 Yeah, finding the public policy in politics, something Colin Moore has studied all his life. The political scientist leader at the University of Hawaii in Manoa, and he joins us today and talk about public policy in politics. Thank you so much for joining us, Colin. Great to be here, Jay. So, yeah, you know, here we are. I don't know what you would say it's it's not the, it's not the eighth inning. Maybe it's the seventh inning. Yeah, that sounds about right. And, you know, we have various people who showed up to pull papers. Let's talk about the state first. Let's talk about governor first. And I find some of them very interesting and some of them really dark horses. Who are the who are the light horses, if you will? Well, I mean, you, you certainly have the leader is Lieutenant Governor Josh Green. He has been his poll numbers are extremely high. I mean, he's leading his potential opponents by, you know, in the double digits, you know, 30 points in some cases or more. So he's clearly the favorite going into this race. I mean, it's it's it's been a while I think since we've had a Democratic primary for the governor. We're where it was open where we don't have an incumbent where you've had such a strong lead from one of the candidates. But that doesn't mean he's going to win. So there's two other candidates right now who've pulled papers for the Democratic primary to main candidates, Vicki Cayetano, of course, and Kirk Caldwell. If there's going to be a dark horse, my suspicion it could be Vicki Cayetano or someone else I'm going to talk about in a moment. But Vicki Cayetano does have bring a lot of strength to the table. She is independent. She's not connected to politics directly herself. Although, of course, she was first lady. So I think there's kind of an open question about how much governor Cayetano, her husband, his legacy is going to affect this race. But she's clearly campaign as an independent business woman. She is some folks might recall was partially ran a Merrick Blanchardi's campaign. And so she's kind of coming at it from a similar angle. I think some of the corruption scandals, I think people's frustration with the mainstream Democratic Party, those really play into her favor. The third candidate, Kirk Caldwell, normally you'd think of as someone who would be a really strong candidate. Kirk Caldwell has always been a strong fundraiser. He's raised a bunch of money for this race. He still is. But his polling has been really bad. In fact, most of the polls have him not even breaking double digits. I think that partially is a legacy of some of the issues that occurred when he was mayor. I think he's so connected with the very troubled rail project that voters still tie him to that. I think some of the scandals in his administration are pulling him down. So I think it's going to be very difficult for Kirk Caldwell to be competitive in this race. Now, saying that he's come from behind before and succeeded, but I think he's probably unlikely to come from behind. Now, the last candidate is someone I want to make very clear is not declared their candidacy right now. But if you follow any rumors in Hawaii politics, people seem to be operating as if he already has declared he's going to run for governor. And that is Congressman Kaika Helle. He was very outspoken on the Red Hill disaster. I think he got himself a lot of goodwill. So he's likely the dark horse. Is he going to be successful though? I mean, what chance does he have? And he has, I think, two, you know, two central challenges. The first, of course, is he hasn't campaigned. I mean, he hasn't declared yet and he probably won't declare until May if he does decide to run. And that doesn't give him very much time. I mean, you have May to August to run a gubernatorial campaign to get that up and running. That's going to be a real challenge. The second challenge is he doesn't have that much money. He can't move money from his congressional campaign fund into a state fund. You can do it, although it's very complicated. It involves returning money to your donors and asking them to send it back to you. That's complicated. So he's going to come start with a real financing disadvantage and he's going to have a tough time overcoming that, especially when you're talking about folks like Josh Green who raised, you know, who now have well over a million dollars and will continue to raise money. You know, the second thing is that Green is very popular with a lot of demographics that Kai Kehele likely would be competitive. And he's another neighbor island senator. Remember both Kehele and Green were state senators from the Big Island. Green is very popular with Hawaiians with demographics across the board. And so Kehele will have to convince some of those voters who already say they're voting for Green to come over to his camp. And that's something that's going to be tough. It's especially going to be tough without much time. Wow. So, you know, let's look at Lieutenant Governor just so we can throw it all in the mix here. I never understand the real relationship of Governor and Lieutenant Governor. I mean, in terms of the election itself. But I see 345. Can you talk about them? Sure. So we got, it's a crowded race. Lieutenant Governor's race is always a hard one to predict because really it tends to turn more on name recognition than policy. Who who's likely to come out ahead. You know, well, right now I'd say that there is one candidate who's been doing very well recently and that's Sylvia Luke, the chair of the House Finance Committee. She's managed to get most of the big union endorsements, which are not decisive, but they matter here in Hawaii, particularly if you're someone like Sylvia Luke, who's a real insider. Someone who of course is a very powerful figure but doesn't have a lot of name recognition. Getting those endorsements, hooking up your campaign to the unions that have strong messaging operations that can get people out to sign away, that's going to be key for her. That said, I don't think she has this wrapped up by any stretch of the imagination. Jill Takuta was the last one who ran. She came within 3 percentage points of beating Josh Green. She's run an island wide race before she has support from some fairly significant players, although she hasn't managed to turn that into a lot of endorsements. Keith Amamiya was the person who last ran a major race, a major island wide race of course he lost to Ric Bland Giardi. And Kaike Anderson is the only Hawaiian in this race he was a popular city councilman from the windward side. And then Sherry Menor McNamara I think is trying to run like Ric Bland Giardi did, like Vicky Cayetano is doing as an independent. She's running as a Democrat but someone who's not really deeply into Democratic politics here. I think she's counting on a lot of small business support. So at this point I'd say it's pretty much anyone's game. And it's going to come down I think to their ability to raise the money to get their name out there. And some of that may come down to their support from some of the decisive unions that will help them do that. You know, it's like two separate races they're really not connected and yet. Maybe they are, are they connected if, if I'm a front runner for governor. And I say, look, I like one of these Lieutenant Governor candidates, we're kind of a ticket. You know, is there any benefit in doing that or is that more of a detriment. You know, I think it, I think it could be a benefit. If there was a leading LG candidate who, for example, green or Cayetano thought really delivered a demographic to them that they didn't have. I think it's unlikely you're going to see that in this race because it's such a crowded LG primary. You know, most of the governors probably there's not an incentive for them to try to present themselves as as running mates. So I don't think you're going to see that this time I mean you're right it isn't it's an unusual situation it's it's a little strange how we do this we're not unique of course in the country and doing this way but it's it's hard that the governor doesn't get to pick his or her running mate. And then of course after the primary. They're they're mashed together and they're running together even if they don't like each other and we certainly have seen lots of examples in the past of governors and Lieutenant Governors who absolutely couldn't stand each other they could barely even conceal it in public. Yeah that's that's a detriment because if they run separately and win separately and they don't get along you're not going to be much of a team. Although it seems clear to me that the people who want to run for Lieutenant Governor would like to be governor. And if you've got to be one that you then you're a natural for the other no. The only reason to run for Lieutenant Governor. One thing I will say about our LG position here is that there are almost no direct responsibilities. In fact one of the only things the Lieutenant Governor is actually responsible for are name changes. If you want to change your name the LG's office has to sign up for it. So what it means is that if your LG can be a pretty good platform to run for governor because you have a lot of press coverage. But you have very little responsibility. You can pretty much blame anything that goes wrong on the governor and you can take credit for things that go well. And you know Josh Green in some ways has been a master of that. So what's the economics these days on running for governor or Lieutenant Governor. How much money do you have to raise. How much money do you have to spend in order to make it. You know at the end of the day like in other places in the country maybe most places. It's a question of money isn't it. It's always partially a question of money. I mean what does money get you. Money gets your name out there. Money buys name recognition primarily. It keeps your picture your campaign in front of voters eyes. And here in Hawaii we don't have particularly ideologically driven campaigns. The culture wars don't really make it across the Pacific. And so a lot of it is candidates trying to get their name out there but also connect with voters. I mean it's always very folksy. I'm one of you. I mean our campaigns are pretty light on policy for the most part. But you need money to do that. So I'd say but it's not decisive. I'd say you need a million dollars to be competitive. Over more than that is good. But you know you can look at the classic example here of Abercrombie and E. Gay where Abercrombie had dramatically more money than E. Gay did. I can't remember now how much more but it was at least five times more. Maybe maybe even more than that. And of course he got beat pretty badly by David E. Gay. So there's a baseline I think you need to hit. After that I think it you know there are kind of decreasing returns to raising more and more money. But I'd say a million bucks you got to have a lieutenant governor. What's the price tag on that one. At least half a million but but more is better. I mean the thing about a crowded race like the LG's race that pretty much is devoid of policy discussions and doesn't get the kind of media coverage the governor's race does is that money buys even more. And when what's been interesting in some of these LG races well the last one at least are independent expenditures in other words packs that are spending for the candidates. I don't think there's anybody who wouldn't argue that be changed now the carpenters pack was very crucially important to Josh Greens win in that race because they spent a ton of money independently on green. They helped boost his image as the you know that the doctor trying to take care of folks. And they just kept his his name in front of everyone that time and it was a close race but I think that that money ended up being decisive there. So endorsements are important. And making making people feel that you're one of them. That's important in Hawaii. But you know title of our show is finding the public policy and politics. I'm referring you know specifically to Hawaii and and you know I wonder what what public issues what public policy issues should be not to say they are what should be in play this year. And if I was a smart candidate appealing to people who care about public policy. What would I be focusing on. You know one thing I'd say is one policy would be tourism. There is a lot of frustration here about how we've managed our number one industry and I think having a plan to manage the tourism industry better. Whether that's you know passing things like green fees which the ledge has talked about this year changing HTA. Convincing people that this industry is not something we necessarily want to get rid of but it's something we have to manage better. The second thing obviously is affordable housing. That is always comes up as the number one issue for voters. I think maybe a realistic plan to deal with that would be helpful something you know either reducing regulations to build embracing something like Senator Stanley Chang's aloha homes idea building properties on state land. I think that should be at the center of any discussion for sure. Those two that would be kind of folded into general cost of living issues I think would be on the top of on the top of most voters minds. You know we've had we've had some corruption issues lately. And I suppose if you walk down the street any street and ask people if they had confidence in Hawaii state government. You probably would not get a robust yes. That's fair. And is that an issue should be should that be an issue. I mean, we seem to be missing out on everybody says well, I'll go on name recognition. If I know him or his family, you know that'll be good. You know, I'm not sure that anybody is standing up or or if it would help to stand up and say, I am going to make, you know, government more transparent, more reliable, more honest. I think I think that that's another discussion I hope the governor's gubernatorial candidates talk about that I do think that's a real frustration with voters we know that the polls we've done voters show that they have, you know, little confidence in our state legislature, you know, there's a understandable fears about the levels of corruption and now we have evidence that shows some pretty shocking corruption cases. I think that would be something voters are interested and I don't think that's the necessarily the sort of emotional issue that's really going to turn people out and I don't know if you're going to see a lot of disagreement. Among the candidates on that issue I think cleaning up government is something everyone always says. I think the only way to actually make progress on this issue is to elect more new people in other words to have way more challenges in the primaries and the general elections. That's what's going to make a difference in this case not. I mean, you can only pass so many transparency rules and restrictions on campaign donations and whether or not, you know, a legislator can attend a golf tournament. We already have all that stuff. It's not that we don't have these laws on the books. You know, people know it's illegal to take cash bribes to affect legislation. So it's not like we don't have the laws. There's something about the culture and I think part of that means that some legislators, a lot of legislators have just got way too comfortable in those seats. You know, we have too many incumbents not being challenged and that's a healthy thing for democracy. And it's particularly tough here in Hawaii because we don't get the natural two party system. The Republican Party here just isn't large enough to really mount a challenge in nearly every district in this state with a few important exceptions. And the party doesn't really encourage primary challenges for obvious reasons. So this has to be more of a grassroots effort. And, you know, there are ways to do that from, you know, there are some organizations that try to recruit young candidates. Another way would be to, you know, make it a little bit easier to get public financing to run. That would certainly help. That I think is what's really going to move the needle. How about turn limits? Right. Turn limits. That I'm always a little cautious about term limits. I think that there's a danger there, especially if you set them too, too short, you know, the date. And why do I say that? Because what happens if say, let's say you have a limit of four terms for a member of the House, that means they serve eight years. What you have been our legislators who don't have much experience. So then who do they rely on? They really end up relying on lobbyists because they tend to be the masters of the ins and outs of the legislature of policy. And I think you've seen that in states where they have instituted term limits. Maybe there's a place for term limits and you set them long. You say eight terms is as long as you can serve something like that. I could see potentially a role for that there, but I really don't think that's the solution to the problem. I think what we need is more supply. We don't need to, you know, put arbitrary limits on how long people can serve, but we need them to defend their seat every single time. And that means making it easier for people to run against the incumbents. Yeah, I'm reminded of an organization called run for something.net on the mainland. Amanda Littman is the name of the founder. And it doesn't matter what you run for, run for something, anything. I think she's mostly democratic in orientation, by the way. That's great. We need more candidates. What about what about the Democratic Party? I'm not talking about the Republican Party because in this context, we don't have time for that. But in the Republican in the Democratic Party, we have platforms, we have officers, we have leaders, ostensibly. We have, you know, the grassroots people who can talk to each other and formulate policy, may I say. Are they doing their job here with the Democratic Party? And is the platform they're coming up with being respected by the people who are elected? Well, I think people who are working for the party do a tremendous amount of work on policy and designing those platforms. But I think you just got at the issue there, which is that it doesn't really matter to the people who are elected. I mean, do they often break from the party platform? Absolutely. Are they really that scared of the Democratic Party disciplining them somehow? Not that I've seen. I mean, look, Tulsi Gabbard, who certainly did not toe the line of the Democratic Party here or nationally, was one of our two members of Congress. And she, I mean, she wasn't really punished. I know that there was an effort and a lot of frustration among Democrats with Congressman Ed Case and some of his reluctance to support Joe Biden's package. I don't really, I've never got a feeling that representative case is all that threatened by, you know, party insiders or activists, I should say, more than insiders, activists going after him. So the party itself doesn't really have much ability to discipline elected officials. So I think it's great that these platforms are created and they're created in a thoughtful way. I do think it means that they can nurture ideas that then eventually bubble up and do get passed. But, you know, we don't have a strong party system in this state or this country. Parties are generally kind of big tents and they're a little bit weak. No, thank you. I want to talk about leadership. You know, it was clear enough in the press and to any observer that there was tension that has been tension between David E. Gay as governor and Josh Green as the governor. I mean, that was visible. And, you know, it's troublesome in the sense they were not always together on things. They were kind of competing and on COVID and and Josh Green was running for governor throughout his lieutenant governor. But, you know, a lot of people say that David E. Gay was not really acting in a leadership capacity that the legislature would have been better off had he been more assertive about political positions and about public policy. And, you know, the state whip, so to speak, keeping everyone in line and making sure they follow and making sure nothing embarrassing or untoward happens. And I wonder your thoughts about whether that seems to be baked into our, you know, political DNA, or whether it was just him, whether can or will be corrected and at the optimum. How should it work between the governor and the legislature. Yeah. Well, we actually I think we have two great comparisons with David E. Gay and Neil Abercrombie that you couldn't imagine two leaders with more different styles. So, I think that look, Governor E. Gay is in a strong communicator, he would say the same thing himself. Interestingly enough, he was elected in part because the thought was he had a great, you know, he would have a great relationship with the legislature. He was chair of Senate Ways and Means he could, he could do that, you know, with with the votes and get things through. But something magical seems to happen when you enter Washington Place and all of a sudden your former colleagues decide they don't like you so much anymore. I don't know if that's just, you know, a dynamic between David E. Gay and the legislative leadership or if that tends to be true of most governors in the legislature, but I think the latter is more likely that there just is this adversarial relationship. But you're right, David E. Gay wasn't good at getting any of his packages through the legislature could have maybe have been helpful for him to play hardball politics more. I'm inclined to believe that's probably true. I don't think he got a lot of respect from the legislature. But that was in part because he in some ways refused to use the one thing that the governor has his most powerful tool, which as Teddy Roosevelt used to say it was the bully pulpit, you can motive you can mold public opinion as the governor because you're the only one, you get to spend the most time on television people say listen to what you say, he never really attack the legislature he never really used those tools to shape public opinion to support his positions and I think that to my mind was a real shame. I don't think that David E. Gay really appreciated how he could use speeches and communication to push his agenda through. At the same time, I would say that, of course, Governor Abercrombie is usually thought of as an excellent speaker, certainly a strong speaker, someone not afraid to express his opinions. Sometimes sometimes too much. He's gotten that criticism many, many times. I mean that didn't help him either. But I do think that a certain amount of criticism of you guys warranted I mean I and I think that it wasn't for lack of ideas. David E. Gay's administration actually a lot of good ideas. But if you listen to his state of the state addresses and all of these policies he'd articulate and what actually got accomplished. It's, it's a pretty modest list we're talking about things like air conditioning classrooms to be governor for eight years and not have much more than that to show for it isn't isn't great and at the end of coven he even saw a certain amount of competition from House Speaker Scott Scott psyche and just communicating the state's position to the public so that that I think is a shame. I mean I think Governor E. Gay is someone who cares deeply about Hawaii but I think he missed the opportunity to try to convince people to support his package, which would have given him some leverage in the legislature. You know we live in a state I think where the biggest worry of anybody running or or in in office is to be criticized. No surprise I think that exists many places. But I and I wonder, you know what your thoughts are as to the right way for a candidate or an official to handle that you can expect to be criticized. You can expect the press will find something somebody will find something to criticize you about and, and you can handle it right or you can handle it not so right. You can lose an election over it easily, even if you are otherwise qualified, and you can be, you know, made impotence somehow, if you don't handle it right while you're in office. What's your thought about the right way to handle it. It's a great question I think that's part of the art of politics in some cases the right answers to say, we messed up I get it I understand why people are angry to take it on the chin. In some cases, and I don't think Governor E. Gay did this enough, you have to ask members of your staff to take the fall to resign. You know, it's not always fair. But if you're the person leading the agency, you know, the public needs to see that action that they're being replaced or there is discipline you can't be too loyal to your own people and I think that anyone appointed to one of those positions should understand that they might be asked to resign on any day. You know, and the last is to push back, if you think you know if you think you can persuade people if you think it's unfair and trying to find that balance of, you know, do we do we acknowledge it, do we fight it is what separates a great politician from a failed politician. Yeah, we need, we need great leaders, we do, especially with all the challenges that face the state, that is challenges in public policy that we have not addressed, and we better bloody well address them soon. We don't have time to go into all of the ones right now, maybe in another discussion, but I do want to spend at least a few minutes with you on the federal side on the delegation. Who's running for what and who the front runners and what challenges are they facing. So, there's really only going to be likely one competitive congressional election here, which is going to be like a heli seat if he decides to leave to run for governor and there's always some people jockeying for that to run for that seat potentially again that would require him to be announced to run for governor because I don't think anyone thinks they can beat him if he runs again on the two names I've heard our Senator Jarrett Kayo Hokelole of the windward side also the windward side newly elected rep Patrick Bronco I know that there are some other folks who have been considering it I think that you know those are probably the likely picks. I even heard some people say they they think Tulsi Gabbard might come back and run although I think that's that's pretty unlikely. That's a real real long shot. That's an extreme long shot, I agree. And I think the party wants to consolidate around a candidate relatively early and I think it's likely to be one of the two gentlemen I just mentioned earlier. Let me ask you one thing about the delegation. Although, you know, Maisie Hirono gets into the mix of it and God bless her for that. She's courageous fearless fearless. It's really wonderful to see at least Maisie do that but in general, you know our delegation doesn't seem to be involved in the crises that are going on in Washington, the crises in the Congress, the crises in, you know, in foreign policy we're in an inflection point I'm sure you'll agree, in terms of the liberal world order in this world. And people in Hawaii don't really think much about it I think and it's not it's not a public policy issue that they care about. And so what we get from Washington from the delegation are smaller issues real little tiny issues. But no statement of leadership on the, the issues that affect the nation and the world. What are your thoughts about that. I think that they're following a model that's been with the exception of Patsy mink that's been followed by our congressional delegation for a long time. I mean, Dan and no way, although, you know, despite the fact that he was became one of the most senior members of the Senate, wasn't someone who really was out front on on a lot of issues for the most part. You know he kept a pretty low profile for his seniority. And I think that in some ways Brian shots has kind of followed that model that there's a sense that the voters here want, want them to focus on local issues that affect Hawaii bring federal dollars back to Hawaii and stay off television for the most part. You just mentioned she's the most outspoken, but she also, you know, has been criticized for that. You know, certainly Tulsi Gabbard was although she's a she's in a different category herself so I don't know if it's it's something that people decide or it's a sense they get from voters but I don't think our congressional delegation goes to Washington, trying to lead the country I think they go there trying to look out for Hawaii and for the most part I think that's what the voters want. Yeah, that's what the voters want. It's not what I want, but it's what the voters want. One one and one thing springs out of that and I want to ask you about, you know, the body politic, the body of citizen, the citizenry, so to speak. You know, we've always talked about low turnout, we've talked about complacency, really monumental complacency. Where are we on that as COVID has the, you know, the experience in Washington the insurrection, Ukraine, Afghanistan for that matter. Have these issues raised the level of awareness, have they raised the level of interest by the Hawaii voting, you know, constituency? I don't think so. I mean, I think we will see the sort I mean we did see a pretty robust increase in turnout during the last election cycle during the presidential election I hope I hope that will continue although I suspect it will go down a fair bit. Look, I think for as many people who are motivated by hate or anger or frustration. There are just as many people who drop out you know who take the attitude of pox on both their houses I don't want to be involved in this dirty business. So I don't think you're going to see a huge outpouring of, you know, increase in voter participation I wish I could say give you a different answer. But I don't think we're going to see that. If I give you a jurisdiction, a state for example, where people are, you know complacent, and the voting turnout and awareness is low. What are the risks to the state to the jurisdiction to the way in which the state is is governed by the government. What could go wrong that would not go wrong if they were more involved. Well, I think we've just seen some examples of that here where you get elected officials who are extremely comfortable who are comfortable even engaging in corruption because there's not that many people watching them. And there's not that many people challenging them. And so you don't get the kind of robust democracy that you need you don't get the challenges you don't get the fights that lead to transparency that the demonstrate that these are issues that people need to need to have addressed. So I think we're living through that. I agree with me that if you don't attend to public policy and government is not protecting you, providing you a political and social and economic environment that will that will carry you through sustain you, even in times of difficulty. And I think we need to work harder on this problem. I mean, the fact that we have largely dropped civics robust civics requirements from our school system I think is partially to blame although I there's been a lot of efforts here in Hawaii to turn that around at the DOE and I've been part of those. But but you're right you are and I think the other the other message I try to express to people is that it's not as hard as you think it is you just need to invest a little bit of time. Go to a few meetings find an issue you care about. And once you get comfortable with the language with how it works, you're going to stay involved it's really just getting people involved that first moment. Often this comes from just being really angry about something very local and specific. But once you've learned those skills, you stay involved and that's why we need to get young people to learn those skills early on. Absolutely. It's the nomenclature the icons that the things you can own, and that make you, you know, connect you. I have a question before we go. What's what's the calendar from here on out. What's the day by which as file papers. What's the primary day and what's election day and what should voters be thinking about. Alright, so our primary is August 13. That's going to be the key day here in Hawaii because so many of our elections are decided on that day. You're going to receive your ballot by July 26. The general election then is on November 8. So those are the real days to keep in mind. Remember, we're still voting. It's all male voting again. Of course, there'll be places you can drop those off the same day, but you could should expect to receive your ballot on July 26 and have that in by August 13. That is that the primary election day. That's the day to remember and you're going to see on these campaigns really roar into focus there hasn't been all that much time on television but that's going to change really I'd say beginning late May and early June you're going to see be flooded with ads for our August primary. And that includes those dates apply to the neighbor islands as well. And maybe we can have a show later on when when when things are revealed in terms of the candidates for the neighbor islands to Sounds great, Jay. The other thing is pulling papers. All those people run for something and it's in June isn't it if you want to pull papers you have to go by early June. That's right is June 7. So that's the that's the final deadline. Sometimes candidates are a little slow to pull papers even people who have unofficially announced to the media but that's that's the final deadline so which is late. You know that that gives you a lot of a lot of time to change your mind or think about it but yeah if you're thinking about running June 7. That's the that's the day you need to file just happens to be two months from today. Ah, I even think about that you're right. Two months you have two months to make up your mind. Thank you Colin Colin Moore of UH Manoa political science. Thank you so much for joining us today. Thanks Jay. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn and donate to us at thinktechhawaii.com. Mahalo.