Gov.-elect Josh Green won office on Tuesday by the largest vote percentage in state history and with the greatest margin of victory, according to his office, and plans to translate that momentum and support into an early and big vision for the state and its residents even
before he’s inaugurated Dec. 5.
“I don’t plan to play small ball at all,” Green told the
Honolulu Star-Advertiser on Wednesday in his crowded lieutenant governor workspace on the fifth floor of the state Capitol. “We need a few game changers, so I ought to go for big solutions. I want to take on the largest challenges. … Issues that demand a lot of moral clarity.”
Barely 10 hours after the landslide victory for Green and running mate Sylvia Luke, and with only three hours of sleep, Green’s eyes were heavy and bleary, his heart humbled and his head dancing with energy and ideas for a new era for Hawaii and its people, whether middle class or struggling — and especially for Native Hawaiians.
Even before his inauguration, Green is planning to take a fresh look at difficult issues, including the future of Aloha Stadium, Mauna Kea and the proposed Thirty Meter Telescope, Red Hill, Oahu Community Correctional Center — along with neighbor island jails and overall “justice reform” — stimulating clean energy and agriculture to help diversify Hawaii’s tourism-reliant economy, and overhauling state departments to make common sense and maximize existing resources and programs, among several other issues.
On a personal level, Green — a Kona emergency room physician — plans to comply with a state ban on outside employment for Hawaii’s governor by volunteering without pay at rural Oahu medical clinics while continuing to organize medical missions to countries with strong ties to the islands.
He plans to move his young family of four out of their condo on the edge of Chinatown and into the governor’s Washington Place mansion on the mauka side of Beretania Street across from the Capitol while creating an even deeper sense of family for his daughter, Maia, 14, and son, Sam, 10.
“I want to get a dog,” he said.
Luke, 54, the outgoing chair of the House Finance Committee and part of House leadership, was first elected to the House in 1998. Green, 52, was elected to the House in 2004 before moving over to the Senate and before being appointed lieutenant governor for Gov. David Ige’s second, four-year term that ends Dec. 5.
Luke and Green were once part of a group of disenfranchised House members who called themselves “The Young Turks.”
Now Green hopes to use his background with House Speaker Scott Saiki and Senate President Ron Kouchi
— and Luke’s legislative expertise with state and federal money as part of House leadership — to get much accomplished in the upcoming legislative session.
He’s well aware of the dysfunction that can occur between governors and the Legislature — and between governors and their lieutenant governors — so he wants to keep House and Senate leaders in the loop while also moving quickly and nimbly, Green told the Star-Advertiser on Wednesday just before meeting Saiki over lunch.
“Contrary to public opinion, I have a good relationship with the Legislature,” Green said. “Basically I like all these guys and they seem to like me a lot right now. … I’m going to go down there and bring ’em pizza.”
Green was still running on adrenaline from his election night victory to become only Hawaii’s ninth governor since statehood in 1959.
From election night to Wednesday morning, Green said he received “524 texts and 150 emails in the last
10 hours. It’s very kind of them.”
He thanked his boss, Ige, for 30 years of public service and said that Ige had been “very generous” in congratulating Green on election night at a Democratic watch party at the Hawai‘i Convention Center.
Green did not address the sometimes chilly relationship between him and Ige over issues such as homelessness and the state’s response to COVID-19, but said that Ige, on election night, “was more than generous. It was warm, actually.”
One text came from Ige’s predecessor, former Gov. Neil Abercrombie, who wrote “‘Congratulations
No. 9 from No. 7.’”
Abercrombie had endorsed former Council Chair Ikaika Anderson in Anderson’s bitter and unsuccessful Democratic primary challenge against Luke.
Green called Abercrombie’s text “funny and sweet.”
“It’s a small club and I feel honored to be part of it,” Green said in his office stuffed with white boards full of ideas and possible solutions for Hawaii’s problems and challenges. “It’s still somewhat surreal. But I’m just so grateful it worked out.”
His staff wasted no time getting to work Wednesday. They opened a website — greentransition2022.org — for anyone interested in joining his administration and Cabinet of department heads and their deputy
directors.
All 10 members of Green’s staff — including his security detail — have been offered jobs when he crosses the fifth floor of the Capitol to become governor, including his current and future chief of staff Brooke Wilson.
But Green does not expect to retain many of Ige’s Cabinet members, because he wants new energy “and fresh ideas.”
Exceptions could be made “for someone who has an
exceptional skill set,” he said.
He’s already begun diving in on troublesome issues and plans to work with legislators and create working groups to come up with new ways to address a long list of challenges, including:
>> Transitioning offloaded military fuel at Red Hill into low-cost airline fuel for interisland travel.
>> Reviewing decisions by Ige regarding development of the Aloha Stadium site within 30 days. “I’m open-minded,” he said. “How do we move forward most intelligently?”
>> Several ways to brace Hawaii from a potential recession, including stimulating construction of affordable housing for middle-class families and for more “kauhale” homeless communities of tiny homes.
>>Traveling to Japan on Friday to encourage Japanese travel with the message that Hawaii was better prepared to deal with COVID-19 and had the fewest fatalities.
>> Reviewing prisoners incarcerated on nonviolent marijuana charges “case by case” to determine whether they can be released while finding ways “to give back to society. We can’t afford to throw people away.”
>> Campaign spending and ethics reform for the Legislature, lieutenant governor and governor. “Ethics reform makes everyone better.”
>> Unlocking $50 million in grants-in-aid for nonprofit groups that has been stalled in a dispute over language. The money would go to the Hawaii Food Bank, Aloha United Way and Domestic Violence Action Center, among other groups. “The spirit of the bill is obvious. It’s simply too important.”
>> Extend temporary nursing licenses by four-month increments to help ease Hawaii’s nursing shortage.
Green sees solutions to many problems as interconnected, such as the need to build a new OCCC linked to judicial reform, Hawaiian Native incarceration and programs aimed at reconnecting Hawaiian inmates to their culture; or stimulating agricultural, in some cases, based on taro farms, fish ponds and other traditional cultural practices, which also could be connected to tourism impact fees that could teach visitors respect for Hawaiian culture.
For Green, both the problems and solutions are often personal.
His wife, Jaime, is Hawaiian, whose family has suffered, including a relative who was incarcerated but has since gotten on track.
Green said he is “committed” to helping Native Hawaiians overall “as part of the bigger plan.”
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