FOCUS
Lingle's first days show promise

By Robert M. Rees
Moderator of 'Olelo Television's "Counterpoint" and Hawai'i Public Radio's "Talk of the Islands"

Gov. Linda Lingle and the state Republican Party she rebuilt in her image are meeting this weekend at the Hilton Waikoloa on the Big Island.

Gov. Linda Lingle testifying in January before the state House Committee on Education: She finds herself outnumbered by Democrats at the Legislature, of course, but that's only for three months out of the year. And even then, her powers are little short of amazing. Advertiser library photo • Jan. 31, 2003

The short answer reads like a National Football League scouting report: "Great promise; wayward tendencies hinder prospects."

Lingle, who took office Dec. 2 and completed her first 150 days as governor at the end of this year's legislative session on May 1, finds herself embedded on the front lines with a Democratic Senate and House. Quinn at least had a GOP Senate to help him along when he was elected in 1959.

Still, in spite of the first-ever partisan divide between Hawai'i's legislative and executive branches, the fact remains that Hawai'i's tradition of a strong executive, which began with the monarchy, as Anne Feder Lee notes in her definitive book "The Hawai'i State Constitution," has been incorporated in our constitution.

About the only ones dubious of gubernatorial clout in Hawai'i are incumbent governors. While in office, John Waihee and Ben Cayetano complained about lack of heft, and Waihee on one occasion pronounced the state to be nearly "ungovernable."

Still, looking back on it, Waihee acknowledges that Hawai'i's governor has "amazing power."

It's not Democratic opposition in the Legislature that will determine whether Lingle leaves her mark on Hawai'i, but the use of this amazing power and of its seven components:

• Spending: One incredible power of the governor, says Waihee, is "You get to spend what you choose."

This is a reference not just to the line-item veto granted by the Constitution, but also to the governor's implicit authority to withhold money already appropriated and earmarked.

Lingle at first stumbled over the meaning of this power. She began her tenure by proclaiming her only-imagined ability to pay without authorizing legislation the ceded-land revenue owed to native Hawaiians. The money was paid, but only with legislative help.

However, Lingle has learned quickly that the power she actually does have is immense. On April 18, apparently with some relish, she told the Hawai'i Economic Association that the Legislature's inability to develop a balanced budget "means ... that I will be substituting my individual judgment for that of the Legislature because they failed to make the tough calls."

By taking hold of this power, Lingle has set a new tone for government. As Republican Chris Halford, a state representative from Maui, describes it, "Lingle's biggest contribution is that it's not business as usual."

• Appointments: Lingle's Attorney General Mark Bennett and his deputy, Maurice Kato, see the power to appoint as seminal. "It seems to me," says Kato, "that the power of appointment is the most important power."

Numerically, the power is mind-boggling. Stan Koki, candidate for lieutenant governor on the Lingle ticket in 1998 and now a Lingle appointee, estimates that Lingle will make at least 1,200 appointments to the state's 138 boards and commissions.

Some of Lingle's selections have been startling. Her nomination of a well-connected Democrat, Jim Duffy, to the state Supreme Court was so nonpartisan it caused a few Republicans to mutter that U.S. Sen. Dan Inouye, D-Hawai'i, must have found a way to intervene.

Gov. Linda Lingle, with Senate President Robert Bunda, enjoys the applause after her State of the State Address. Her use of her office's strong constitutionally granted powers, and not Democratic opposition in the Legislature, will determine whether she leaves her mark on Hawai'i. Advertiser library photo • Jan. 21, 2003

One immediate challenge for Bennett is whether to take Chevron into court concerning allegations of tax fraud, a possibility that has attracted national law firms willing to handle the case on a contingent basis while paying all costs. Critics, including former Gov. Ben Cayetano, are alleging that Chevron has been a source of support for Lingle and that a lawsuit is unlikely. Other doubters note that Bennett represented Chevron in the price-fixing settlement of four years ago. (Bennett says he has removed himself from any direct involvement in this issue.)

More expected than startling was Lingle's appointment of University of Hawai'i law professor Randy Roth as senior adviser. Besides his crusade against the Kamehameha Schools (formerly the Bishop Estate), the former novice in a Jesuit seminary worked hard for the Republicans, and in 1998 even wrote an op-ed piece defending Lingle's hiring of her husband while she was mayor of Maui.

Roth's salary, in an odd arrangement, is being paid by the university even though the university continues to complain about lack of money and autonomy.

Other Lingle appointments are difficult to square with her promise that "The old days of 'who you know' being more important than 'what you know' are pau."

For example, as if invitations were being extended to a thank-you cocktail party, eight key nominations went to four husband-and-wife couples who had participated in Lingle's campaign.

Lingle also attempted to pack the UH Board of Regents with former campaign workers. Two of them, former O'ahu finance chairman Shelton Jim On and Edward Sultan, the spouse of campaign finance director Rae McCorkle who herself was named to the state Land Use Commission, were turned down by the Senate.

Taking "who you know" to extremes, Lingle named her paid political consultant Bob Awana chief of staff and then hired Awana's brother, Alan, to replace Diane Paracuelles as chef at Washington Place.

This 'ohana approach to hiring has also reached the lieutenant governor's office. Duke Aiona's chief of staff, George Lindsey, hired his own spouse to work for him as executive assistant.

• Use of the bully pulpit: As important as budgetary and appointment powers are, it is an extraconstitutional power — what Richard Neustadt in "Presidential Power" called "the power to persuade" — that often makes or breaks governors. Waihee skillfully used this power. Cayetano never mastered or even paid much attention to it.

Lingle so far seems to grasp its potential but not its subtleties.

One problem that afflicts the Lingle administration is its use of "gotcha" public relations more suited to campaigning than to running a government. For example, settling an old score seemed to be one of the purposes of Lingle's recent talk to the U.S. District Court conference at the Halekulani Hotel on April 11.

On Jan. 22, Chief Justice Ronald Moon of the state Supreme Court had castigated Lingle in his state-of-the-judiciary address by dwelling on her misuse of a false case history, the apocryphal anecdote that the Supreme Court had ruled a worker fired for stealing could receive compensation for the stress he felt from getting fired.

On April 11, Lingle retaliated by characterizing Moon's court as "dysfunctional."

Another target is the president of the University of Hawai'i, Evan Dobelle, who misused his own bully pulpit to promote Mazie Hirono for governor. On April 24, when the Dobelle administration and the faculty union reached a major contract agreement, Lingle held a self-congratulatory news conference in her office. Dobelle was not invited. The UH administration got wind of it before it happened and actually phoned to seek inclusion, but to no avail.

• Access to power: Lingle's trip to Washington, D.C., in late February on behalf of federal recognition of native Hawaiians was a terrific use of her access to influence. In meetings with other governors, with U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft and even with Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York, she established herself as a player on Hawai'i's behalf.

Here, again, however, Lingle's public relations efforts may have gone over the edge. Inouye, perhaps irritated by all the premature acclaim accruing to Lingle with regard to the Akaka recognition bill, announced to the press that the bill's fate was now in Lingle's hands. This mousetrap maneuver was designed to signal Lingle to be careful when nibbling at the senator's cheese.

When Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska, a powerful Republican and close friend of Inouye, spoke in Honolulu at the April screening of a documentary film honoring Inouye, Stevens went out of his way to instruct Lingle, "If you want me to do something for Hawai'i, go through Dan."

Lingle is learning also how to use her access to key legislators. Sen. Colleen Hanabusa, D-21st (Nanakuli, Makaha), denies any connection, but Hanabusa's floor amendment to incorporate Lingle's changes into Act 221 seemed more than coincidental to Lingle's earlier support of Hanabusa's tax credit for Ko Olina.

• Party politics: One of Lingle's biggest strengths is that she is not weighted down either by the historical baggage of the Republicans or by the heavy-handed "I've got mine" corruption of the Democrats.

In fact, Lingle's approach to party politics is similar to that taken by her Republican predecessor Quinn. To get elected, Quinn eschewed what he and his supporters disparaged as the "110-percent Republicans."

At the same time, in jujitsu style, Lingle has used the blunt and sometimes clumsy momentum of the Democratic Party as leverage against it.

For a while, providing Lingle with all the ammunition she needed, the Democrats in the Senate were leading the charge for increases in the regressive excise tax. On their own, the Democrats once again failed to enact campaign-finance reform because of their zeal to exclude themselves from its requirements. What more could a Republican governor ask for?

• The long run: On the surface, the just-completed legislative session seems almost a disaster for Lingle. Not one of her three highly touted priorities to improve the public schools — "Allow the people of Hawai'i to decide if they want local school boards, get principals out of the union and fairly fund the charter schools" — made it through the Legislature.

Her hard-fought attempt to tighten up the high-technology tax credit in Act 221, even with Hanabusa's help and a full-court press by Roth, failed.

Still, as Waihee points out, "The Legislature is co-equal for only three months. Then they all go home. Teachers of civics don't understand that absence makes the present partner stronger."

Lingle now has the stage to herself and, as she has said, "The issues that we thought are important are getting a pretty wide public exposure. I think that's important this first year."

• Principles and ideas: Lingle, with her independence from party ideology and dedication to the long run, is in a perfect position to articulate lofty principles and big ideas for Hawai'i.

Instead, perhaps because of her reliance on public relations, Lingle so far has substituted illusions for ideas. The urban legends perpetuated by Lingle are of the sort that circulates throughout the Republican school of resentment and on right-wing radio talk shows. For example, she demeaned adult education by advancing the myth that cuts in dancing classes for seniors would save money, when in fact this minor part of adult education is mostly self-sustaining.

Also not helpful is Lingle's apparent reliance on a pragmatism that borders on opportunism. Her state-of-the-state address emphasized that government must be open and transparent, yet on April 24 she conducted a closed-door "Tourism Summit."

At the same time, we've gotten a glimpse of what Lingle can accomplish when possessed by belief and conviction.

Based on her mother's battle with mental illness, she testified four times, and eloquently, in favor of making permanent the requirement that insurance companies treat mental illness the same as physical illness. The bill passed.

When she acts from instinct, and is not overwhelmed by what she's been told by those around her, Lingle can be a tremendous force.

In short: "Great promise; wayward tendencies hinder prospects."