HAWAII'S 1996 ELECTION

Ira Rohter
University of Hawai`i -- Manoa

 

PBS “Online News Hours”

OLD-TIME LIBERALS
Mainlanders often wonder why Hawai`i Congresspeople are among the most unrepentant "liberals" in Congress. All four of Hawai`i's delegates — Democrats — voted against the recently-passed welfare-reform bill.

Representative Patsy Mink, born on Maui 68 years ago, is a veteran of 18 years in the U.S. Congress (1965-1977, 1990 - present) plus a term on the Honolulu city Council (83-87). She was the first Asian-American women to serve in Congress, a steadfast supporter of liberal causes, especially education, civil liberties, women's rights, the economy and jobs. Two term incumbent Neil Abercrombie, 58, proudly labels himself a "Progressive Democrat" who voraciously champions the causes of human rights, campaign reform, and the labor movement. Abercrombie receives high ratings from the liberal American Civil Liberties Union and Americans for Democratic Action [rated 90% this year, previous two years perfect 100%]. He voted with the majority of House Democrats 84% of the time in the last 18 months. Representative Mink has even higher ratings with the ACLU and ADA.

THE DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION OF THE 1950S
Hawai`i's present-day politics are deeply rooted in its history. Its two senior legislators, Senator Inouye and Representative Patsy Mink, have held elected offices since the 1960s, first at the state level, then in Congress. There is a classic story told about Hawai`i's politics following World War II. Resurrected every election by older Democratic party stalwarts, we hear tales of the "Old Hawai`i," a closed society dominated by the haole (foreign white) Republican plantation overlords, that was opened up to shared political and economic equality by the "Democrats" in the mid-1950s. The politically excluded — Japanese-Americans, Hawaiians, Filipinos, average working people — finally gained a fairer share of the economic pie and social justice when the Democratic Party ascended to power.

REMEDYING OLD WRONGS
In many respect Hawai`i is a modernized Third World developing nation. For Native Hawaiians the colonial experience is marked by Captain Cook's arrival from England in 1778. In 1791 English traders started a sandalwood export industry when they recognized that the islands' forests contained this aromatic wood prized by the Chinese. Forty years later Isle forests were stripped of sandalwood. Communal lands became private property. In 1835 the first sugar plantation was established on the island of Kaua`i. By the late 1800s vast sugar plantations established by American transplants dominated each island, and their inter-locked owners — the Big Five corporations — controlled virtually all economic and political power. Thousands of contract workers from China, Japan, Korea, and the Philippines were shipped in to work on the sugar and pineapple plantations. Many workers stayed and settled into second-class citizenship. In 1893 the haole plantation owners and merchants "Committee of Safety" — with the help of U.S. marines — overthrew the Hawaiian constitutional monarchy and in a few years succeeded in getting the once independent nation annexed as a Territory of the United States.

Government by the anti-union, racist Big Five controlled Republican Party continued until the 1950s, when returning WW II veterans — especially Japanese Americans — allied themselves with other descendents of plantation workers led a ballot box revolution against the old establishment.

ONE-PARTY RULE
For 40 years the Democratic Party has controlled the governorship, the legislature, nearly all other State-wide elected offices, the bureaucracy and judiciary, and the State-run educational system. Through Democratic-initiated governmental actions, racial barriers were torn down, public education received hundreds of millions each year, human services greatly expanded, and a growing number of government positions and elected offices opened up to formally excluded groups.

So for most people — and certainly the older generation of non-Caucasians — government has been the agent of social and economic opportunity that remedied old injustices. Tainted by its elitist past, with little grassroots base, Republicans still find it a tough go: only two of 25 State Senators are Republicans; in the State House, only 7 out of 52 Representatives constitute the minority party.

CHALLENGES TO DEMOCRATIC PARTY RULE
Normally the biggest race in the Islands is the one for Governor. Political decision-making is highly centralized in Hawai`i, a residue of once having been a Monarchy, then a territory. The governor, the State legislature and agencies are preeminent, with county governments playing a secondary role. There is a mood for change today, but the Republicans seem unable to capitalize on it.

In 1994 Islanders witnessed a major battle for the governorship of the state. Old alliances seemed to be crumbling. The Democrat machine had been severely discredited by repeated public revelations of corruption, incompetence, and government waste. The Republicans ran a popular former U.S. Congresswoman and State Representative Pat Saiki, a Hilo-born Japanese woman. Honolulu's longtime mayor spending a multi-million dollar campaign war-chest started his own "Best" party, and the upstart Green Party had a candidate on the ballot. In this four-person race, Democrat Ben Cayetano, the inheritor of the Party's mantle — though more an outsider than one of "the Old Boys" — eked out a winning 35% plurality. Pat Saiki — easily the most popular and well-known Republican in the state — came in third. Although a few Republicans won seats in the state House and on the Neighbor Islands, there really is no "opposition" party in Hawai`i today.

TODAY'S POLITICAL MOOD
Faced with the need to curtail ever-growing State spending because of the leveling-off of a booming economy, the 1996 Legislature muddled through and passed a "balanced" budget based on cuts to education and human services, and budgetary gimmicks. The session was dubbed a "Fiasco" and "Dud" by Honolulu newspapers. Mired down in a host of diversions, especially whether Hawai`i should legalize gambling and same-sex marriage, its leaders did little to "reinvent government," enhance the high tax, highly regulated business climate, or diversify the economy. The Democratic controlled Legislature failed to pass anything that would reduce Hawai`i's exceptionally high auto insurance rates, or reform legislators' self-serving retirement perks.

In a recent poll, only 3% of the registered voters thought the `96 Legislature did a "very effective" job; 47% said it was "somewhat effective"; and 46% said "not effective at all." Hawai`i's voters traditionally return to office nearly every incumbent who runs again. But this year many voters say they either intend to vote for another candidate (33%) or are considering doing so (29%).

A TROUBLED ECONOMY
Hawai`i's once-booming tourism-driven economy has flattened out. Businesses are closing down, jobs are tight.

Up to World War II, Hawai`i's territorial economy was based largely on sugar and pineapple exports, military spending, and a very small amount of tourism. After their ballot-box revolt the dominant Democrats, in conjunction with large landowners and business leaders, embraced a strategy to wholeheartedly develop mass tourism. Hotels and resort-golfcourse complexes and supporting airports and new roads spread throughout the Islands. Hawai`i's economy bloomed.

But in mid-1990, declines in the U.S. and Japanese economies led to downturns in tourism and construction. This has severely hurt Island residents who are burdened with extraordinarily expensive housing (media homeprice in Honolulu = $375,000), and a cost-of-living 25% higher than on the Mainland. Hawai`i's service-oriented economy creates mostly lower-paying jobs. Eighty percent of Island mothers with school-age children work, many husbands or wives hold down second-jobs, and most young people work too. One-third of young adult Islanders are forced to leave Hawai`i for decent paying jobs and affordable homes on the Mainland.

1996 RACES

Besides the Presidency, the only federal races are for the U.S. House, seats now held by Patsy Mink (rural O`ahu and Neighbor Islands) and Neil Abercrombie (urban Honolulu).

PRESIDENTIAL RACE

Islanders usually vote for Democratic presidents. In 1988 Dukakis (D) drew 54% to Bush's (R) 45%. In 1992 Clinton received 48% of the vote, with Bush getting 37%, and Perot 14%. A recent poll (8/9/96) finds Clinton favored by 53% of registered voters, with Dole receiving 32%, and 15% Undecided. If Perot were to run, he would receive only 6% of the vote. Clinton's share would drop to 51%, Dole's would remain at 32%, and Undecided would decline to 12%.

In every demographic category Clinton swamps Dole, but Dole does best with Caucasians about one-third of the population) and people earning $70,000 or more per year.

No presidential campaigning has taken place. Democratic activists are hardly enthusiastic about the Clinton-Gore team, begrudgingly supporting them as the lesser of evils. Republicans Dole-Kemp and House candidate Orson Swindle (see below) will be tarred with the brush of Newt Gingrich's Contract With America "extremism" and Christian Coalition social intolerence. Hawai`i Republican — who are quite "moderate" in comparison to the party's national image — will strongly promote the themes of inclusiveness and economic reform expressed by Colin Powell and Jack Kemp. Ralph Nader will be on Hawai`i Presidential ballot on the Green Party slate, along with candidates from the Natural Law and Libertarian parties. An independent Nader campaign organization headed by the original Hawai`i chair of Ross Perot's We the People group, assisted by an able Green Party campaigner, might attract some support from disillusioned progressive Democrats and Independents. In 1980 independent candidate John Anderson drew 11% in Hawai`i.

U.S. HOUSE RACES:

ABERCROMBIE VS SWINDLE
With no governor or U.S. Senate contests, Hawai`i's hottest race will be between two-term incumbent Neil Abercrombie (D) and Orson Swindle, a strongly conservative Reagan Republican, who made a strong but unsuccessful bid in 1994 to unseat Abercrombie. (Abercrombie 55%, Swindle 45%) Abercrombie 58, is a former state Representative (`74-78), state Senator (`78-86), and served first in the U.S. House in 1986-87. He's been in Congress since 1991. Abercrombie is well known for his flowing long hair and full beard, liberal stands, and impassioned speeches. Born on the Mainland, he has lived in Hawai`i for almost 30 years.

Orson Swindle, 59, has never held or ran for elected office until his 1994 challenge of Abercrombie. Moving to Hawai`i only 5 years ago, Swindle promotes his military background (retired Marine Corps Lt. Colonel) and the fact that he was a POW held captive in Hanoi for 6 years. He served as Assistant Secretary of Commerce in the Reagan administration. Swindle came to national prominence as a spokesman for Ross Perot's United We Stand presidential campaign organization in 1992.

The Abercrombie-Swindle contest offers voters a rare clash between sharply-drawn ideologies. Abercrombie opposed the recently passed welfare-reform bill because it would hurt Hawai`i by shifting costs to the state, which is struggling financially. He passionately protests that the bill will hurt the young by cutting off aid to infants and children in need of food and medical attention. Also legal immigrants — Hawai`i has a significant number — will have their medical, disability and other benefits lopped off.

Swindle, a forceful advocate of Reaganist conservative ideals, blasts Abercrombie as a "extreme liberal" who "likes the system we have that everyone knows is a total failure." Abercrombie stands against needed reforms that "the vast majority of the people in Hawai`i and this nation" support. The welfare bill "will force people to work when they can work." It "will lift families out of poverty and not continue to enslave them to it." Swindle returns again and again to the theme of "fighting for freedom." He speaks of small business owners as "heroic" in their efforts to survive in an hostile business environment. Democrats, he asserts, are anti-business, want to over-regulate, raise even higher taxes, and are not doing enough to reduce high costs of workers' compensation, and insurance. Swindle stands as the candidate who represents those in Hawai`i who are "fed up with big government," who believe "government is too big, spends too much money, and controls too much of our private and business lives."

Swindle attacks the dominant Democratic Party as standing for "high taxes, ineffectiveness, waste, corruption, less freedom and government taking more money out of our pockets." He calls Abercrombie the "antithesis of what mainstream America is all about." "We need a new vision — less government. Reduce taxes, cut spending, strengthen military readiness, reform congress." Will the themes of strident anti-government, pro-business Reaganism and Gingrichism expressed by Swindle play well in Hawai`i? Many of Hawai`i's Republicans — and certainly all Republican elected officials — hold to a much more moderate position. In 1994 Swindle was riding a wave of anti-Democratic Party feelings, and not much effort by the Party to mobilize grassroots support for Abercrombie.

A recent poll (8/7/96) shows Abercrombie holding a big lead over his Republican challenger, Orson Swindle, for urban Honolulu U.S. House seat. Abercrombie gets 51% of today's votes, to Swindle's 24%. Twenty-two percent say they are "undecided." [Historically "Undecideds" in Hawai`i usually end up voting for incumbent and Democrat candidates.] Abercrombie draws major support from traditional Democratic voters: longtime residents of Japanese ancestry. He also is popular with younger voters, and women. Swindle's main support ethnically comes from Caucasians and males. In 1994, Abercrombie spent $391,000 to Swindle's $276,000. Swindle has already raise that amount this year, and has said he needs $500,000 to run a credible race against Abercrombie, and is hoping to raise $750,000. Swindle anticipates receiving generous donations from national Republican groups eager to defeat a liberal Democratic incumbent.

Although a staunch "liberal," and member of the "dissent" faction during his State Legislature days, Abercrombie has maintained good relations with labor leaders and other Democratic Party power-brokers, including the current Governor and senior Senator Dan Inouye. They will provide the funds and troops for Abercrombie to mount a much more vigorous grassroots-based campaign than occurred in 1994.

PATSY MINK VS. BOBBY BUNDA
Longtime incumbent Patsy Mink, occupant of the rural O`ahu -Neighbor Islands seat, faces no real threat — again. Her primary challenger, Democrat Bobby Bunda, 49, is a third-generation Filipino-American born in a sugar camp on O`ahu. Bunda, who works off-session as independent insurance agent, is a nondescript legislature with no notable accomplishments. Bunda has difficulty in defining where Mink and he differ on issues, and the only money he has raised comes from a personal loan.