Last Sunday, two columnists gave us starkly different views of what the future might hold in the aftermath of the Maui tragedy. Dave Shapiro, clearly fed up with what he calls “half-assed” government, called on “people of conscience — especially those with power and financial resources — to put aside selfish interests and work together on ending our pay-to-play politics and cultivating leaders capable of better than half-assed.”
Richard Borreca, on the other hand, cited University of Hawaii professor Colin Moore’s prediction that, “The Legislature will be intensely focused on West Maui’s recovery in the coming months” and that as a consequence, “there will be little appetite for leadership challenges or a major shake-up of committee chairs.” Really? Lawmakers can balk, but voters may in fact be looking for a real shake-up of our politics.
There may well be little appetite for change amongst our elected leaders and their political appointees. But the public is ravenous for change after having been ill-served by those who promised so much and delivered so little. If the flurry of lawsuits is any indication, the public is not going to settle easily for “just moving forward, step by step,” as Borreca suggests, letting “politics take a back seat.”
Hawaii’s attorney general, Anne Lopez, has promised an objective investigation into the causes of the fire. She has hired UL’s nonprofit, Fire Safety Research Institute (FSRI), to assess how state and county agencies performed in preparing for, and responding to the Maui wildfires that took hundreds of lives and razed a historic town. The investigation will take a year.
The damage is estimated at $5.5 billion. But Lopez is aware that the wildfire also incinerated faith in government. It is harder to put a price on that, but there is no denying that it will be high. Despite the red flag warnings and the past fires on Maui and promises to take preventative measures, too many leaders talk about the fire on Maui as “unforeseen.”
The investigation could reveal to what extent the finger-pointing at state government, Hawaiian Electric, Maui’s Fire Department, Maui’s Emergency Management Agency, Maui’s mayor and county officials, corporate landowners and others, is justified. All those who escaped with their lives but little else, have a long wait ahead of them before they can get a sense of their chances of being adequately compensated.
The question now, is what we, the people, do to move forward. The answer: elect better leaders.
In the last legislative session, too many good bills that cleared multiple hurdles were stopped just as they looked set for passage. One of those bills sought to advance the public financing of elections. Despite the abundant data made available to lawmakers to demonstrate its value, our Legislature shrank from making it a reality. As has happened too often, our lawmakers said they want even more data.
Our politics requires candidates to have money, lots of it, to be able to run for office. Some candidates accept the largesse of big campaign donors. The unspoken expectation is that if elected, those lawmakers will remain mindful of the interests of his or her major donors.
We can make that stench in our politics go away by simply enacting public financing.
Securing passage of good government bills depends on who is in office. Despite having vote-by-mail, less than half of all registered voters in Hawaii bother to return their ballots. If the tragedy on Maui does not move more people to exercise the precious right to vote, we might just as well turn those fingers now pointed at those in power back on ourselves. Because we have the power to huli the system. Will we waste that power? Or wield it to chart a better way forward?
