It was like old times, but no old times you have seen with any former Hawaii governor.
It was Wednesday afternoon and Gov. Neil Abercrombie was attending the Senate legislative session to support his nominee, Barbara Krieg, who was being approved as the new state human resources director.
The moment was made more poignant because Krieg’s husband, Nicholas DeWitt, died last month and senators mentioned his passing while praising the new cabinet member.
Down on the Senate floor, Abercrombie was stopped by Hawaii island Democrat Sen. Josh Green and the pair sat down below the Senate president’s podium for an intense discussion.
Not former Govs. Linda Lingle, Ben Cayetano nor even John Waihee would be found hunkered down and swapping notes on the Senate floor during the legislative session — and especially not huddled with individual senators.
Hawaii governors were rarely seen venturing down from the fifth-floor state Capitol offices. Abercrombie has been different. Abercrombie picked up his "frequent visitor" badge from several committees as he helped walk his $200 million Office of Hawaiian Affairs ceded lands settlement through committee. Just this week, he started popping in to the nightly budget conference committee meetings.
"It brought back nostalgia — I know what the members are going through," Abercrombie, a former state legislator, recalled during an interview this week.
It is all the more unusual because last year Senate Democrats were furious with Abercrombie, feeling he let them twist in the wind after telling them he supported raising the general excise tax, then told the opposite to the state House Democrats.
And earlier in this session, Abercrombie’s administration was walking a narrow line of simply commenting on bills without endorsing them.
Legislative sources said that Abercrombie’s kitchen cabinet advised him, after the bad feelings from 2011, to just not take a position. But the sources say that Abercrombie’s new legislative team, headed by former legislators Kate Stanley and Blake Oshiro, have been more engaged and slowly they have brought Abercrombie into the discussions.
"I have been able to connect a lot more personally and there is a lot more confidence now that we have gotten our fiscal feet on the floor," said Abercrombie, who noted that discussions opened up once the state budget was balanced and the Legislature wasn’t forced to chase a deficit.
"Once you have your fiscal feet solidly on the ground, a lot of things can move forward," he said.
Others saw Abercrombie helping himself this year by limiting the number of proposals and then staying away from controversy.
"He has done better than last year and the reception he has gotten, specifically from the Senate, is better than last year," reported the Senate’s lone Republican, Sen. Sam Slom.
Abercrombie’s proposals from his State of the State speech in January appear to be marching along, although there are some questions on his realigning the duties of the Public Utilities Commission.
"It is not so much that they are complicated, but they are detailed, so we are trying to stitch together a lot," said Abercrombie.
Other lawmakers, however, report that in closed-door meetings Abercrombie has a tendency to sound out his feelings on a subject without coming to a conclusion — the result being legislative uncertainty about Abercrombie’s specific course of action.
When the Legislature adjourns next week, if Abercrombie succeeds in not becoming a target of the Legislature’s wrath, he is likely to find his own approval rating on the rise.
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Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Reach him at rborreca@staradvertiser.com.
