 Good afternoon, and welcome to Think Tech Hawaii's Movers, Shakers, and Reformers Politics in Hawaii series. I'm your host, Carl Campania. In recognition of International Women's Day, let's take a moment to recognize the many important contributions of women throughout time and across the globe. Women have been at the heart of many advancements from physics to medicine, from local and global politics to human rights and education. Often these women have not been given the credit they deserve as their accomplishments have been deferred to their male bosses, partner, or husband. As a small sample, let's consider that the American Revolution would not have been successful were it not for women such as Abigail Adams and Betsy Ross. But let us not forget the vital roles of other less well-known women, women such as Deborah Sampson and Margaret Corbin, both American soldiers who fought alongside the men and boys on the battlefield, Prudence Cummings Wright, a minute woman and leader of the Mrs. David Wright's Guard, 16-year-old Sybil Lootington, a female Paul Revere who volunteered to ride out across a 40-mile circuit to rouse the militia, Lydia Derek, an undercover patriot and a Quaker who helped save the lives of thousands of revolutionary soldiers, Patience Wright, a sculptor and spy who gathered sensitive information in London and forwarded it to the colonial leaders. Her messages were encased in her wax sculptures. Nanye He, beloved woman of the Cherokee, who led an underground network of colonial informants captured by the Cherokee, she would release them to bring the messages back to the colonial army. She later helped negotiate the peace between the Cherokee and the new United States. Agent 355, a Culper ring spy whose identity is still unknown, but she is credited for helping to uncover the betrayal of Benedict Arnold. Mr. Reed, a fundraiser who raised over $300,000 for the Revolutionary War effort. She also authored Sentiments of an American Woman, encouraging politically-minded women to show their patriotism and engage. These women and many more serve their country as equal patriots and partners in the fight against oppression. Please look them up and learn more about them. You can also search for women of the Civil War, women of science, and women who changed the world. Let me also acknowledge some very influential Native Hawaiian women whose achievements are still felt and appreciated today. Women such as Queen Emma, who established Queen's Hospital to save the rapidly declining Native Hawaiian population, providing free services to those suffering from foreign-introduced illnesses like smallpox and influenza. She also founded the St. Andrews Priory School for Girls. Then we have Queen Ka'ahu Manu, considered perhaps the most influential woman in Hawaiian history and society as Kamehameha's trusted advisor. She campaigned for the rights of Native Hawaiian women through Kamehameha II to publicly eat at the same table with women, which would be abolishing the ancient Ka'ahu system that prohibited women from engaging and once was only reserved for men. Princess Pawahi was the last descendant of the Kamehameha line. She held the largest private land ownership in the islands, approximately 9 percent of Hawaii's total acreage across all islands. Between the Native Hawaiian population dwindle from 124,000 to 44,000, she focused her entire estate towards education. In 1887, Kamehameha Schools was established to bring educational opportunities to preserve, improve, and perpetuate the well-being of future generations of Native Hawaiians, both academically and culturally. Queen Leo Kalani was the last reigning monarch of the Kingdom of Hawaii. She wrote a new constitution that would have restored the veto power to the monarchy and enabled economically disabled Native Hawaiians and Asians to have voting rights and a voice in the political process. Unfortunately, the constitution never became law as she was illegally overthrown by American and European businessmen, supported by the US military who were threatened by these new governing views of the Queen. Imprisoned in her own palace, she is remembered for her resilience, belief in peaceful resistance, and her attempts to re-empower the people of Hawaii over corporate interests. Patsy Takimoto Mink, the first woman of color and the first Asian American elected to US Congress. She was a leader in both local and national US politics. Her fierce nationally televised speech at the 1960 Democratic National Convention is credited for persuading two-thirds of the Democratic Party to continue their progressive stance on civil rights issues, including school desegregation and making the Civil Rights Commission a permanent agency. She also authored Title IX, a law which bans gender discrimination among federally funded education programs. And in 1972, she became the first Asian American woman to seek the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party. I encourage you to look around at the women in your life and around the world and really see the inspiration of their leadership. Thank you for joining us on Think Tech Hawaii's Movers, Shakers, and Reformers, Politics and Hawaii Series. I'm your host, Carl Campania. We will return in one minute to talk about an opportunity. Stay with us. Hello. My name is Crystal. Let me tell you my talk show, I'm all about health. It's healthy to talk about sex. It's healthy to talk about things that people don't talk about. It's healthy to discuss things that you think are unhealthy because you need to talk about it. So I welcome you to watch Quok Talk and engage in some provocative discussions on things that do relate to healthy issues and have a well-balanced attitude in life. Join me. You're watching Think Tech Hawaii, meeting people we may not have otherwise met and helping us understand and appreciate the good things about Hawaii. Great content for Hawaii from Think Tech. Beirut is a city that never dies. Most places. Hi, I'm Tim Apachella. I'm the host for Moving Hawaii Forward. And the show is dedicated to transportation and traffic issues in Oahu. We are all frustrated by sitting in our cars in bumper-to-bumper traffic. And this show is dedicated to talking with folks that not only we can define the problem, but we hopefully can come to the table with some solutions. So I invite you to join me every Tuesday at 12 noon. And let's move Hawaii forward. Welcome back to Think Tech Hawaii's Movers, Shakers, and Reformers Politics in Hawaii Series. I'm your host, Carl Kompanya. Much has been said and done over the past four months about the 2016 presidential election. People are worried and scared about human rights, healthcare, and immigration. And we should be. But more than that, I'm inspired by how many people are activated and engaged. There has not been a time of such civic engagement since, I don't know, the periods surrounding the American Revolutionary War. And that's a good thing. As a nation right now, we are talking about constitutional law and amendments, legislation, executive orders, and presidential memoranda. Civil and women's rights have become a rallying cry, once again, sad, as that may be. It's also providing us with an impetus for renewed action and activism. We have a great opportunity right now, as much as it was a perfect storm contrived, and otherwise, that allowed Trump to become president. Let us remember that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Or in this case, the giants of grassroots organizing have awoken, and they have names. The Women's March, J-20, the Japanese American Citizens League, Indivisible, the ACLU, World Can't Wait, the Young Democrats, the Young Progressives, Americans for Democratic Action, the Hawaii Alliance for Progressive Action, and so many more. We can use this opportunity right now to coalesce behind our common goals. In my opinion, the key is redefining our common ground and what unites us. It's about having a real, rational, and open conversation, and building bridges, reaching out to our neighbors and fellow community members, and to people who have an opinion and want to get active, but are not sure how or what to do. There has been a huge and will ultimately prove to be a positive reaction to the new Republican Administration. I believe it is our responsibility to embrace that reaction and help provide the opportunities for positive action from our neighborhoods, from our precincts, and from our districts. That action must be driven by passion. So which public issues are you passionate about? Which rights or issues are you worried or concerned about? What has this Republican Administration done or said that inspires you to say enough already, and I don't stop at just our current president? What about our U.S. legislators and our state legislators? What can we be doing to become a better society? Here in Hawaii we have what is known as voter apathy. This is caused by many things, including lack of real choice on the ballot. Too often our legislators go unopposed. As a result, there is less information shared about what is being done and why, which leads to more apathy. Too many people believe that it just doesn't matter because they'll do what they want. Or that the vote just doesn't matter. This could not be further from the truth. Look at the results of the recent demonstrations. The executive orders and policy has been affected. Look at the recent special election in Delaware where thousands of people showed up to support the Democratic candidate and help them overcome the odds to a victory. I believe it's about showing up and getting your voice heard. In some ways, I'm an example of this. I was always somewhat interested in politics, but never engaged much until about 2010. Like many others, I was inspired by former President Obama, so I started paying attention. Then I began to participate in local policy by advocating and even helping to write some resolutions. I then officially joined the Democratic Party of Hawaii, showed up to a precinct election that hold meetings every couple years, and asked how I can get involved to help. Within a short time, I went from a precinct president to a region chair. That's a couple of steps up. All because I showed up and started helping. I served as chair of Region 3 of Democratic Party of Hawaii until 2016 when I stepped down to run for the final months of my state senate campaign. As region chair, I led voter registration, get out the vote, and poll watching efforts, as well as candidate forum events. I have supported state and U.S. legislative campaigns, as well as governor campaigns. I have also served as a member or subcommittee chair for several caucus groups, including the environmental caucus, the labor caucus, the Hawaiian Affairs Caucus, and as I mentioned in 2016, I ran for state senate District 14. Yes, I lost. That's okay. All just because I showed up to help. So can you. I'm continuing to help by working with longtime party members and leaders, as well as with newer members, the young Dems, the young Progressives, our unions, and our electives towards a unified effort for the state of Hawaii. I hope to help lead the rebuilding of our party's grassroots foundation and generate more party candidate training and support, collaborate with complementary groups such as J20, Women's March, and Indivisible, and help the state chair to re-establish the party towards the values and principles defined by our party platform in an effort to energize our great base towards the 2018 and 2020 election cycles. I ask you now to show up and make your voice heard. Make your voice heard. It's the only way to get done what you want for our society, for our people, for our neighbors, and for our families. We have the opportunity now to be the change. I invite you to join us with whichever group inspires you the most. Let's seize this opportunity together. Thank you again for joining us for this section. We will take another short break, and we'll be back in another minute to talk about another issue and some future shows. Thank you again for joining us. This is Steve Katz. I'm a marriage and family therapist, and I do shrink wrap, which is now going to every other week, all during the summer and maybe forever after. Take care of your mental health this summer. Have a good time. Do what's fun and take good care of yourself. Bye-bye. Hello, my name is Reg Baker, and I'm the host of Business in Hawaii with Reg Baker. We broadcast live every Thursday at 2 o'clock. We highlight businesses and individuals that are successful in Hawaii, and we learn their secrets to their success. I hope you can join us and listen in, because we always have a pack of information on successful stories in Hawaii. Aloha. Thank you again for joining us. This is Think Tech Hawaii's Movers, Shakers, and Reformers, Politics in Hawaii series. Once again, I'm your host, Carl Kampania. Thank you for staying with us. We have a couple of different segments today. This will be the third one, so once again, we appreciate you joining us, and please feel free. If you have any call-in or questions or anybody wants to comment on anything, you can Twitter in. You can do whatever you'd like, and we'd be happy to engage those conversations as well. Okay, in the coming weeks, I'm very excited to say that I have some great guests coming in. First of all, I've got a friend of mine. He's becoming a new friend of mine. Coming in, his name is Rafael Leonard. He has been a Bernie supporter. He has joined the Democratic Party of Hawaii and has remained a member of the Democratic Party of Hawaii. We're going to talk about that process, and we're going to talk about how to engage really from the inside and how we can make the change and how we can be the change from the inside. It's an important conversation to recognize. Unfortunately, there were a lot of people, a lot of voters, a lot of excited, energized people that were brought into the party initially or were brought into the political conversation thanks to Bernie Sanders in large part, and some of them went away. Some of them disappeared again, and we need their energy. It's important. We recognize that there are changes that need to be made. We recognize there are problems and challenges that have happened. We need your help to fix them. I say again, stay engaged. Be engaged. Don't just walk away. Let's be the change together. So I'm looking forward to that conversation there. I also have, I'm very excited about this. I'm very proud to say that we have Mr. Alfonso Braggs coming. He is the Hawaii director of the NAACP. It's going to be an extraordinary conversation I'm looking forward to having. There's a number of groups that he's a part of as well. There's the Hawaii Coalition for Civil Rights that's being organized at the moment. There's a lot of opportunities to talk about what we can do from a civil rights perspective. How we engage in civil rights conversations really across the state, across the island, across the street sometimes, and that's an important thing. That's a big part of what I think we all need to do is not just talk in our heads, not just talk in our bubbles, talk across the street, talk with our neighbors, talk with our friends, talk with our family, and let's build those bridges together. And that's, I know, it's a big part of what Mr. Braggs is doing with the NAACP. And that's going to be a great and important conversation coming up. I'm also looking forward to having a good friend of mine, her name is Rachel James. She's going to be joining us in a few weeks as well. We're going to talk about politics in Hawaii from a law student's perspective. And we'll see what we can learn from that. We also both engage in the energy industry so we can perhaps talk on that line as well. And then what I was hoping to get sooner, but I'm very thrilled to get as well, is Mr. Corey Rosenly from HSTA. They currently have a constitutional amendment that they are posing because it's really important that we bring greater attention, more focus, and more money to our educational system. Yes, to pay our teachers, but to make sure that more money is put into our classrooms, to make sure that there is more money per student that is available for the education of our children. We talked about this before when we did an entire, eight months, I think, on education. Where we were trying to hone in on what is going on, what the challenges are, and what the differences are. And it's an important conversation that we cannot just let go. Our kids are our future. If we want to put any investment into our future, it needs to be into our kids. And it needs to not be, as we learned as we talked last week as well, with Ikai Kahasi. We're talking about how the current structure is set up. And how the wealthy can have their kids go to the best schools possible. Or if you happen to be native Hawaiian, you get to go to, well, you get to join the list of people who get to try to go to Kamehameha schools. Amazing school, they all are. Yolani, Puneho, Mid-Pak, they're all great schools, but they're all very expensive and most people cannot afford them. So we've got a hierarchy in our educational system and we need to address that. We need to make sure that we're providing opportunities for these children, for greater education. We need to be teaching them jobs of the future. We need to be, we need to bring vocational training back and have them prepared for multiple levels of jobs. Not everybody's going to go to college, but we need more people to go to college. And we need more jobs to be here in Hawaii for those people to either stay here for college or come back after they've gone to college because there's a real career opportunity here. Adding to that is the cost of living. The whole problem that we have and why this is an issue, education is an issue, housing and homelessness is an issue, it all centers around cost of living. We have to be able to have a strong conversation about cost of living. Now, yes, I'm a Democrat. I've made that very clear, I think, over and over again. But unlike the common belief that Democrats are all about taxing and spending and I want to tax more, I want more taxes so we can spend more money, I get the need for spending in some places. And I get the need for taxing for some things. But one of the things we need to address and better address is how we're taxing all of our people and the regressive tax structure that we have in this state. It's a problem for those of us who are not making six figures and above. It's a problem when a family of four must earn at least $120,000 per year just to get by. We're not talking about creating large savings out of that. We're talking about just getting by, paying rent which is huge, paying for daycare which is huge. Let alone healthcare and for the 8% of us that don't have healthcare. That's a problem. How are we addressing that? In this last legislative session, I'll just talk about that real quick. In this last legislative session, there were several bills that had been put out to talk about trying to address that final 8%, to try to finally once and for all get us to that universal healthcare. They didn't even get hurt. What are we doing? If we're not trying to help people, if we've got the taxes as high as they are already, what are we doing? If we need more revenues for the state, what are we doing? How are we bringing more industries into the state? How are we bringing more jobs into the state? I actually helped write one bill specific to biofuels. It was calling for a pilot project to demonstrate the viability of biofuels in the state of Hawaii. It passed the energy and the transportation committees, but it never got heard in the Commerce Committee. It never got heard, so it can't advance. So again, what are we doing? When we have an opportunity to bring legislation to help people, when we have an opportunity to bring legislation to create more jobs and hire paying jobs, when we have an opportunity to bring money to the table for our children and we're not doing it, I wonder what we are doing. And I wonder where it is going. And I know there's a lot to be paid for. Government is expensive. Taking care of our roads is expensive. That's city and county. Taking care of land and taking care of our infrastructure. And that's a lot of that estate, that's expensive. I get that. We have a lot of agencies, a lot of departments and a lot of employees. I get that. And their important jobs, most of them, are important jobs. But where's our focus and where's our priority when it comes to our children? When it comes to our families that are trying to get over the hump? When it comes to the ability to have healthcare provided in housing? I'm at housing, let's go to housing for a minute. I was recently looking through, just wanted to get an idea of some of the housing options that are available, rental units. And I noticed, I found on a couple of the websites, there's apartment listings for these affordable housing units. I say affordable housing units. And that's because as you look at them, okay, if you're a single person, if you're married, if you have, if you're two people or four people or six people in your family, and if you earn this amount of money or less, or this amount of money or less, then you can qualify to be in one of these apartments. Okay, well, that's supposed to help. However, this is what I discovered. A family of four, remember I mentioned a family of four needs to make $120,000 a year just to get by. But a family of four would need to earn less than $120,000 to qualify for an apartment in one of these affordable housing units and pay $2,500 to $2,800 a month. Try to do the math on that when you figure $2,800 per month. Plus, if you've got two kids and they're going to school, well, they're probably not going to a private school. They're going to a public school because you can't afford that. So how are we looking at all of the stuff in addressing this and saying, how are we making it easier for people to live here? How are we addressing cost of living here? How are we bringing more jobs? So again, thank you for joining us. This is the end of our show now. Thank you for joining us. This is Think Tech Hawaii Movers, Shakers and Reformers, Politics in Hawaii Series. Thank you to the staff, the crew, and everyone here at Think Tech Hawaii. Thank you for joining us each week. We will see you next week. Take care.