State Rep. Sylvia Luke has a clear advantage over the four other candidates running for lieutenant governor as the only one currently serving in elected office and, especially, as chairwoman of the powerful House Finance Committee.

On Wednesday, Luke joined her Senate counterpart — Sen. Donovan Dela Cruz, chairman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee — on the Honolulu Star- Advertiser’s “Spotlight Hawaii” livestream program, where they announced that a dead idea to give $100 rebates to every Hawaii taxpayer and their dependents had been reborn.

Instead, the leaders of the House and Senate money committees said that, if approved, every taxpayer would receive a $300 rebate for them and their dependents, meaning $1,200 for a family of four.

“Resurrecting Gov. Ige’s plan for a tax rebate and increasing the amount gives her a big advantage,” said Colin Moore, director of the University of Hawaii’s Public Policy Center. “Her name is in the paper a lot. She’s getting a fair bit of attention as House Finance chair and she can attach her name to a popular idea. It costs her campaign nothing.”

Appearing on Spotlight and then on the front page of the Star-Advertiser means “no one else (running for lieutenant governor) enjoys those advantages,” Moore said. “No one else has the ability to both shape legislation and be in the public eye.”

Luke (D, Punchbowl-­Pauoa-Nuuanu) is running in the Aug. 13 Democratic Primary against former state Sen. Jill Tokuda; former Council Chairman Ikaika Anderson; former mayoral candidate Keith Amemiya; and Sherry Menor-McNamara, a first-time candidate and president and CEO of the Hawaii Chamber of Commerce.

Luke told the Star- Advertiser that she decided to join the crowded race — rather than seek a relatively safe campaign for her current seat — after the state struggled through two years of COVID-19, which devastated Hawaii’s once red-hot tourism economy beginning in March 2020.

“It’s a risk,” she said. “But I had the realization that to help the state, I need to take this chance to better serve the state in a different capacity.”

As COVID-19 strangled the economy, there were no shortages of complex and difficult challenges facing the state, Luke said, including accounting for federal relief funds, processing rent subsidies and managing unemployment insurance claims.

“Successful organizations need more than a leader,” she said. “You need an operations manager, and that’s how I see my role (if elected lieutenant governor). You actually need someone with boots on the ground who can work with the executive branch.”

Now that the economy is roaring back faster than economic forecasts, Luke is running with several positive factors on her side: There is more money to fund programs and projects. And she has a good working relationship with House Speaker Scott Saiki and Dela Cruz, which has not always been the case with previous Finance chairs and could lead to more legislative victories that Luke can campaign on.

“It all creates the kind of image you probably want to have when running for lieutenant governor,” political analyst Neal Milner said. “That’s to her advantage. Sure it helps. How much it helps, I don’t know.”

With less than a month to go before the scheduled end of the legislative session on May 5, it can be difficult to find the line between legislating and campaigning, Moore said.

In a speech on the House floor on March 16 about the state budget, Luke spoke about the opportunities the improving economy can offer:

“We were able to salvage many of the critical social safety net programs, which were planned for significant reductions,” she said. “What we have today is an unprecedented opportunity to address many unmet needs within the state with a strategic and forward-thinking approach.”

Asked about her political advantages as a high-profile leader in the House, Luke said she also has a disadvantage because she is not fundraising during the legislative session, aligning her own conduct with a proposal that would ban legislators from fundraising during session. That proposal could become law following the guilty federal corruption pleas by former state Sen. J. Kalani English and former state Rep. Ty J.K. Cullen.

“Other candidates can campaign full time,” Luke said. “I’m willing to live with that. I’m trying to live by the spirit of what we could potentially pass this year.”

A new campaign commercial has raised eyebrows because Luke supporters only mention Luke’s name regarding a popular COVID-era program to create a Restaurant Card program that helped both struggling families and island restaurants, which was unveiled by Gov. David Ige.

The program resulted in the distribution of over 150,000 cards and generated $52 million in revenue for restaurants.

In the commercial, Luke does not claim credit for the program. And in an interview with the Star- Advertiser she acknowledged the efforts of many people and organizations to bring it to fruition.

“That one is an example of where I pulled everyone together,” Luke said. “The message of that ad was the ability to pull people together and then have the governor succeed.”

The commercial neither surprises nor concerns Milner, the political analyst.

“People aren’t likely to say, ‘along with a participation of a number of others,’” Milner said. “I don’t find that kind of omission out of the ordinary. That’s how it works in a political campaign.”