 To the Ruderman Roundtable, I'm State Senator Russell Ruderman from the Puna and Ka'u District on the Big Island. And I host our Roundtable here to talk about politics, good government, and environmental issues, especially here in Hawaii. I'm very excited today to have Gary Hooser as my guest. Thank you for joining me, Gary. Thank you for having me, Senator. It's wonderful to see you. Gary Hooser formally represented Kauai and Niihau in the Hawaii State Senate, where he served as a majority leader. He also served for eight years on the Kauai County Council and as director of the Environmental Quality Control Office in the state of Hawaii. He presently serves in a volunteer capacity as board president of the Hawaii Alliance for Progressive Action, or HAPA, a 501c3 nonprofit focusing on education and advocacy. Thanks for being here, Gary. Thanks for having me. I'm very, I've been following the work that you've been doing for many years, and I'm very, very inspired by it, and I really appreciate it. So I know one of the main things you've been working on the last few years is a Hawaii Alliance for Progressive Action, or HAPA. Tell me about HAPA. You know, for years, I've been thinking that we need here in the state of Hawaii an overarching group to represent progressive issues. You see, there's silos, there's environmental groups, there's gay rights groups, there's economic justice groups, but there isn't an umbrella kind of group overarching, even though I don't want to use the word umbrella. And so, a couple years ago, talking with friends. What's wrong with umbrellas? Well, because it doesn't have the focus that a dedicated group might have. I thought maybe I was missing a political correct, but as it turns out, we serve kind of an umbrella function. It's more of a networking thing. So we will try to get the Sarah Club, Apple Seed, Surfrider, FACE, and various other organizations, labor unions, to get in the same room and say, why don't we have a common how we work together. And economic justice issues is emerging as one of the focuses. We deal with environmental issues, economic justice issues, food security, food justice issues, and other kinds of things like that. How did it come to be? What brought it into being? Well, it was my idea that I was sharing with various friends over a couple of years, actually. And then, as my work on the Kauai County Council kind of moved forward, I realized it was something it was more than I wanted to do on a statewide basis. And I give my daughter credit for it. My daughter, Kelly Rose, who worked at the Capitol, she told me, Dad, she said, Dad, you've got to either pull the trigger or stop talking about it. It's going to eat you up. And so I did. We formed a statewide board. There's people on every island, good people representing different organizations and different groups, if you would. And one of the first projects we came up with was a program called the Kuliana Academy. You've been serving in the state center for a while, and I've been serving various capacities for 15 years or more. And I think we were both frustrated about the slow pace of change or even sometimes going backwards. And I wondered, how come more people don't run for office? How come more people who share our world view, if you would, of a government that puts people on the planet first over greed? I mean, big business. And I came to the conclusion that it was a lack of good candidates. People didn't know how to run. People, good people, we'd have, but people didn't know how to run. They don't have the first idea of how you run for public office. So we started this Kuliana Academy. We're moving into our third segment. We're going to have a group in September. It's coming September. And I encourage people to go to our website, papahai.org, and apply if they're interested at all in running for public office. So this is sort of a training program for people interested in being a candidate. That would be more successful. That's exactly what it is. It's a training program. We do skills training. So we'll teach people how to raise money, how to knock on doors, how to analyze your district, public speaking skills, the skills that you need to be a credible candidate. And we also talk about issues, whether it's economic issues or environmental issues, that kind of thing. And we introduce the people to major figures in the environment. We've had former governor, Governor Wahe'e, Governor Abercrombie spoke, various sitting up. We're going to speak to our group hopefully in the future. Oh, wonderful. But we've had House members and senators come in and tell them how they got started. Everybody has a story to tell, how they first got elected. And I think at the end of the day, it's a lot of hard work. It's not knocking on doors. So you've graduated two classes of Kulian academies, and you're beginning your third one this fall. That's right. It's a competitive process. This last class had 45 or so people apply. I don't pick the people. There's a committee, and there's an application process. They fill out applications, there's interviews. And the committee selected 17 people from around the state. It's five weekends over three months. So we fly people in basically as an organization. And we pay the airfare. We put them in a hotel. We feed them. And we bring in speakers for two days, five times. And universally, the people that participated in the program have benefited tremendously, and they like it a lot. At this last class, we were expecting, we surveyed them after the class. And 83% of the 17 people intend to run for public office in 2018. HOPPA, I think it's important, is non-partisan. We have Republican speakers. We have Democratic speakers. We've had Green Party speakers. And we don't actually get involved in their campaigns. We educate and train, and then let them go. And it's pretty exciting, actually, for the state. So not everyone who applies is accepted. So you're looking for certain qualities in the people who go to the academy. The number 17, is that the number that you felt you could handle, or is that how many people seem to qualify back there? Good question. We started the first class with 20. And we lost maybe two through attrition. People decided it wasn't for them. And in the second class, we started doing some more research and realized that 15, actually, is the ideal number. 15 in a class. Everyone gets to participate better. As you know in politics, if you give everybody a three-minute speech, and you attend people, it's just 15. It just adds up. So we were targeting 15 enrolled 17, expecting some to drop out, but none of them dropped out. And it's women. It's all ethnic and geographic areas. We're looking for people who, in general, can share our worldview of progressive politics, people who are environmentally sensitive, who care about taking care of people, and believe in raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, for example, and those kinds of things. That's our target audience. And there's a lot of talk about the young, emerging leader. And in a sense, we're looking for that. But also, there's no age requirement. We have people in the program, 50 and 60 years old, I believe. So there's certain particular quality, besides wanting to run for public office, what qualities or what characteristics would qualify someone? What do you look for? What do you consider essential? I think if you look at what makes a good candidate, it's not someone who just got off the plane yesterday. They have to be familiar with Hawaii, either born here or lived here a significant amount of time. So they're familiar with the culture. They're familiar with the environment that they're of where they live. So essential for people to be viable that day. Ideally, the person would be involved in other organizations. They're set on the Chamber of Commerce, or the Farm Bureau, or Rotary Clubs, or any number of Hawaiian canoe clubs, civic clubs. So they're involved in the community already. They have maybe run for office before. And they didn't know how. Some things like raising money, it's really hard. And people are intimidated by that. And so we bring in a professional fundraiser who teaches them, you've got to ask, guys. And she actually has the class write a script, write that in there, and then sends them off in a corner and says, OK, start calling people. And that is one of the hardest things, isn't it? Just to ask for help or ask for money or whatever you need. But you have to believe in yourself. And you have to believe in your mission. And they do it. And it's hard, but it's a good training exercise. What are some of the initiatives, or you mentioned a few of the areas of involvement in economic justice, environmental. That's the kind of things that you're educating them on in terms of subject matter along the way. Some things people will come in, for example, without being exposed, some of the younger participants, without being exposed to the education, if you would, on some of the issues. You would talk about death of dignity or the killing of bad guys, the death penalty. And so people are entitled to whatever they believe, and we don't penalize people for believing a certain way. But we try to point out, let's say with the death penalty, the disproportionate impact on people of color or people in poverty and the number of falsely convicted people and the cost. So they understand that, yes, maybe there's bad guys that deserve to die, maybe not, depending on your fundamental faith, I guess. But there's other factors that you can be opposed to the death penalty because of these other factors. Same with a woman's right to choose. You could be against abortion, but support a woman's right to choose. So we try to talk to people about the issues to show them there's different ways to look at the issue. Because as a first time candidate, a lot of people come to politics with a few areas of interest, and then you get asked questions about all the other areas. So you're getting them up to speed to answer all that wide range of questions. We try. One of the biggest lessons, and I just learned this lesson from the class, we ask everyone, first class, why are you thinking about money for office? And they proceed on what issues are important to you. So they proceed to tell us they're silo. And we teach them, you have to know what your district is important. So your environment might be your issue, but your district might be education or might be crime. And so to get elected, you have to know and understand what your district wants. You don't let go of your passion, but you really have to know about your district. In terms of when you're messaging and when you're out talking to people, you have to understand that education is the number one thing, and I'm going to fight for education. At the same time, you're going to fight for the environment, too. And that's so important because the voters want to see someone who appears to be well-rounded and not focused on, like you say, one silo type issue. They want to know someone who's open-minded and concerned with the community's concerns, not just their own pet peeves. Absolutely. And many people come in out of a silo. It could be environment or GMOs or Hawaiian issues, for example. And then you realize that a majority of the community isn't in that group, necessarily. And it has to be about making the community a better place, making the state and the island and the world not just what you want. That's a good point. What's the 343 Initiative? 343 Initiative is Chapter 343, HRS. It's a Hawaii state law. It's the Hawaii Environmental Protection Act, HIPAA. So the federal act is NIPAA, the National Environmental Protection Act. The state has its own EIS law. That's, in general, what it is. It's the EIS law. Serving in the Abercrombie administration as director of the Office of Environmental Quality Control, that is the law that that office administers. And so we're, and I'll tell you about this a little bit later in more detail, is pursuing some action against the state and Sinjenta for not complying with that law. I see. So it's about doing environmental impact statements when they're required and sticking to the law. Well, thank you. It's so interesting. I'm here with Gary Hooser on the Ruderman Roundtable, and we'll be back after a short break. Thank you for joining us. Aloha and Richard Concepcion, the host of Hispanic Hawaii. You can watch my show every other Tuesday at 2 PM. We will bring you entertainment, educational, and also we'll tell you what is happening right here within our community. Think Tech, Hawaii. Aloha. Living in this crazy world, so caught up in the confusion. Nothing is making sense for me not to be solution. How to make a part of you. Welcome back to the Ruderman Roundtable. I'm State Senator Russell Ruderman, and I'm here with Gary Hooser talking about politics in Hawaii. Gary Hooser started the Hawaii Academy for Alliance for Progressive Action, or HAPA, and one of their projects is the Kulian Academy, which cultivates and trains a political candidate. So looking at the bigger picture a little bit, Gary, what made you, what do you think we're going to accomplish with HAPA and the Kulian Academy? I mean, what's the impact you're hoping to have on Hawaii? Yeah. I'm hoping that we, collectively, all those many people working on this issue can move the needle in terms of public policy in the state of Hawaii and move it toward a more progressive, a more people-friendly, more environmentally-friendly place. I am extremely disappointed, and the people I'm working with are very unhappy, frankly, with the state legislature and most of the councils, the county councils. Not to mention the federal government. And for a state to have almost a totally blue democratic-controlled legislature, I'm disappointed that we're not moving faster on issues that are important to working people and to the environment. A case in point, I talked about the payday lending. OK, payday lending is, in my opinion, a predatory lending practice that preys upon the hardest-working, lowest-income people. People have a paycheck-to-paycheck just barely. Exactly. Old people, people are just struggling. And 12 years ago, when I was in the Senate, I tried to introduce a bill to cap interest rates. And we still haven't been able to do that. We haven't been able to cap on the 18% or 32%. And what's up with that? And these are examples that are tangible. They hurt people. This is not just some bill. It's hurting people. And so there's examples like that that I'm frustrated personally and I'm losing patience with this rate of change and want to accelerate that change. And I think if we can, collectively, we, the people around this state who share the dissatisfaction of the pace of change, if we can work together and focus our energy on getting these new leaders into office, we can change the discussion, change the conversation, and therefore change the policy that comes out of the state legislature and the county council. So that's my hope. That's fantastic. He said something to me a year or two ago that's stuck in my mind. And I wonder if that's part of it. You said, I'm too old for incremental change and a study group. I feel exactly the same way because I'm old or just impatient. But that tends to be what politics has been, is often the tiniest of changes when we need to make a big change. And a study group when we want to do something but nobody has the guts to really do it. So you're trying to change the overall game here instead of just a little one piece here and one piece there. Some things are very clear cut, in my opinion. I know things are complicated issues. We can't ban styrofoam singly used containers. What's up with that? The plastic bags, some basic environmental stuff that is real simple, it's not complicated. Payday lending. We can do much more. And I'd like government leaders. And I appreciate the work that you do. I really sincerely do. You speak to these issues so clearly. And you believe in many of not all the same things I do that people in the planet got to come first. And if we're going to air as a government, if we're going to make a mistake, if we're going to lean one way, we should lean toward people and the planet and the environment. Not lean toward business because we're scared. And I come from a business background. You are like businessman of the year or something. So we both understand the importance of a strong economy. But we can't let the very richest and the very biggest businesses drive the agenda. It has to be a people-centered agenda. When you were talking about we're in a virtually all blue state, or at least our legislature is virtually all democratic. And yet we couldn't get a hearing for $15 an hour minimum wages, even though it's a national movement and a national discussion. We didn't even get a hearing for it. We didn't even talk. That's an example of I share your frustration in me those ways. And it is shared by people almost universally from all walks of life. Government in general has been on the decline of their respect for government, faith and confidence in government. And we need to turn that around. And the only way we're going to do that, and it's not just the fault of the politicians, the people are responsible. They're responsible for taking ownership of the government. And it's hard work. As you know, people got to show up to testify. They got to help candidates run for office. They got to give money. They have to take ownership. They can't just go off in the world and let this stuff happen. And otherwise, we keep going in the same direction we're going now. And all this is against a backdrop of constantly declining voter participation and political participation, especially in Hawaii. We have, by some measures, the lowest voter participation in the country. So we have challenges in trying to motivate voters. And of course, we need to motivate the next generation of leaders as you're doing with the Kulian Academy. And those two things are related. I think if millennials, if we were to say, we could see more candidates that look like them and talk like them, they might be more interested in voting. I think people have tuned out of voting in large part because they feel the government's not responsive to them. So it's a vicious cycle that's becoming worse. We're not responsive. And they're voting even less. We're going to be less responsive because they're not voting. Absolutely. And the best voter in the world is an 80-year-old retiree. And the worst are these young people. And so we've got to bring the younger generation to be more active. And I'm hoping that when you add it all that's been happening in Hawaii and in the nation with the Bernie Sanders movement, with the emergence of Donald Trump as president, and all that's going on, that there's this increased urgency. And I certainly see more people are marching in the street, more people are being active. And I'm asking people, young and old, to focus on 2018. Don't think about this is going to take three years of your time for now, even though it never goes away. But focus on 2018. Get out there, help candidates, get out there, get involved in your government. And let's try to make things happen in the coming 18 months. 2018 seems particularly important to me, too, because of what happened last year with our national election. And if we don't respond to it with a resurgence of the rest of values and democracy, if we don't respond now, that's particularly important. And the US Congress was already, most would argue, fairly dysfunctional in terms of working at a glacial pace. But now it's going to be even worse. And it's the states and the county governments that need to step up. The states need to step up on environmental protection. We have an EPA that's being run by people that don't believe in climate change and that are rolling back. Clorpyrifos is a neurotoxin pesticide that the EPA was going to ban. It's used by the ton in the state of Hawaii. The EPA was getting ready to ban it. And the new director said, no, we're not going to ban it. The state could do that. The governor could do that by executive order. The Department of Agriculture could do it. Or the legislature could do it. And that's what we need to, as a state, start doing, stepping up and filling the gap left or being created by the federal government. As the federal government steps back from economic issues and environmental protections, we need to step forward. And you need legislators and administrators willing to do that. Good point. What do you think are the biggest challenges in motivating people to either run for office or get more involved in office? I think running for office, I think most people don't think they're good enough. And I said, don't believe me. You are. I've worked with a lot of different issues you have. And you wonder how the so-and-so get elected. So number one, they're good enough. And they're afraid, they're a public figure. And they're afraid of what that means. And I basically say, I'm not sure I'm running for governor or mayor or something. I wouldn't worry about it too much if you made some useful indiscretions as they would. Experimented in college. Like all the recent presidents have. And the money. The money is huge. On the Kauai County council, I think most council and house races, we're talking $30,000 to $50,000. And most people think there's no way I can raise $30,000 to $50,000. And it's hard. But if you're willing to do the work, and you are a credible candidate, and you put your name out there, I think that people will come to you and want to help you. Whether it's a place like the Sierra Club or labor unions or others who want to see new blood coming in. They can help with money too. And our program teaches people how to raise money. You have to make calls. You have to be willing to make that call. But so it's money is a big roadblock. So money that you have to raise, fear of being suddenly a public figure and also thinking that you're just not good enough. Yeah, and most people aren't used to speaking on stage. And that takes a little work. I mean, I still get nervous when I talk on stage. So it takes practice, and we give that in the Kulian Academy. It's pretty much there. Practice is what it takes. There's no one's born to good public speaking. You have to just practice. It does. And we teach never turn down an opportunity to speak. Someone says we do the blessing, we give a toast, when you introduce so-and-so, you always say yes. That's a wonderful lesson. I should have gone to this book. Yeah, no, we tried, because we have the people teaching the class are people that have actually done it. People have worked in the trenches. People that are actually knocking on doors. How can someone apply to be part of the Kulian Academy? Right now, the next program starts in September. September? And it requires five weekends. So sometimes that's a challenge for people, that you live on the neighbor islands, we fly you over. And so you would go to our website, hoppahai.org. Hoppahai.org. Yeah, H-A-P-A-H-I-D-O-R-G. And look for the Kulian Academy links, and there's an application. And then I believe it will have the dates that we're tentatively planning right now. So people can go to that, fill out the application, encourage them to do it. I think the deadline is the end of July. A good time to be thinking about it. Yeah, yeah. And again, universally, all the participants, I think if you polled them today, they would think that this was a great experience. They've learned a lot. I know one or two of them, and I know they do feel that way. And tell me, for people who don't necessarily want to run for office, but want to get more involved politically, does Hoppah a good organization to join in that regard? Absolutely. In the Kulian Academy, also, we've generated a fair amount of campaign managers. There are people that have met at the Kulian Academy one run for office, the other one said, I'll be your manager. So the Kulian Academy, you may not want to run this time, but you want to be involved in the process. I encourage you to apply. Hoppah, in general, is we don't support candidates, but if you want to get involved in a movement to change what's going on in Hawaii, yes, sign up on our email list on hoppahai.org. Then go to hoppahai.org and sign up. And without wanting to be a candidate or going to the academy, they can stay in touch. And you get updates of things you're doing, find ways they can get involved and be more involved. And we're a statewide organization. I live on Kauai, and fly around, travel a lot. But we have board members, and we have members, people who are supporters on every island. Any challenge? Yeah. And we're doing other programs in addition to the Kulian Academy. We had the People's Congress last year. We brought in groups from all over the state, representing whether it's Hawaiian issues or environmental issues, economic justice issues, and did workshops, and raised awareness, and recruited other emerging leaders. OK. Well, I'll have to have you back to talk about some of those other things, Gary. But I do want to say thank you for coming in. I think that what you're doing with Hoppah and the Kulian Academy is the most important thing happening in our state politically, because this tiny little bit of kind of fix one thing at a time and everybody on their own hasn't worked. And you're working on a systematic program to make real progress. And I admire it greatly, and I supported 1,000. Thank you so much. Thank you very much for coming to be a guest on Ruderman Roundtable. I'm here with Gary Hooser, and we'll see you again in a couple of weeks.