Attention turns to re-election campaigns

By Gordon Y.K. Pang and Lynda Arakawa
Advertiser Capitol Bureau

The 22nd Hawai'i State Legislature has adjourned, but lawmakers face another, possibly more contentious, challenge: the campaign.

Democrats hailed the session as a success, pointing to legislation they passed dealing with education reform and the ice epidemic, but Lingle and Republican members of the House and Senate referred to the session as "a missed opportunity" to secure true reform.

"I guess who puts the best spin forward is going to win out the day," said Senate President Robert Bunda, D-22nd (North Shore, Wahiawa). "Hopefully we have good things to say for our constituents."

At stake will be all 51 seats in the House and 12 in the Senate. It's no secret that Lingle and the Republicans are aiming to gain control of at least one of the houses.

At the very least, the Republicans want to secure enough seats to sustain any vetoes of bills that come down from Lingle the next two years of her term. For that to happen, the GOP would need 18 seats in the House or nine in the Senate. This term, they held 15 seats in the House and five in the Senate.

Throughout the session, Democrats said they were focused on only three issues: reforming education, combating the ice epidemic and making prescription drugs affordable. They not only pushed out key legislation for each of those points, but overrode Lingle's vetoes on education reform and ice bills.

Republicans, however, said the Democrats have achieved very little this session and, for instance, have characterized the majority's education measure as "fake reform."

Rep. Barbara Marumoto, R-19th (Kaimuki, Kahala, Wai'alae Iki), said it will be obvious to the voters that Democrats dropped the ball this session.

"Just because you pass a piece of paper that says 'reform' doesn't mean the job is totally done," she said. While Democrats may have approved a small measure of improvements for the public school system, it was only after intense lobbying from Lingle and other Republicans, she said.

Lingle plans to use her bully pulpit to help influence the legislative races and her involvement could pose a significant threat to the Democrats. She is likely to use every opportunity — whether it be community speeches or her weekly radio spot — to take shots at Democratic lawmakers.

The so-called missed opportunities in areas such as education and law enforcement are "core issues that people feel strongly about and that they sent me here to do something about," Lingle said. "I think these are all important issues to the public. They won't go away, and we won't go away."

But just criticizing what the Legislature did or didn't do may not be enough. A recent Advertiser poll found that while many people disapprove of the Legislature's approach, more than half of Hawai'i residents support their own lawmakers.

Lingle said constituents need to be informed about the voting records of their lawmakers.

"I think when you ask them about their individual senator or representative their response is based on their ... visibility in the community," she said. "And people who feel they can make a contribution as a candidate to get them out of office need to do a good job of explaining how their representatives vote."

House Majority Leader Scott Saiki, D-22nd (McCully, Pawa'a), said Democrats wanted to get the session completed so they could divert their full attention to the election ahead and make sure their message reaches constituents.

"We set our priorities, we acted on our priorities, and now it's up to the members to communicate that to our constituents," Saiki said. "And once we begin to do that, the public will see that we did do substantive work this year and that we addressed the state's top three issues: school reform, ice and prescription drugs."

Pollster Don Clegg believes the Democrats' messages on combating ice and reforming education were highly orchestrated. "It was a ploy on the part of the majority Democrats to move some things that they felt would benefit Democratic candidates and the Democratic Party, expecting an onslaught from the Republicans. And at the same time, (they tried) not to interfere with the establishment."

Clegg said the issues were carefully picked, as were the solutions. "They came up with mini-solutions for major problems."

But he was equally unimpressed by what Lingle and the Republicans offered as an alternative.

"They were totally lackluster ... they just kind of seemed to go along not willing to confront in an aggressive manner and just sort of whined a lot," Clegg said. "The Republicans lost an opportunity to get some drama and to convince people 'we need some change' and that that change should be in their direction. Their message was the Democrats didn't go far enough. That may be true, but that's not going to grab you at election time."

Hawai'i Pacific University political science professor Gregory Gaydos said the major issues of this year's Legislature were not compelling to most of the people he has spoken with and that the Democrats and Republicans will need to work hard to explain to constituents why they should get their votes.

"Right now, I don't think anybody's paying attention, really," Gaydos said, noting that most discussions on current events nowadays are dominated by the war in Iraq and the upcoming presidential election.

Unlike with high-profile and emotional issues like gay marriage or Hawaiian sovereignty, "people just don't see momentous issues which gravitate them," Gaydos said. "I don't think anything really grabbed their attention at this time; there was nothing that was emotional that would resonate."

How well Hawai'i Democrats and Republicans do, in the end, likely will be decided this year when voters feel the need to start paying attention to local politics — around election time, he said.

"I think it's going to be a matter of how can people spin it at the time of the election," he said.

Reach Gordon Y.K. Pang at gpang@honoluluadvertiser.com or at 525-8070. Reach Lynda Arakawa at larakawa@honoluluadvertiser.com or at 525-8070.