The leading candidates to become Hawaii’s next lieutenant governor were divided at a forum Tuesday between longtime politicians who argued they have the right experience versus outsiders who said current approaches are not working for Hawaii families — and have not worked for years, if not for decades.
When state Rep. Sylvia Luke and former Council Chair Ikaika Anderson talked about their efforts with affordable housing, former Honolulu mayoral candidate Keith Amemiya said he’s been hearing about the need for more affordable housing ever since “elementary school.”
Now in 2022, even with the economy roaring back, Amemiya said that a younger generation is leaving Hawaii for more affordable cities, followed by kupuna who are considering joining them because they cannot live in Hawaii on fixed incomes.
The forum was held at the YWCA Fuller Hall on Richards Street and sponsored by Rotary clubs across Hawaii that repeatedly had their Zoom feeds interrupted by technical glitches that shut down audio, video and both altogether.
The forum at one point attracted about 50 virtual “participants” — mostly identified with Rotary clubs —watching via Zoom, but interest fell off each time the feed suffered problems.
During the final interruption near the end of the 90-minute forum, a Rotary member described as the “host” told participants “Fail, fail, fail,” followed by a Hawaii island Rotary member who said that the organization needs to figure out what happened in order to ensure more stable virtual meetings.
The problems were later blamed on a poor internet connection.
The four leading Democratic candidates who will challenge one another in the winner-take-all Aug. 13 Democratic primary repeated many of the talking points they’ve been using for months:
>> Anderson emphasized that he is the only candidate to have been in charge of a government organization — the Honolulu City Council.
>> Luke, chair of the House Finance Committee, leaned on her ability to navigate the Legislature to deliver funding for critical programs and services, particularly in the last legislative session that saw record levels of funding for critical programs. Over the years, Luke said the hard decisions about millions of dollars in funding also resulted in making her “plenty of enemies.”
>> Amemiya, who unsuccessfully ran for mayor in 2020, talked about his statewide connections as the former executive director of the Hawaii High School Athletic Association.
>> And first-time candidate Sherry Menor-McNamara, president and CEO of the Chamber of Commerce Hawai’i, who was raised in Hilo as the granddaughter of Filipino immigrants, touted the chamber’s role in bringing to fruition the wildly popular Restaurant Card program that helped struggling families and island restaurants by distributing over 150,000 prepaid cards and generating $52 million in revenue for restaurants during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
There was a tense moment when Menor-McNamara challenged Luke on Luke’s involvement in the Restaurant Card.
“They came to me. They came to me,” Luke said. “Because they knew out of everybody, regardless of the governor, regardless of who’s in the Legislature, they knew that I would get it done.”
Menor-McNamara later responded: “I’d like to clarify some facts with the Hawaii Restaurant Card program. We actually approached Sen. (Glenn) Wakai and Sen. (Donovan) Dela Cruz, amongst others. … It stalled and we weren’t hearing anything. … Finally Gov. (David) Ige and the Administration said, ‘Hey what can we do?’ … He loved it.
“So we were lucky that he allocated $75 million in CARES funding. And that’s when DBEDT formed this group … that included the Restaurant Association, Hawaii Ag, as well as DBEDT officials and some other stakeholders. I know you came in after. … This is an example of when we work together we can get things done. And that’s the type of lieutenant governor I want to be, who gets things done, by collaborating with various stakeholders.”
Seaula “Junior” Tupa‘i, a Hawaii island pastor running in the Republican primary for lieutenant governor, repeatedly said during the forum that “insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results.”
He wants to retool Hawaii’s tax structure, create a “flat tax rate” for Hawaii residents, eliminate the Jones Act and invoke “less government.”
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