, 10 years again from now, there'll be another chance for the citizens to vote or the legislature can put ballots on there ballot initiatives or call one if they choose. The other scenario is that it passes. And if it passes, talk to me a little bit about what you think the delegate mix would be in any election delegates. Who would roll out? Because that's another piece of this. I don't know that we can answer that at this time because that, like we were saying, well, like you were saying earlier, if it passes, who's who out there is going to take interest? You know, the Koch brothers maybe don't have any interest in this right now. Then all of a sudden it passes and we're going to have a con con. Now all of a sudden their eyes are looking at, oh, you're going, hey, they're going to have a con con. We can pump some money in and get some people that we can control in as delegates and let's strip away some land rights so that we can develop wherever we want. So fears of that dark money are one of the drivers. We only got a minute left and I'd love to hear from each of you. If you had one comment you'd like to make to anybody who might be listening to this, what would it be? What would you like to tell people about this? Get educated, learn about what a con con means, learn what's important, figure out for yourself what's important to you and what you want to preserve for you yourself and your family and the generations to come past you and then have that help you drive your decision of whether you want to support or not support a constitution or convention? I would say listen to both sides. And what I mean by that is that so much of regular politics here is through partisan filters. In this case, the partisan filters aren't there. And you know, it might be an advantage that people don't know very much about this and don't have preconceived notions. Make that work for you. Actually for once, be a kind of citizen that we're always looking for, but sell them fine, which is a person who can sit back, look at both sides and then make a decision. There are strong arguments on both sides. You can figure those out for yourself. You're not gonna have a certain answer, but do that. So that's also my kind of closing comment is my counsel is pick an issue that you are worried about and you want to protect or an issue that you want to advocate for and see change and either way get out and vote and think those issues through. Think those issues through. Brenda and Neil, thank you so much for joining us. It's been a pleasure. Thank you.