 Oh, and welcome to Finding Respect in the Chaos. I'm very happy to have you here with me today. We have a special show today. I am here with Representative Linda Ichiyama from our State House of Representatives. She's also on the Women's Legislative Caucus, or I should say in Women's Legislative Caucus. Linda, I'd like to thank you so much for coming. Welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me. Oh, goodness. Yes. I mean, shoot. You do so much. Three or four committees. I know you're on that. I got to write it. I wrote it down so I wouldn't forget. The Protection and Commerce Committee, the Committee of Economic Development, and the one on Labor and Public Employment, right? So these are all of the things that you do. Are you on more than that, or did I, you are more than that? Just those three. It is those three. Just those three. That's a lot. There's a huge amount of stuff. What sort of prompted you to be in the politics anyway and become a representative? Actually, I was interested in policymaking from a very young age. In high school, when I was a senior at Mauna Loa, I was a student member on the Board of Education. And so I represented hundreds of thousands of public school students on the board and was a student voice on all types of issues ranging from school uniforms to vending machines to local school boards. And that's, I guess you could say, I got bitten by the bug early. And then I went to school in Washington, D.C. I worked on the Hill for then Congressman Abercrombie. Oh, wow. I came back home for law school and interned at the state legislature. And I thought that I would practice law for a little while and then maybe one day later on run for office. But it turned out that in my last year of law school, my senator ran for lieutenant governor and my rep ran for his seat. So it was an open seat at my home district. Right, and that's your home district. I was going to say that it's district 32, right? And so it used to be a different number for a while, right, from 2010 to 2012 or something. And then it became, so you've actually been there since 2010 though, right? Right. I was first elected in 2010. And so in 2012, we have reapportionment. We do that every 10 years because that's based on the census. So the next one is coming up really soon in 2022. That'll be the next reapportionment. So it was district 31 and now it's district 32. Is it the same districts, I mean the same cities and neighborhoods and things in the district? Do they add something or take it away or is it basically the same? Basically it's the same. They added a few streets in Aliamanu and took away a few streets in the gardens. But we have a pretty stable population. I also have a very high density district because I have a lot of condominiums in Salt Lake. Right. So the lines didn't shift that much. Actually, I was very fortunate in that sense. Right. Absolutely. Now, so do you deal with just the labor and the economic stuff of your district or does that sort of constitute to the whole island? Statewide. Statewide. So all the islands even. Right, right. So there's like a representative from each island that's going to be on that committee? No. Is that the way it works? No. Unfortunately, we can't do it that way because then we would have to have everybody on every committee. Oh, right. So what we do is we divide it up between committees and we try to have representation from both neighbor islands at Oahu as well as male, female, and minority, majority representation. Okay. And then we debate the issues in the committee. Then it moves to the full body for a vote. And usually a bill gets referred to several committees. So you'll have several times to hear the testimony and make amendments that the bill moves along. And then if the bill moves to the final vote, then it passes out of the house, moves to the Senate. Same process. About how long does it take for that process to happen? Is it always different or is there pretty much of a set? It varies from bill to bill and it just depends. Some bills will move through real quick. Others, it may take multiple sessions, multiple years, it just really varies. But we have 60 legislative working days and we're in session from January through May. Right. That's a long time. It feels like a long time, but it goes by so fast. Right? It's kind of like these shows. We think at first when we start it's like, oh my gosh, what? A half an hour. And then the half hour is up and you're going, what? Where'd it go? Right, you blink and it's gone. That's exactly right. So in the women's legislative caucus now, and it's been around for 20 some odd years, right? More than 20 years? I would say over 30 years. Over 30 years. Early 1980s. Wow. Yes. It was co-founded by Senator Maisie Hirono and some of her colleagues. Right. And I was fortunate, I was talking to her recently and she was telling me a story of how the caucus got started. And she said that when they first brought up the idea, the male colleagues and legislatures said, oh no, you don't need a caucus. Why don't you just put in your bills like everybody else? And so she kind of smiled as she was telling the story and she tightened her women's resistance scarf. And she said, you know, but we did it anyway. All right. And thankfully they did because here we are 30 years later still going. Right, still going. I know that she was going to be the keynote speaker at the women's legislative breakfast. I think we have a picture of the women's legislative breakfast here, don't we? I think maybe to show. Maybe not. Oh, there we go. Yeah. I know she was slated to be the keynote speaker and then had to rush back to Washington for the most important votes, which I understand. That was actually the week when they were able to break the deadlock for the federal shutdown. Right. So unfortunately she couldn't be with us, but we had her chief of staff there to accept on her behalf. Right. And I have put together a little proposal for her that I'm hoping she will come on as part of this series because I'm going to do a whole series during this section of the session while you guys are bringing forth the women's legislative package, the bill package that you guys put together. And so I'm saying a little prayer that she will come on my show as one of the founders, which I think would be really amazing. Patsy Winx was involved in that too. She also has a sheet in the founding. I'd love to see that episode and I'd love for it to be recorded for everybody to see for history. Well, it will be because we are recorded. We're live right now. But we're also going to come out on the YouTube channel afterwards. They will post our, we have a YouTube channel. And so all of our shows get uploaded to the YouTube channel. So it would be preserved for future generations. Yes. Thank you very much. I was going with that. You have a quote from Representative Cynthia Thielen, who was also involved in the beginnings of the women's caucus. Not in the very first years, but close. She was in there. And I love what she said. Different decades of women banding together can make a powerful sisterhood which will make our communities, state, and world a safer and better place, which I think is just so true. Women need to come together. We need to. And I, I love all the women that are coming into politics right now and all the women that, that were actually elected in the midterms that, you know, to, to see the balance in Washington change from just this all white male to the, and, and watching the, the state of the union the other night, I saw, you look at the Republican side. It's pretty much all white male. And then you look at the Democrat side and it's just this wonderful blend of diversity, you know, gender and race. And I was just, it was wonderful to see. Well, I like to tell people we're the party of the big tent. So we accept everybody. And I think that really speaks to who we are as Democrats. And, and as who we are as Americans, right? Because that's what we're supposed to be all about in my mind anyway, is accepting all, all of it within the bounds because you have, it's like, you can accept all of it, but you have to do it within the bounds of society so that you make sure that people are safer and not just sort of walking over everyone because that's the way it's supposed to be. Sure. So it's a hard balance, I think, for politicians to, to find, right? I think it's a hard balance for all of us to find, right? How do we integrate, but still preserve our own customs and cultures and uniqueness? Yes. That's always hard. Thank you. That's exactly what I was trying to say, but could not quite figure out the right words. And now it's perfect. Yeah, that's exactly what I meant. Yes. You know, I saw something on your website that talked about trying to restore the public trust that we can trust our politicians and that we can, you know, trust our leaders to, to lead us the right way and to, to really represent what we want. And, and I think that's a really noble and admirable thing that is your goal to try to do. And I, I thank you for that, because we need more, more representatives and more politicians like you. Oh, thank you. I think it's something that my colleagues and I all strive to do every day. And I think one of the best things about being in the House of Representatives, we represent pretty much one of the smallest political units in the state. So we are really close to our constituents. And I see them every day when I walk my kids. I see them when I go to longs. And so I, I see their families growing up when I go to school events. Right. And I think there's so much value about being in this particular office. And so I think it's having people who are connected and visible in their communities that's going to hopefully restore that trust. Because when you know somebody, when you see them every day and you can talk to them about your concerns and they're accessible, I think that's where you get better transparency and better accountability. Right. Gosh, that's so true too. That's exactly what I think we need. And is that boots on the ground kind of reach out to the people and shake their hands, you know, not just, not just shake their hands as you're walking by and get a photo up, but shake their hands and talk to them. Like you said, and find out what their concerns are. Find out what they're thinking about. What, what are the problems that they face each day? You know, our cost of living is so high here in Hawaii. And that is puts on such a struggle and a stress, I think on people. And I think part of that economic stress or financial stress really works on people and leads to some of the domestic violence that we see. Who can you take it out on? You take it out on the person that's closest to you. So if we can keep the narrative going that we can talk about it, we can get rid of that shame blanket that sort of goes over the top of everyone so they feel like they can't say anything because people will judge them or they will think badly of their family or any of those things. And I think once we can, and it's just talking about it over and over and over and being able to verbalize what that means. Right. And, and then men and women too, because women are abusers also, but then they can have that outlet. They don't have to, it doesn't have to be under that blanket of secrecy and shame. And I think that's one of the biggest things. And I know that this bill package is really amazing. There's some amazing bills in here. We just have a minute until we go to break those. So we'll start talking about this, this package when we come back because there's a lot of amazing bills in here that are set up to help people, help women that have been victims to help women's health issues. And so there's all kinds of really important things that I want everyone to hear. So please come back, do not go away. This is Finding Respect in the Chaos. I'm Cynthia Sinclair. We'll be right back. Hey, Loha. My name is Andrew Lanning. I'm the host of Security Matters Hawaii airing every Wednesday here on Think Tech Hawaii, live from the studios. I'll bring you guests. I'll bring you information about the things in security that matter to keeping you safe, your co-workers safe, your family safe, to keep our community safe. We want to teach you about those things in our industry that may be a little outside of your experience. So please join me because security matters. Aloha. Aloha. I'm Dave Stevens, host of the Cyber Underground. This is where we discuss everything that relates to computers that just kind of scare you out of your mind. So come join us every week here on ThinkTechHawaii.com 1 p.m. on Friday afternoons. And then you can go see all our episodes on YouTube. Just look up the Cyber Underground on YouTube. All our shows will show up and please follow us. We're always giving you current, relevant information to protect you. Keeping you safe. Aloha. Hello. Welcome back to Finding Respect in the Chaos. I'm Cynthia Lee Sinclair and I am here with Representative Linda Ichiyama. And we are talking about the bills that are going through the session right now that came out of the women's legislative caucus. But as you were just saying, Linda, tell me there's more bills than just these. Yes. That is interesting. I want to hear it. It's actually a surprising circumstance that as long as I've been in office, we haven't really come across before. But I think it's a good trend. Our caucus package is limited to 10 bills. And so we have to prioritize amongst many, many measures, which ones can be in the package or not. But we actually had a conversation this year where so many other people wanted to introduce pro-women, pro-family bills. And they said, you know what? We know you have a limit. So we're going to have somebody else introduce the bill because that way it's still discussed and heard. And it leaves more room for other bills to make it into the caucus package. Okay. And so for example, we have an equal pay bill that is a follow-up to last year's bill, which would prohibit people from inquiring, prospective employers from inquiring about a prospective higher e-salary. So you cannot ask, what was your past salary at your past jobs? Because unfortunately what we're finding out is that the pay gap follows a woman from job to job to job. Right? She got paid less at her last job. She will get paid less at future jobs. And it's self-perpetuating. So there is a bill to follow up on that bill from last year to kind of clarify and help expand that protection for women. And that was actually introduced by both the labor chairs, Representative Johansson and Senator Tony Gucci. And so another example is a bill to provide people who take care of children or dependents to provide them with a tax credit so that it can help them financially because we know so often people have to take time off work or make financial sacrifices to take care of a loved one. And so that actually came through the Kiki Caucus package. So it was actually a really exciting thing for me to see this year. Right? That so many people want to do these bills that we're able to put even more into the women's caucus package. That's so great. Because that's what we need. We need everybody to get on board, right? Yes. Which is why I'm always saying, you guys, it's important to be involved, stay involved. Now, if somebody wanted to come to the legislation, I mean legislature, to one of the sessions, always get pulled up with that word. But they wanted to come to the session and they wanted to speak on one of these bills. How would they know when it's going to be there? How would they know when to show up? How to behave? Who do they talk to? All those things. How does someone go about doing that? That's a great question. A great resource in the best place to start is the capital website, which is capital.hawaii.gov. C-A-P-I-T-O-L dot hawaii.spelledout.gov. And on the capital website, you can search bills by keywords. So if you're interested in education, if you're interested in, for example, women's health, you can type in those keywords and a number of bills will pop up. Then you can see the bill status. When is it coming up for hearing? When can I submit testimony? Another good resource is the public access room on the fourth floor of the capital. They have people there who are very friendly and nice, who want to help people get involved in the legislative process, explain how to use the website, how to read a hearing notice, how to track a bill online, and they're a really great resource. So that was called what again now? The public access room. Public access room. Okay, everybody, you heard that. If you are wondering how to get involved, go to the website, the capital.hawaii.gov. And then if you want to in person go down to the capital. Go to the fourth floor to the public access room and those people will be glad to help you. The public access room also has a website and there's a link on the capital website to the public access room. And so on their website they have a lot of resources, templates, guidelines that will be helpful for anybody who's maybe just learning about the legislature. Right, which is kind of like all of us, right? I think there's this new resurgence of interest and involvement from people, right? Nowadays, just within this last sort of since the last election, since 2016. So in the last couple years we've really had a lot of people just wanting to get involved now. And I think that's the best thing to come out of everything that's happening in Washington. I think so too is that people are saying I need to get involved. It's time for me to make my voice be heard and I think that's actually really been really fantastic. I know every time I get too depressed, or not depressed exactly, but I get too sort of bogged down and down about what's discouraged. Thank you, that's the word I was looking for. And I do, it's hard not to get discouraged with everything that's happening in Washington. Who do you listen to? Who do you believe? Who's telling you the truth? There's all these different things coming at you that make it difficult. So I think for me anyway what I do is I come back away from all that. And I just look at what's happening right here. What's in front of my face? What's happening where I live? And what can I do about that? And I think then I feel like I have some power. I feel so disempowered when I think about all that's happening out there. But when I bring it back to where I live and the people around me in my neighborhood or on my island, you know, then I don't feel so discouraged. Then I feel more empowered and I feel sort of like I want to go out and do something that's sort of, you know, and I like that feeling. And I'm hoping that translates to other people too. I think so. I think so. And I think the state legislature is a good way for somebody who's just learning about the political process to get involved because exactly that. The bills that we consider are going to affect you, your family, your neighbors, someone you know. And I think having that personal perspective, one, makes your money more relevant, right? But two, makes the issue so much more real for people who live here. And I think that's a great incentive for people to get involved. I agree. I absolutely agree. And some of these local bills that we have from the women's legislative caucus, we had talked a little. I had Senator Laura Thielen on. And I'm going to make this a whole series actually. I'm going to try anyway. Have every single one of you guys on before the whole session is over so that I can't sort of get everyone's input on all of these bills and give you guys a chance to tell people out there what you would like them to hear and what you would like them to maybe go out and do. And so I think that's important. For me, there's one about the statute of limitations. And I think if you know if you've seen my show before, you've heard me say this before, but it's so important and I want people to understand how much it changed my life. I was one of that as I was telling you just before the show started, I was involved in one of the very first delayed discovery suits coming in a civil case against my father for my childhood abuse. I didn't remember it till I was 30 and I thought I had the statute of limitations is gone and I thought I had no recourse. And then when I found out that I might be able to have that recourse, and I took him to court he had to stand accountable. And we won. We were awarded a monetary judgment. That was one of the most empowering feelings I have ever had in my life. And I thought, you know he had to stand accountable. It put the blame and the shame on him instead of on me. And I had been walking around with it carrying that shame and that blame and that secrecy and when I broke that secrecy and I put the blame where it belonged and the shame where it belonged I didn't have it anymore. It changed my life. And that's why I know that this is such an important bill and I am just praying that it will go through because I want everyone else that's out there that's had, you know, the same kind of circumstances know that they have recourse. They don't have to live in shame. Absolutely. This bill is actually a follow up of a bill we passed last year. And that bill last year actually re-extended the window for survivors of childhood sexual abuse to file a civil claim even if the statute of limitations had passed. And so it reopened that window until 2020. And so now today a person whose claim may have expired now has a new window a new opportunity to bring that case and to hopefully begin to experience some of that healing and justice that they so rightly deserve. So this legislation for this year would extend the amount of time for a person to bring a civil suit past a certain amount of years. Right now it's just a too short of a window. It's just two years, right? It's two years, but it depends upon when the person reaches the age of 18. And so it's calculated from that date or the date of discovery. We want to give more people more time. We know that there is so much trauma involved that it takes a survivor so much to be ready to be at that point where they say, you know, I want to seek justice in our civil courts and to have the courage to come forward and do that is tremendous. It is tremendous. It takes a lot and it is scary. And I'll go along with that, but if you can have some support around you, it's worth every second because when you walk out of that courtroom and you know that you have prevailed it's just, it's an amazing feeling. It's so empowering and I think it was the thing that allowed me to get as much progress as I have in the healing years. Excuse me, I don't know. All of a sudden I swallowed a frog. Sorry. So I want other people to have same opportunity because it's so amazing. So there's a lot of other ones on here. There was one that didn't, here it is. It kind of goes along with for you being on the labor and economic development, this is employment practices and all of that. So I thought that would be something that you might be able to speak to, this bill right here. Yes, so this bill was actually introduced by Representative Amy Peruso she's one of our Freshman representatives who might be on my show in a couple weeks. Great. So this year was the first year where we had incoming class of Freshman representatives 10 for the majority, 6 out of the 10 were women. We feel really happy about that and Rep Peruso's bill would prohibit a non-disclosure agreement in cases involving sexual harassment or sexual assault because so often people might get pressured, like you said, into silence or into shame and we do not want to allow a perpetrator to continue to harass people because essentially that's what ends up happening if nobody finds out. And so this would prohibit the practice of non-disclosure agreements. That was kind of like what we all heard about when all the stuff started to break loose with the senators and that involved in that non-disclosure agreement and stuff was also a cooling off period where they weren't able to do anything for 90 days or I think it was 90 days that they had to do this cooling off period before they were able to even go forward with reporting it officially and I know that they're trying to on the hill they're trying to get rid of that too and I can't remember her name one of the senators was trying to bring forward a bill to do the same sort of thing. And the title line is mostly it started for sports, right? That's what most people think of it as, right? But it's so much more than that, right? It's a really powerful tool that I think people don't know about and that's why I love talking about it is that title nine is not just about athletics, it's about equal access to education and what it says is that everybody has the opportunity to access education to be free of discrimination on the basis of sex so this is not just protecting students but also employees so for example it covers pregnancy discrimination against teachers. You cannot be subject to any type of discrimination because you are pregnant and so that's a huge protection The Obama administration expanded a lot of the authority of the U.S. Department of Education under title nine and unfortunately what we've seen with the new administration is a lot of roll backs of those protections and so last year the legislature passed act 110 to establish a state version of title nine. So we are more protected even though the main and the federal is something different. We have a state thing that protects. Exactly. What happened was for example under the Obama administration they were applying title nine to not just sex discrimination but gender discrimination sexual orientation, gender identity and expression under Trump that was rolled back and said no it's only going to be applied to sex and so in our state law which we passed last year we made sure that those categories would be protected so that for example LGBTQ members of our community would be protected by those same anti-discrimination causes. And what we're trying to figure out now the follow up bill is for this year is what's the best way to enforce that? Should we look at a civil rights model? Should we look at is it the courts? Is it going to be administrative rules? What is the best way to facilitate that? An overlaying that as well is that the U.S. Department of Education has just rolled out new proposed rules which would roll back protections even further. Right. And so we want to make sure that the students and employees in our schools are going to have the same level of protections that they had previously and that everybody has the same access to education. Oh my gosh. Okay everybody that did you hear that? I hope so and we need everyone to get involved with this and make sure that our state does not go down the road that everyone else is going down having the federal just roll everything back. Oh my gosh I can't believe we're out of time already. Linda, thank you so much for coming. It was a pleasure. It was really great to have you here. Everyone, I want to thank you for joining me for Finding Respect in the Chaos today. It's a great show and I hope that you'll join me next time. I'm Cynthia Lee Sinclair. This is Finding Respect in the Chaos. See you next time.