 And welcome back to Talk Story with John Waihei. We've got a really interesting program for you today. In fact, we've got a program that I've been thinking a lot about lately. And my guest is Gary Hooser, former state senator. And now, I guess you're in charge of Hawaii Pono Initiative or something like that, right? Hapa, Hawaii Progressive Alliance for Progressive Action. I'm the president of the board, volunteer. Yeah, and I receive your emails regularly. And they seem to be regularly talking about the fact that our government is not as open as it used to be. And I have to tell you that you're not the only one sending me messages like that. It's happening all over and from people. And usually, how do I say this without offending anybody? Usually, it's the progressives that talk about the fact that government is not open because it is a progressive issue, open government is. And yet, I'm getting emails and things from the cross-section of people, business people, republicans, believe it or not, have indicated that. So I just wanted to ask you, Gary, what's happening? Why is this crescendo going on? That is a great question, Governor. And it's been a slide in this direction, I think, for many years. When I first went in the state Senate in 2002, there was a lot of votes, discussions behind doors, that kind of thing. But it's gotten worse and worse and worse over the years. And the public is fed up with it, I think. Important issues that can't even get a public discussion. They won't even have a hearing, a little on a vote. Things like increasing the minimum wage. Well, the minimum wage, as I understand it, passed the state Senate. It did. It did. The state Senate, and perhaps off the senator, Blayantanaguchi, not a huge raise increase. It was a very modest $12. We're at $10, $10 right now. And he said, let's take it to at least $12 by next year by 2022. And in the House, under the leadership of Speaker Psyche, and the chair of the Labor Committee, Representative Onishi has not even gotten a hearing. I don't understand. This is a very important issue to me. And so I'm going to just get right into it. And we can come back. I don't understand how a labor chair would hold something like this up. I mean, where are the unions on this? In fact, just three days ago, well, Friday, last week, Friday, one of the people who complained to me about the lack of openness was a member of one of our public worker unions. And they're not prone to do that kind of complaint. But anyway, how does it happen that a labor chairman and a speaker who ostensibly is, I guess, labor oriented, would hold up something like the minimum wage? Well, this particular labor chair that the committee is labor and tourism. So I don't know which were the priority lies quite frankly. And I know the big business, certainly the large businesses and the fast food industry has been opposing for a long time. I'm pleased to say that just today, I found out that the iron workers, the teamsters, the ILWU Local 142, Unite Here, United Food and Commercial Workers are all coming out today strongly asking the speaker, Speaker Psyche, to allow a floor vote on this on the 7th. Wow. Committee or no committee, they're saying, we want this voted on, not just the minimum wage issue. That's one. There's two issues. The other one is relieving people on unemployment of the state income tax during the COVID period. Those are the two bills. You mean the House, that's no prayer. Don't you think so? I mean. And again, they refuse to even have a hearing, even to publicly put, you have the public, allow the public to come in and testify and then take a public vote. What's the justification? Well, the minimum wage, they'll say it's not the right time. The economy is not good, et cetera. But as you know, it's never the right time for some of the folks. And 26 other states are doing it this year. Florida is doing it. Republic of red Florida is increasing their minimum wage and blue Hawaii won't do it. Again, 26 states this year. And the $12 isn't even this year. It wouldn't take effect till next year. But they say it's not a good time. And on the tax forgiveness, if you would, for the people on unemployment, some of those folks have been fighting for a year. And the state has really bungled it. And I'm not blaming anybody in particular. But we have bungled it. We have bungled it badly. And now some of these folks are going to get tax bill. For unemployment, they're standing and lying for food. And the House says, well, we're not sure if the federal government will let us do this or not. And you and I both know if they want to do it, they'll find a way to do it. Absolutely. Absolutely. And so it's disheartening. Again, what could possibly be the justification for taxing unemployment benefits during the pandemic? I'm searching for, I'd like to believe that these things are done for some kind of rational reason. I couldn't tell you that money might be part of it because it's a budget impact, even though the state or the federal government's going to be giving us billions, maybe the powers would be that the legislature would rather spend that money on something else. And I think we should support business, small business. Yes, let's support them. Let's support public working. But let's support low income working people and the unemployed also. Don't leave a segment, an important segment out and hang it. And both of those bills, the unions are coming out in favor of action on it and taking it out for both. These particular unions, the public worker unions, I haven't really heard from them. But these particular unions, they did a strong off-ad piece in Civil Beat a few days ago. And then I just literally five minutes before the show started, I got an email with a copy of the letter they're sending out, asking for a floor vote. Fine, this is how democracy is supposed to work. If you don't like it, say no, vote against it. But don't tell us you support it and don't pass it. Well, let's put it out. So just so people understand our conversation and I am irritated enough to have just spotted with the content. But what we're talking about is basically these things are being held in committee. And which I don't think a chairman could take this kind of a strong stand against two obviously important bills without the support of leadership as well. So my understanding and the complaint that I get is that this actually happens quite often, at least in the house of the legislature. And it happens because a few people make the decisions for the entire house. Is that your feeling? I mean, that's absolutely it. In the Senate, the power, if you would, is dispersed. The president of the Senate is not all powerful because he has to please various factions within there and make everybody happy. It's more of a collaborative kind of environment. In the house, it is very centralized. If you read the House rules, which I just did a couple days ago, the speaker controls the deadlines, the time, and controls the referrals. He doesn't have a committee that helps him refer the bills? He doesn't need a committee, but the rule said he's the one that refers. He refers it. If there's a dispute about whether a referral, he has a committee. But ultimately, he settles. Regardless of what the committee decides, the speaker prevails. And it's just over and over again, the power is centralized in one person. Well, I tell you, that's not the only complaint. So these happen to be two bills that I think are very important and that I would like to see voted on. But the complaints also include the fact that it seems like there is less openness, just period. When I was in office, we passed the open records law, which basically, I think you were in the Senate that time, were you? Or you just came in there? Well, 2002 to 2008, I was in the Senate. OK, so this is before that. We passed the open records law. And it wasn't an easy thing to do. And I mean, in terms of having to put up with it as an elected official. But it seemed to have worked pretty well for, well, with a few hiccups now and then, pretty well for the last 25 years. Now I'm hearing that a lot of that is not even being adhered to. I think it's about a mindset. And the mindset is not, how do we have an open process to the public's benefit? The mindset is, how do we push this through quickly with the least amount of trouble? And the public is seen as a bothersome pain in the ocoly rather than a valuable part of the process. There was a bill just recently that failed in the Senate. And lo and behold, it's stuck into a House bill with no public notice, no public hearing, no public discussion at all. And it's just not right. It's about respect for the public. I'm afraid also that this remote testimony has two sides to it. I'm happy that people that live in rural areas and live on the New York Islands and testify via Zoom. But also I'm concerned that this will separate the public. I've heard that they're going to even allow some commission meetings without even a proper public meeting at all. How do you do that? Did not violate the statute? Well, they're looking at changing the statute. Yeah. And again, if it's a mindset, it's an attitude. And what's happening around the nation and in our state, people don't believe in their government anymore. And we need to reverse that. And so I'm hopeful that if one more people speak out like yourself and like these other union leaders, that people in power will maybe realize that they need to slow down a little bit and look out for the public's interest, not just their own interest. Yeah. And I should confess that I'm not like a rabbit public participation kind of guy. So when I'm having a show like this, I think there have been a lot of lines that got crossed. I believe in the openness in government. And I believe that you should know what your legislators and what your public officials are doing. But to get to the point where such a cross-section of the communities are concerned, something must be really broken. I don't know what it is. I have to, we need to give responsibility also to the majority that allows this conduct. And we both serve legislative bodies. And we know that it's difficult sometimes to challenge leadership because you risk maybe your committee assignment, you risk having a bill, you're afraid of retribution. And just that the fact that there is people afraid of retribution is a bad sign. But we need to ask the rank and file to step up a little bit. And maybe they don't have to do it in public. They can speak to the chair behind closed doors and say, listen, we need to hear this bill. And if the majority did that, I think they would hear the bill. And if I could just add real quickly, because this is particularly what irks me, we live in a state where our government is controlled by Democrats. There's only one Republican senator and only four Republican. So there's no excuse from a party perspective. You'll be watching the DC, they're struggling in both 50-50 and they're still trying to pass this progressive legislation. Well, we're gonna take a short break. But when we come back, I wanna follow up on that thought, that idea of why Democrats are not acting like Democrats. And we'll come right back right after we have a break. Welcome back to Talk Sorry with John Wahe and our guest, Senator Gary Hooser. And who is one of the leading, I guess, mentors for young, for not just young, but for people who want to see progressive government. Now, here we are, we're just talking about that. This is the blue state, as we mentioned earlier, and a red state like Florida, who you can't get much redder than that, but maybe you would name might be with Texas, but you can't get much redder than Florida, just passed some of the bills, like the increase in the minimum wage, which gets held by a democratic, heavily democratic, also representatives. And what's up? I mean, I just don't, I don't know, do we, I think you just hit the nail, why have you? I'm a Democrat, you know, and I told you Republicans this, it's not my job to help them build their party, but on the other hand, I really wish they would. We really need some, we need more opposition. Give me some of your thoughts on all of this. We do, I think to keep everybody honest, and in a literal and figurative sense, we need competition, we need watchdogs. As a former chair, vice chair of the party, I work closely with a lot of really good Democrats, members of the party, who work hard on putting their, the program together and setting the legislative priorities, and increasing the minimum wage to at least $15 is a number one priority of the party, but yet you can't get democratic leaders in the state house particularly to support that. And so it's frustrating. And I think in other states, they may frankly not be Democrats, but in Hawaii, you pretty much have to have a D or next to your name to run and win. Even Arizona also has a higher minimum wage than Hawaii has. Really? Arizona? Oh, my God. And so I think it's all of us that believe in, and the fundamental values that people that, that work 40 hours a week should be able to have a safe place to live and put the food on the table. You know, these are core values regardless of party. It's certainly the democratic party's values. And it's not happening. The open government, you know, I spend a lot of time, you mentioned that I was a mentor and that, and that really is what I'm doing a lot right now is seeking out people who want to get involved and have a calling or a desire to get more involved. Tell us about that. Tell us about what you're doing. And some of the people who have successfully transitioned through your efforts. We have, it's a program we call the Kuliana Academy, which is a, right now we're doing it online. We have been doing it for about five, five years at least. And we have a lot of people have gone through the program and it teaches people skills training, how to run for public office, how to run a campaign. It teaches them about different issues, progress from a progressive slant, and it exposes them to the world of government and politics. And you've spoken there. I appreciate that. I enjoy speaking there by the way. You've got a bunch of young, I mean, I keep using the word young. That gives you a sense of my age because, you know, but you've got a bunch of really exciting. We do. We have representative Amy Peruso, who she went through our program. She's serving in the house now, representative Tina Wildberger, representative, they've all gone through the program and they, they get elected on their own. We just expose them and teach them and educate the nuts and bolts of how it works. And then in the Maui County council, we have four sitting members right now that have gone through a program. And I have to say, if anyone is interested, you can find me at Gary Hoosier.com. Gary Hoosier.com. And my contact information is there. As you mentioned, I do an email newsletter. And they can sign up for the newsletter on, on joining the joint page. But what I do also is I try to tell people, our government doesn't work because more of us aren't involved. I try to encourage people, whether you're going to run for office, whether you're going to support somebody wearing, or whether you're just going to show up and testify, you must be involved. And a lot of people, you know, it's sad. We'll say, Gary, I don't think it makes a difference whether I send an email or a call. Or, you know, does it help? So why bother? And so I always try to tell them it does help. But when, when some of the leaders in office play fast and loose with the public interest in the rules and the Sunshine law, it doesn't help at all. It just further creates more cynicism. And people don't want to get involved. And so, you know, back in the, we like to talk about the good old days, you know, and back in the good old days, what, when, when there was a huge issue dispute, what they would do is throw everybody in a room and tell them, you know, you don't come out until you come out with a solution because making sausage was so, and we talk about that. But there's a difference, though, that I see anyway, you know, giving all my years. I don't even want to talk about how many years, but giving my years of involvement. And that is that in those days, they actually went in the room trying to figure out what was best for the public interest. They may have had all kinds of other interests on play, but they came out and they felt somewhat compelled to do something that would be generally good for everybody. And I don't see that happening anymore. I see a lot of tricks being played. I see a lot of things, but there's no good result at the end, you know. And I don't know, there's this cynicism. I don't know how much of it has to do with the last four years with having a president like Donald Trump who could get away with anything and having that infect some of our leaders or what would be, like putting a bill that was clearly turned down by another house for good policy reasons and trying to sneak it back out again in a bill that would sort of ensure passage and no veto. I mean, how is that in the public interest? You know, I think sadly, they still go into the room and talk. It's just the people in the room don't represent all of it. The low income workers are not in the room and their representatives are not in that room, in my opinion. The unemployed obviously aren't in that room and the people that represent them. Access to power is evolved more and more every year. It involves more toward money, more toward existing power, big business, big labor, big construction. You know, but what's funny, Gary, is that I can show you some emails from lobbyists complaining about how bad it is. You know, and the other guys are supposed to benefit by the system, but they said, you know, they spent all their time trying not to irritate people. Otherwise, nothing happened. No, it's probably worse than I think. Now, I mean, if you're breaking up, you know, talking to a greater cross-section of the community, it's probably much worse than I think. And it is, it's this fear-based decision-making. No one wants to irritate or be on the long side of key people because they're not sure what's going to happen. Wow. You know, there's a great song in the play, Hamilton, about being in the room when the decisions are made, you know. You got to be in the room otherwise, you never know what's going on. Well, I tell you, I appreciate the work you're doing. And I do, that was just, we got a couple of minutes left. Tell us just a little bit more about some of your activities. And so that people who are interested might be able to. So the Hawaii Alliance for Progressive Action, HAPA is the acronym, is the main nonprofit organization. I also got Pono Hawaii Initiative up there. Pono on Initiative is a 501C4. The way nonprofits work, the 501C3 HAPA is an educational nonprofit. And the donations are tax-deductible. Someone wants to contribute to that organization. Pono Hawaii Initiative is a stronger advocacy organization and the contributions are not tax-deductible, but you're allowed to do more advocacy. There's both organizations. They're separate in terms of their leadership, their boards, and their budgets kind of thing. So the Pono Hawaii Initiative, we support candidates, we endorse candidates. We're looking right now at 2022. And we're saying if you're not going to act like a Democrat, even though we're not partisan per se, if you aren't going to look after the people's interests and have hearings and vote in public, then perhaps we should find someone to run against you. Well, that's a democratic way. And I got to thank you for joining us today and for your service to the state of Hawaii. But keep up the good work and hopefully we'll have some sunshine. Thank you very much for having me on the show today. Thanks, Senator. I really appreciate your presence. Take care.