It is not unreasonable to imagine proud parents looking at their newborn and thinking someday that he or she will be president or governor. The recognition, the power and the expectation that they are going to raise a leader come as hopes.
The expectation for No. 2, the lieutenant governor, is to wait — not do, just wait.
Hawaii’s Lt. Gov. Sylvia Luke notes on her own web page that the job is for someone who “acts as Governor when the Governor is absent from the State or is unable to exercise and discharge the powers and duties of office.”
You need to have the job for continuous government leadership to be assured, but few if any parents dream of their kid growing up to be second in command.
Only four of Hawaii’s lieutenant governors have gone on to become one of the state’s nine governors: George Ariyoshi, John Waihee, Ben Cayetano and Josh Green.
Former Gov. Ariyoshi was the only one called on to activate the succession option, stepping into the job when as lieutenant governor he took over for Gov. John Burns, who was stricken with cancer in 1973.
Since statehood in 1959, Hawaii has had 16 lieutenant governors.
Luke served as a member of the Hawaii House of Representatives for 24 years, from 1998 until her election as lieutenant governor in 2022. She is the first Korean-American politician ever elected to a statewide office in the United States.
Luke has been getting a workout as acting governor, as she has repeatedly stepped in as acting governor for Gov. Green when he travels out of state.
Still, Luke has been a low-key lieutenant governor, not seeking to attract much attention with her job although she is also a successful politician. Part of her time in the state House was served as chair of the powerful House Finance Committee.
During the race for lieutenant governor, the union political action committee, Be Change Now, spent $1.2 million opposing Luke, and $2.9 million to support her opponent, former City Councilmember Ikaika Anderson; that set the state record for the most money spent by a PAC for a single race in Hawaii. Luke still won.
The question now for Luke is just how far back in the shadows she wants to hold her political career.
Hawaii has a multitude of political problems that can’t be blamed specifically on the incumbent governor, but did happen during his watch. The troubles include the newly opened Kaneohe State Hospital that is described by workers as “severely short-staffed and dangerous.”
Not as dangerous, but still showing a lack of government competence, is the freeway jams on a Saturday afternoon a while back because the state’s Transportation Department had scheduled several H-1 freeway lane closures at the same time for repaving and guardrail maintenance.
“I apologize that we set up the closure incorrectly. It caused a lot of congestion because it pushed everyone through an area that had lane closures,” said Transportation Director Ed Sniffen.
For Luke, the challenge is not to just be an observer, but to decide how much she wants to jump and get her hands dirty pushing the gears and levers of state government up close.
Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays. Reach him at 808onpolitics@gmail.com.
