Fevella apologizes for racial comments about Green nominee

State Sen. Kurt Fevella stood on the Senate floor Friday and apologized for racial comments he made last week about Gov. Josh Green’s Hawaiian nominee to lead a new housing Cabinet position.

“I rise on a point of personal privilege,” Fevella said in front of all 25 senators and their guests seated in the Senate gallery. “At this time I just want to offer apologies to Nani Medeiros if I had offended her and her family of the things that I had said. I never meant to hurt her personally or her family. So, again, I apologize for the words that I had said.”

In response, Medeiros wrote in a text to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser on Friday:

“This has been a very difficult week for me and my family. I look forward to moving on and focusing on the Governor’s priority housing agenda; there is too much at stake for anything less.”

Green originally wrote a two-page letter to Senate President Ron Kouchi condemning Fevella’s testimony about Medeiros at a meeting of the Hawaiian Home Lands Commission on Jan. 27 during which Fevella said Medeiros has “nothing, or no knowledge, about our Hawaiian people. I don’t care if she says she’s Hawaiian. Just remember now, the devil also was an angel. Remember that. So just because you’re Hawaiian doesn’t mean you have the passion for the people.”

The original comments about Medeiros by Fevella (R, Ocean Pointe-­Iroquois Point-Kapolei) brought her to tears and became a distraction over ongoing questions about how the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands plans to spend a record $600 million appropriated by 2022’s Legislature to fulfill a promise to provide Hawaiians with homes.

Green, a former state senator, wrote to Kouchi that Fevella’s comments violated multiple Senate rules and asked that Kouchi take “appropriate” action.

Friday morning, before Fevella’s public apology, Green met with Kouchi, Fevella and Green’s chief of staff, Brooke Wilson.