The court notation
says it all: “Trump v. Hawaii.”
Since February, the state of Hawaii has been a national player in the movement against President Donald Trump’s.
We may not be the People’s Republic of Hawaii, but the renewed feistiness coming from local officials shows that Republican Trump has stirred Democratic Hawaii.
The first of many lawsuits filed by the administration of Gov. David Ige was on Feb. 3 after travelers across the nation grappled with the chaos caused by Trump’s poorly planned executive order temporarily banning immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries that also halted the admission of all refugees to the country.
Hawaii Attorney General Doug Chin explained the action, according to a Honolulu Star-Advertiser report.
“We did so for one simple reason: Everyone in the United States, including the president, must follow the law and follow the Constitution,” said Chin then. “The executive order that President Trump issued last Friday keeps Hawaii families apart, it blocks Hawaii residents from traveling, it harms Hawaii’s tourism industry, it establishes a religion in Hawaii in violation of the Constitution, it blocks Hawaii businesses and universities from hiring as they see fit. Most importantly, it degrades the values that Hawaii has worked so hard to protect.”
In that case, Hawaii didn’t lead the national resistance — but when Trump came back with a modified travel ban, we were first in line to say, “Not good enough.”
In March, Chin was telling the country that Hawaii is special.
“Hawaii is special in that it has always been non-discriminatory in both its history and constitution,” he said. “Twenty percent of the people are foreign-born, 100,000 are non-citizens and 20 percent of the labor force is foreign-born.”
Although the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that portions of that protested ban are valid, Hawaii is still pitching and is back in court with Chin saying the order is still unclear.
“This Court should clarify as soon as possible that the Supreme Court meant what it said, and that foreign nationals that credibly claim connections with this country cannot be denied entry under the President’s illegal Order,” said Chin in a news release.
That, however, is not Hawaii’s only Trump-inspired legal dust-up.
Hawaii joined with 43 states and the District of Columbia in refusing to give voter data including names, addresses and voting records to a “Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity.”
The commission was created to feed Trump’s ego.
According to Trump’s nonsensical reasoning, he actually won the popular vote, even though Hillary Clinton actually had 2,864,974 more votes, a 2.1 percent margin. Trump to this day is insisting 3 million votes were illegal, even after almost no cases of illegal voting were found.
While Trump continues his face-saving salvage operation, Ige and Hawaii are joining those calling him on it.
“By all accounts, incidents of actual voter fraud are extremely rare,” Ige said in a statement. “I’m concerned this type of investigation would lead to a denial of voter access.”
Then last week, Hawaii was one of 18 states to sue Education Secretary Betsy DeVos over her decision to suspend rules meant to protect students from abuses by for-profit colleges.
AG Chin explained how 2,400 Hawaii students were hurt when Heald College shut down. Chin and Steve Levins, state consumer protector, asked the federal government to protect the students’ educational investments; instead, DeVos stopped implementing the rule, calling it “a muddled process.”
Although he has been president for less than half a year, Trump’s own muddled administration is likely to be the target of more lawsuits, with Hawaii joining in the national protests.
Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays. Reach him at 808onpolitics@gmail.com.