Rep. Johanson goes with the flow

It’s not the end of the world for the already down-and-out Hawaii GOP, but the departure of Rep. Aaron Ling Johanson, has to sting.

Johanson said his switch this week to the Democratic Party was based on his desire to find common ground. In the last legislative session, he was a committee vice chairman. Speaker Joe Souki had handed out such plums to the minority in the process of building a winning coalition for House control.

This time Souki easily kept his post — and suddenly Republicans found themselves out in the cold again.

Who knows if Johanson would have bolted at some point anyway — he’s ambitious, of course, and wants to maximize his pull for constituents.

But it’s too bad that little test run of bipartisan leadership was so short lived.

Does price floor milk consumers?

The state Board of Agriculture was between a rock and a hard place with its 7-0 vote Monday to amend rules that set a minimum wholesale price for fresh milk from Hawaii dairy farmers.

One of the state’s two major milk producers sought the change, so it can charge milk distributors less and compete with mainland imports. But the other decried the rule change as a thinly disguised attempt to put it out of business.

Absent the change, the state risked hurting both its major milk producers. Lifting the price control means that at least one local producer sees a better chance of competing in the open market.

It’s unclear whether the change will affect local milk prices, given that 80 percent of what we drink here is imported from the mainland.