PDHblog
This is a place for members of Progressive Democrats of Hawai‘i to express their thoughts
and exasperations about political happenings. The opinions and views are not necessarily
those of PDH's steering committee or membership as a whole.

An article in Advertiser’s ongoing focus on legislative races focuses on Senate District 9 today. This one is close to my heart since I live in the district and am a big supporter of current Senator Les Ihara Jr.

The article points out that there are 2 Democrats and 2 Republicans running in this race. The two R’s have both run for office before, and I know at least one of them continues to do so in order to make sure that voters will alway have a choice and the seat does not go un-contested. I think that is commendable. What is not mentioned, is that one of the D’s was an R until recently. Perhaps that is not important to many Hawai‘i voters… but it is important to me. Many say that R & D mean different things in Hawai‘i than they do in the rest of the country since the D’s have “been in charge” for so long and are entrenched in the “machine”. Along with that, many say that in order to have a chance to win in Hawai‘i politics, one must run as a D. Perhaps I am an idealist, but I still believe that the fundamental values put forth by the two dominant parties are important and do distinguish them from one another. Simplistically — Dem’s tend to stand for the common good, looking out for workers’ rights and standing up for the down-and-out while Repub’s stand up for the free market and encourage those down-and-out to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. (Yes, I am a partisan D and proud of it.) Anyway, it always makes me wonder when a politician changes parties. Do they really believe in the values put forth by the party they belong to for the given moment? Does that mean they are simply opportunistic? Is that ok?

Randall Yee is resigning from his current position as chair of the Board of Education to run against Les Ihara. He is the son of former legislator Wadsworth Yee, who was a longtime leader in the Republican Party. In the Advertiser article, Yee criticizes Ihara:

Yee said another reason he’s running is because he believes someone who has been in the Legislature as long as Ihara should be chairing powerful committees and introducing major legislation.

“There has not been a lot of evidence” of either, Yee said. “I guess it is my feeling that I think that our district should have someone that is going to do more.”

I believe Les Ihara is one of the few legislators that I can really be proud of. He has always run grassroots campaigns where he refuses to accept any donations over $200. He has been a long-time proponent of comprehensive public financing of elections. He has been a champion of ethics in government bills. Perhaps these are not hot-button issues that get voters excited, and maybe Yee doesn’t consider them “major” legislation because they are not often supported by the majority of his peers. However, I believe they are very important pieces of legislation and I am glad that Ihara has been there fighting for them. Perhaps he is not chairing a major committee because he chooses to continue to fight for what he believes in and stand up for his constituents rather than selling out to industry as many of his peers do. I wish there were more legislators like Les Ihara.

One more comment about the Advertiser’s election series… I am really glad they are doing it; the articles can be a good way to get information out. Their sidebars are a decent summary of who is running in each race. HOWEVER, they never put party affiliation in the sidebar! I think this is a very significant and important omission. No, I don’t want people to blindly vote along party lines without paying attention to what each candidate has to say, but I think it is important to know which party candidates are affiliated with. When each of us picks up our ballot for the primary election, we are only allowed to fill in bubbles for ONE PARTY. Every election, many ballots are spoiled because people will try to vote for more than one party. Ignoring party affiliation perpetuates that confusion.