 Aloha and welcome back to Politics in Hawaii with Dennis Isaki on Think Tech Hawaii. Today we'll be speaking with Clayton Hea, a Hawaiian cowboy, former educator, state senator, and OHA board chairman. It was labeled as a Maverick senator, which is not necessarily a bad thing. Senator John McCain was often called a Maverick senator also. Clayton also ran for Congress and finished behind Maisie Hirono, but they had ahead of Brian Schatz was later appointed to the U.S. Senate for Governor Abercrombie. He was a chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee who confirmed the judges in Hawaii. The judges put a crook in jail while he was on the parole bar. He decided to get released from prison. Clayton, welcome to Think Tech Hawaii. Thank you for joining us today. Tell us why you switched gears from being educated to a politician and what were some of your artist's accomplishments in politics? Yeah, thank you Dennis. Well, I was living on the island of Molokae as a school teacher in 1980. And by 82, some of the people in the community had urged me to run for the legislature. I was at the time working in the community with Alulike and the Department of Education at Kamehameha Schools. And one of the things we were doing at the time was fighting development on the island. It's ironic now, 40 years later, but virtually every island, except Molokae, does not have to deal, is dealing with overabundance of visitors. Molokae is exempt in some ways from the overcrowding caused by the visitor industry. And a lot of that had to do with what we were doing in the 80s, trying to stop more hotels from being built on the west side of the island. So I decided to run for the legislature. I thought maybe working in the legislature might make it easier for the grassroots community of Molokae. Yeah, in fact, in the 90s, I think there was a foreign entity bought the last parts of Molokae and they hired a lot of the state workers over there. I guess that didn't work out so well. Yeah, Molokae was always trying to build more hotels under the guise of synergism, bringing more people. But the fact of the matter is the island was pretty determined in trying to keep the resources abundant for the residents, particularly deer from the mountain and fish from the ocean. And because of the efforts of organizations like Huia La Loa, the island is fairly sustainable with the population of around 8,000 or so today. You've separated many measures, conservation measures, like was it the land by Turtle Bay? Yeah, as a member of the legislature, I focused a fair amount of time on conservation efforts. In 2010, Hawaii became the first state to ban the finning of sharks because Hawaii was being used as a way station for long liners that caught sharks, dried the fins, housed them in warehouses at the pier in downtown Honolulu and then shipped them to Hong Kong. So what was happening was sharks were disappearing from the ocean and sharks play a vital role in the health of the ocean. So the Hawaii law became the boilerplate law for other states to follow, which include states like New York, California, Florida, Oregon, Washington, and states like that. I always felt that sustaining Hawaii was very important and protecting our natural resources is vitally important for the future generations of residents who live here. Yeah, and when I was working in the South Pacific, I saw a lot of these fishing vessels with full of shark fins strung up on the lines. In Hawaii also it's considered as an almoa core to some people. It's correct. For Hawaiians, the sharks play a spiritual role for the families and sharks are a deity in almoa core. But there were a lot of issues that we dealt with in the legislature that I had a hand in. Cruelty to animals is now a felony as it should be. We dealt with other issues. In the 80s, when I was the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, the Hawaiian Right to Sue bill was passed and signed into law by Governor John Wahe. That law has made it possible for Native Hawaiians to successfully bring lawsuits against the state for breaches of trust against Native Hawaiians, primarily in the Department of Hawaiian Homelands. I worked alongside Senator Malamo Solomon in the 80s, as well as the 2000s, and Senator Gil Kahele from Ka'u and Senator Brickwood Galloteria, among others. So we tried to focus on issues important to Native Hawaiians and then towards the later end of my career in 2013, I believe it was, the same-sex marriage law became a reality. I authored the law as well as chaired the Committee on Judiciary. And then in 2014, I authored the law on raising the minimum wage to what it is today, which is 10-10 from $7.25 at the time. So I played a role in some legislation that affects us today. The legislature needs to continue to update the laws. For example, the minimum wage law is too low, but that's for this generation of lawmakers to deliberate and hopefully make decisions on. Yeah, can you touch upon a little bit on the making of the laws? I know it's that easy. Yeah, sometimes you know, you kind of just go by party like they do in Congress. Well, it's been referred to as lawmaking is like sausage making. You take the bits and pieces here and you try to assemble them and put them together or herding cats or herding fishes. I think a lot of the reason people called me a maverick wasn't so much at least in my mind being a maverick as much as it was being independent. And I remember in 1984, when I left the House of Representatives and was elected to the Senate, Governor Caetano, who was a member of the Senate at the time, said to me, remember to do all you can while you're here, because when you leave, you'll wish you had done other things while you were a member of the legislature. And he's absolutely correct. But it was that kind of urgency displayed by people like Ben Caetano and Neil Abercrombie and Dukawa Saki, Dante Carpenter, that I got my teeth cut by watching them and trying to learn from them. And so hopefully, as I kept, as they left and I remained in the Senate, I tried to do some of the things that I thought made them successful. I think it was 1986, Hawaii passed the tourist tax. And so I was there. And I remember, I remember the debates on the floor. But I also remember that that legislature has made it possible to bring more revenue into the state via the visitor industry. And those are the kinds of laws I think help the state remain economically viable. Quite frankly, if I was there today, I'd raise the tourist tax even higher without giving it a second thought. And I'd also try to limit the number of tourists that come to Hawaii because 10 million are way too many. When the tourist tax was passed, my recollection was that the number of visitors coming to Hawaii at the time was about 6.5 million. And the legislature was concerned even then that there were too many tourists visiting Hawaii. The sad reality is that tourists come in larger numbers and spend less per capita than they were spending 30 years ago. There were less tourists spending more money per capita. So the formula embraced by the Hawaii Tourism Authority and the Hawaii Visitors and Lodging Association is upside down. And reasonably, at least as far as I'm concerned, can be characterized by greed. And that's unfortunate in my opinion. I'm sure you had a lot of pressure from some of the organizations you mentioned. Well, you know, the business community, they argued against raising the minimum wage. They argued against the tourist tax. But, you know, I see it as their role. There's a flip side to the industry that does not get talked about. For example, I think it was 2010 or 2008 or 2009. At the time, Vicky Cayetano, the governor's wife, was the head of the chamber. And she came to me. I was the chairman of labor and judiciary. And she said the number one issue for the chamber is that the unemployment contribution reserves are too high. And it's time to lower the assessment to employers for the contribution to the unemployment fund because the fund itself, through the reserves, was much too high. She was right. So that year, the legislature lowered it, lowered the contribution. But these things run in cycles, like the economy runs in cycles. So it needs to either, one, be attached to a threshold, or two, the legislature needs a continuous review of contributions by employers or taxes or minimum wage increases. The legislature needs to always have a continuing conversation to make the proper adjustments. So the legislature, I guess, my point is, did things favorable to the chamber? And in some cases unfavorable, but that's the nature of the legislative process. You mentioned that Vicky Cayetano and some others. I think you guys are called dissidents. You recall those days? We were called a lot more than dissidents. But yeah, I think that's a nice, that's a to use for the purposes of today's conversation. You know, Ben and Neil and some of the guys that I was associated with at one time wanted a more transparency in the legislative process, which to me is a fair criticism. And oftentimes the media looks at lawmakers, among others, and labels the behavior of the lawmakers. And I'm not sure if the media first coined the phrase dissidents, but I don't think it, my recollection is, I don't think it was the dissidents that said we're going to call ourselves the dissidents. But it really doesn't matter. It's more what are you doing to service the tax-paying public that is most important and how one should be judged? Yes, you're active in the native Hawaiian issues. One of them was with, oh, I think, Rice versus Cayetano. That's true, Dennis. Can you talk about that? I was involved, well, for 12 years I served on the, as a member of the Board of Trustees for the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. Approximately seven of those years I served as its chair. And the Rice v. Cayetano lawsuit was litigated in the U.S. Supreme Court while I was a chairman at the time. Freddie Rice, who passed away recently, was a friend of mine. I knew him from rodeo. A stand-up guy straight up. His Moopuna are part of Hawaiian. He comes from a legacy of missionary descendants originally from Maui. But he brought a lawsuit really at the time Governor Waihei was in office. It was first called Rice v. Waihei. Then subsequently became Rice v. Cayetano when Cayetano became governor. But basically his complaint was in a sentence was the Office of Hawaiian Affairs was a state agency and therefore voting was an entitlement to all state citizens registered to vote. And quite frankly he was right. OHA was a creature of the state legislature, was signed into law by the governor and is in point of fact a state agency. Now the bigger issue to me with a conversation should move is towards nationhood. A reality that lives in the United States with 750 Native American tribes like the Cherokee, the Sioux, the Navajo, the Piqua and 740 others. So nationhood to me is where the conversation should be. And from my perspective the Office of Hawaiian Affairs was created with that thought in mind. And while I was at OHA that was where I believe that the trustees were the endpoint of the journey was really nationhood for Native Hawaiians. The journey obviously is not complete and unfortunately for me I believe will live beyond my lifetime anyway. Along the lines of Rice v. Cayetano there was the Arakaki versus the state of Hawaii. Who can run for OHA? So now any citizen of Hawaii can run, right? I mean, for that reason they don't have to have blood, quantum or anything. Yeah that's true. But you know sometimes we forget that or the message is forgotten that at the time of the overthrow in 1893 and the illegal overthrow as determined by Congress and signed into law by President Clinton, Hawaii was made up of not just Native Hawaiians but others who came to Hawaii and became citizens of the kingdom. So the idea that or the mistaken impression that the kingdom was comprised solely of Native Hawaiians is in fact not correct. As a result of the Rice case and other issues brought before the judiciary non-Hawaiians, people who are not Native Hawaiians not only can vote for trustees of the office of Hawaiian affairs but also can hold office as a member of the board. I served with Charles Ota from Maui who was appointed by Ben Cayetano and he as far as I'm concerned was one of the best trustees that I served with. His business acumen and his understanding of old Maui was invaluable for us and so I was very privileged and proud to have served with Charles Ota who was a non-Hawaiian who served with distinction as a member of the office of Hawaiian affairs. You talked a little bit you know about Hawaiian issues and nano in the Native Hawaiian context. Can you tell us in the where where you see it going? Well let me let me be let me broaden my discussion from Native Hawaiians to politics in general. I was very fortunate to have been first elected in 1982 so that we were looking really at 40 years ago and the lawmakers at that time were much more independent. They were more bipartisan but they were also outspoken. They were critical and they were unafraid to take positions. That is not my perception of legislators today. Let me give you an example. When the Speaker of the House or the Senate President was replaced it was generally the norm that that former Speaker of the House or the former Senate President would retire. Today for whatever reason good or bad that that doesn't happen and it takes on the complexion that people run to serve today just to serve. If you run just to run just to be an office it changes your in my opinion respectfully it changes your proclivity to take hard positions to be heard and to stand up and be heard. Now there are exceptions in today's legislature so I don't want to give the impression that it's a broad brush. There are some independent legislators but they're far and few between and unfortunately the product is emblematic of people who run for office to be in office and that's what we have today. Okay thanks for that thoughts. Okay what about the Department of Hawaiian Homeland and their mission and where they're going? You know I think the Department of Hawaiian Homeland is trying their best but there were some critical errors made by past directors and governors that has put the Department of Hawaiian Homeland in the financial situation it is today. When Governor Waihe and the legislature created the settlement of $600 million, $30 million for 20 years instead of you taking that that guarantee and floating a bond worth $600 million. Past directors under the governors they represented spent money to build houses with cash on the barrel nobody does that nobody does that today we make loans we refinance our homes to make new homes because of that critical error the Department of Hawaiian Homeland has a very difficult time to raise financing to build more homes because the $600 million settlement expired years ago and that's the pickle that they're in. At the end of the day in my opinion Hawaiian Homeland is the land base the Office of Hawaiian Affairs is the financial arm and nationhood is the umbrella upon which those two agencies should lead Hawaiians into the next millennium. Didn't the Department of Hawaiian Homeland take some land instead of money also? Well it's difficult for me to describe the actions of the Department. There was a settlement with the state that they acquired some land in lieu of cash that also occurred when I was a member of the Board of Trustees for the Office of Hawaiian Affairs but the Office of Hawaiian Affairs during my time I was elected in 1990 the Corpus was 19 million at the time when I left in 2002 the Corpus was nearly 400 million largely due to a settlement with what the Waihe administration and lawsuits brought against the state by the Office of Hawaiian Affairs through the Hawaiian Right to Sue bill passed earlier when I was a legislator in my first go around in 86 so you know the journey the journey is a long journey but as Martin Luther King said the arc should bend towards justice in that journey and I that's the long that's the journey that we're on as native Hawaiians and as residents of Hawaii at this time. Yeah thanks we've got so much more to talk about I was going to ask you about some other conservation things he's talking about OPE sales at one time but that didn't go through that Governor Lingo Vito the bill but you know it's the pandemic demonstrated that if you leave the ocean alone its resources will multiply to the extent that they can help feed these islands that's what the pandemic demonstrated when less people were out and about nature showed its amazing ability to reproduce and the OPE bill was an effort to slow down the taking of natural resources so that they had a their natural resources had a chance to regenerate and provide more it's the antithesis of what we know as greed by people who take because it's there and not necessarily because they need it. I think you're right yeah it's past year I've been walking on the rock they see some pretty good sized ones around yeah so in a we're getting close to the end of our segment any closing statements? No not really I appreciate that you know he's he thought of inviting me to participate with you you know I look forward to seeing who else you have on in the future but it's always a nice time to chat with you Dennis I appreciate that very much yeah and I appreciate all you do and even even a small potato so I remember bringing my son so he could learn how I am from you in school I keep writing and hope to talk to you again later uh thank you yeah thank you yeah thank you all for watching Politics in Hawaii with Dennis Isaki and Clayton E on Think Tech Hawaii he's shared his show with your friends it's part Think Tech Hawaii