Dozens of advocates fought through heavier-than-usual downtown traffic and hard-to-find parking around the state Capitol on Wednesday, the opening day of the legislative session, to learn about the workings of government, push for the changes they hope to see and inspire their peers.
“I want to make a complaint,” said Brett Kulbis, former chair of the Oahu Republican Party, who came to the Capitol from Ewa Beach.
“The government parking lot over here, you have to pay with coins, even though there’s limited parking,” Kulbis said. “There’s no coin dispenser. … The public parking behind the palace — probably about 10 stalls — were reserved with cones in the general public parking.”
Kaile Oleyar, treasurer of the student nurses association and a senior at the University of Hawaii-Manoa, knew what to expect and rode TheBus from campus.
“Why pay $5 and fight for parking when I can just bus?” she said.
Joy Logan — a UH professor of Latin American literature and cultural studies — unsuccessfully went to “four or five parking lots before finding a spot,” she said.
Her colleague, Lucia Aranda — a professor of Spanish and translation studies — said, “We thought we left really early but spent 40 minutes looking” for parking. “We thought there would be some more guidance around where to park or someone helping people with that.”
Logan and Aranda attended their first opening-day session of the Legislature to support their former student, Alan Cota, who has since become office manager for new House Speaker Nadine Nakamura.
“He’s now working for the new speaker and — because he had taken classes with me and Lucia where we talked about women’s’ issues, we talked a lot about politics, of course, in Latin American studies and he said it’s a historic moment and he thought it would be nice if we were there to share it — so he invited us to come,” Logan said. “We were happy to be able to share the moment with him.”
Aranda called their first time in the House chamber “very exciting. It was beautiful.”
And, watching Nakamura sworn in as Hawaii’s first female House speaker, “was very exciting for us that it was a woman,” Aranda said.
Eight students from Kamehameha Schools Kapalama Campus and members of the Hawai‘i Sustainable Development Goals Youth Council attended the Capitol to build relationships and collaborate on sustainable futures with lawmakers.
“We’re here because we want to continue to engage in our community,” said 16-year-old council member Cooper Long. “We want to stay up to date with the issues that are affecting us the most. We want to create relationships and connections so that we can work towards sustainable futures together with the U.S. Legislature.”
Long said he and his peers were tasked with researching the senators and representatives for their respective districts.
“Our goal today is to touch base with them, talk with them and share what our mission and purpose are as a pathway,” Long said. “What we’re really here to do is take note of what’s happening in our communities and the changes being made. This way, we can bring that to a global stage and share it with the world, because Hawaii has all the solutions needed to solve global problems.”
Elijah Sagon, a 13-year-old student from Ke Kula ‘o ‘Ehunuikaimalino on Hawaii island, arrived in Honolulu with four of his peers and two teachers at 8 a.m. and headed straight to the Capitol to learn more about the legislative process.
The Hawaiian language immersion school also participated in last year’s legislative session opening day.
“I am vice president of my school, so I am here to learn about the Legislature — what representatives and senators do,” Sagon said. “Last quarter, we learned about the three branches of government, and that really sparked some interest in me. My plan is to be one of the world’s greatest chefs. But if that doesn’t work out, I might actually try something in the Legislature.”
Michael Gatbonton, a senior at Punahou School, came to the Capitol to engage young people and organizations.
“A lot of us are focused on various climate activism, and as youth, it’s one of the biggest issues that we face and will continue to face,” he said.
Gatbonton encouraged his peers who want to see change to try “any method you can,” whether it be talking to teachers and principals in school, creating clubs with classmates and friends or even testifying in the committee hearings throughout the legislative session.
“I want to see more youth involvement,” he said. “I think there’s somewhat of a defeatist attitude right now with the youth, by saying, if something doesn’t happen once, then it doesn’t happen ever. But that’s not the case. Bills die a lot of times. And the first time a bill is introduced, it’s probably going to die, but you have to try in the next legislative session. And that’s something I also want to focus on — encourage people to have hope, have people see that change is possible, because that is why we’re here, to make change.”
