Gov. Neil Abercrombie and state Sen. David Ige on Tuesday set the contours for their Democratic primary, with the governor reminding voters of the state’s economic rebound during his first term and Ige offering himself as a more thoughtful, sensible alternative as chief executive.
At a lunchtime forum at the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawaii hosted by the Honolulu Japanese Chamber of Commerce, Abercrombie acknowledged that some of his own political allies might be upset with him for the choices he made to help steer the state from deficit to surplus. He recalled the guidance from his late mother, a kindergarten teacher, who told him to always sit up straight, speak up and speak clearly.
"I think I spoke clearly in 2010 when I came into office. I think I stood up — or sat up — straight when I did it. And I think that I spoke up," the governor said. "And now we see the results: We’re back. We’re on track. We’re in the black."
Ige, who is still unknown to many voters, has mounted an unexpectedly competitive challenge to Abercrombie that political analysts believe is a reflection of the governor’s low job-approval ratings. The soft-spoken state senator, appearing with the effusive governor side by side for the first time in the primary, sought to lower expectations about his skills as a debater.
"In fact," he said, "political pundits have said that I wouldn’t know a sound bite if it bit me in the okole. And I acknowledge that. I’m not a great politician."
Ige, in contrast with Abercrombie, questioned the state’s leadership direction.
"Hawaii is not headed in the right direction," he said. "We know that too many decisions are being made on behalf of special interests rather than public interests. And I’m here to give the people of Hawaii a choice."
The 75-minute forum, moderated by Howard Dicus, a business reporter at Hawaii News Now, was at its most compelling during a question-and-answer session. The questions, submitted by the audience, drew out the two Democrats on public policy.
Abercrombie and Ige, as they have for the past several months, continued to talk past each other on the state’s budget. The governor argues that it was largely his direction that produced the state’s record $844 million budget surplus at the close of the past fiscal year. Ige, chairman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee, counters that it was the Legislature that reined in the governor’s spending requests.
Ige said it was also the Legislature that rejected Abercrombie’s ideas for a pension tax and soda tax.
Both Abercrombie and Ige said they do not contemplate any need to increase the general excise tax, the state’s largest source of tax revenue, or adopt other tax hikes in the state’s six-year financial plan.
The candidates said they favor concentrating residential development in the urban core, such as Kakaako and along the city’s rail corridor. But Ige suggested that Abercrombie has been too eager to back luxury high-rises in Kakaako that attract wealthy foreign investors, not local residents.
Abercrombie cited the workforce housing already being built in Kakaako, which, after more than three decades of unfulfilled promise, is finally being redeveloped with both market-rate and reserved housing and new attractions. "The urban core is going to prevent urban sprawl," the governor said. "And the urban core in Honolulu is going to provide a new avenue for everyone to be able to have a livable community."
In the most caustic moments of the forum, Ige and Abercrombie clashed over the Hawaii Health Connector, the state’s insurance exchange under the federal health care reform law known as Obamacare.
Ige said he was disappointed with the implementation of the Health Connector, which received more than $200 million in federal money but has enrolled just 9,528 people, calling it a "disaster." He said the Legislature rejected a "forever subsidy" for the connector.
"We provided stopgap funding, and we told them they need to get their act together," he said.
Ige said Hawaii should have sought an exemption to the federal law, since the state’s Prepaid Health Care Act, which requires businesses to provide insurance to employees who work 20 hours a week or more, has led to among the highest rates of health insurance coverage in the nation.
"My friends, the Health Connector didn’t suddenly appear. It wasn’t spontaneous combustion," Abercrombie fired back. "It’s a nonprofit corporation completely created by the Legislature."
Abercrombie said the state will apply to the federal government for an innovation waiver that becomes available under the law in 2017. The governor said the reason so few people have signed up in Hawaii is because the Prepaid Health Care Act has worked so well.
"If the Legislature is upset with how the connector is working, I suggest that they get a mirror," he said.
Ige said four Abercrombie Cabinet directors serve on the Health Connector’s board, so to "pretend like the governor is not involved with the Health Connector, I think, is absolutely inaccurate." The governor, getting in the last word, said his Cabinet directors sit on the board "because the Legislature says they have to."
Abercrombie, in his most passionate remarks, described the constitutional amendment on the ballot in November that would allow public money to be spent on private preschool as a "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity."
"I might be running for office. Sen. Ige might be running for office. That’s a transitory thing," the governor said. "But every child who gets to be 4 years old and loses that year never gets it back. Never gets it back."
Ige, who opposes the constitutional amendment, chose not to address the issue. Instead, Ige said the key to improve student learning is to decentralize public school administration and empower teachers and principals.
Abercrombie and Ige both said they support the Native Hawaiian Roll Commission, which has collected names for participation in a new Hawaiian government, but Ige said the U.S. Department of the Interior’s hearings in Hawaii on sovereignty are premature, since Hawaiians have not yet reached consensus about how to proceed.
In a significant shift in position, Abercrombie said he has spoken with Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin about using a Vermont law that requires the labeling of genetically modified organisms in food by July 2016 as a potential model for Hawaii. Ige, who, like Abercrombie, has said that the federal government should preferably oversee GMO labeling, told reporters earlier this month that he would consider the Vermont law for Hawaii.
Asked by Dicus what he would do as governor if the Legislature ever authorized casino gambling, Ige said, "I would absolutely veto it. I’m against gambling. I think that it kills jobs. I believe that it brings social ills that have no purpose in Hawaii. I believe that casino gambling would change Hawaii forever, for the worse. And I would veto it immediately."
Abercrombie’s answer was more nuanced. He said the "principle veto," or opposition, might come from locals who fly Hawaiian Airlines to Las Vegas to go to the California Hotel and Casino, and the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, which might lose advertising revenue.
"So I don’t see any possibility there’s going to be any casino," the governor said. "You’ll never get to the point of having to veto it."
