It’s showtime for the band of former dissidents in the state House of Representatives who are finally taking the reins of power after years of battling outgoing Speaker Calvin Say for control of the House.

The dissidents came to power promising more "progressive" policies and more openness in House operations, but have yet to produce an agenda for either.

They gained the upper hand over Say by joining forces with the lower chamber’s resident political dinosaur, former and future Speaker Joe Souki, and making a deal with Republicans.

Nothing says progressive like a Jurassic tea party.

So far, instead of articulating policy initiatives, the new House majority has been busy fighting with Say over who gets the cushiest offices and choicest parking spaces.

That’s always been the great failing of Hawaii politics: Instead of debates about a better Hawaii, battles are more often about personal power and whose special-interest benefactors get served first.

In this case, the dissidents gained traction when public worker unions turned against Say for opposing a general excise tax increase to spare public employees the economic pain the rest of us experienced in the Great Recession.

It’s disturbing that the new House leadership hasn’t put forth an agenda for a session that’s likely to revolve around what to do with surplus state revenues that are starting to appear as we emerge from the recession.

Will we use the money to restore rainy day funds, repair aging infrastructure and pay down the state’s $22 billion debt from unfunded public worker pension and health care benefits?

Will we restore elements of the social safety net that were lost to severe budget cuts during the recession?

Will we back up our talk about energy and food self-sufficiency with real action and finally invest in our children by joining the vast majority of states that offer publicly funded preschool?

Or will we just feed all of the coming surplus into increased pay and benefits for public workers, as pretty much happened after the last recession a decade ago?

Say was hardly a dynamo of leadership, but he was the leading advocate in the Legislature for fiscal discipline and restraint on budget-busting munificence for public workers — and he was willing to stand up to powerful forces in his party to hold the line.

Souki’s most prominent fiscal ideas in recent years have been legalized gambling, adding to the state’s debt by "borrowing" funds collected for the city’s rail project, and bringing back unpopular traffic cameras to suck more fines out of errant drivers.

Before our imaginations run wild, it’s time for leaders of the new House majority to tell us what they plan to do with the power they’ve labored so mightily to attain.

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Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com or blog.volcanicash.net.