The Honolulu Advertiser

Sunday July 13, 1997

Right to Rule

Religious Right aims to win elections in 1998, then change laws.

By Ira Rohter

Ira Rohter is an associate professor of political science at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

Early next winter, months before the 1998 elections, professional right-wing organizers from the Mainland will begin to arrive in Hawaii.

Out-of-state groups such as the Christian Coalition, the American Family Association, Focus on the Family and the Traditional Values Coalition intend to pour a lot of energy and money into passing the anti same-sex-marriage constitutional amendment.

Using the same-sex controversy as a beachhead, the Mainland pros' second job will be to defeat liberal Democratic legislators in 1998, replacing them with conservatives who will not only restrict gay rights, but act as advocates for other rightist social and economic views. These Mainland organizers, most of whom represent the Religious Right, will recruit conservative candidates with offers of Mainland-raised dollars and advice from professional polling and campaign experts.

Working through the Republican Party, and anti-gay groups such as "Hawaii's Future Today" headed by political heavyweights, and Mike Gabbard's "Stop Promoting Homosexuality Now!" and the "Alliance for Traditional Marriage," the Right will topple many liberal Democrats. Conservative Democrats will be spared or supported.

Like Newt Gingrich's minions in Congress a few years earlier, newly elected conservative legislators in Hawaii will attack workers' rights, medical and social services for the poor, environmental regulations, abortion rights' public education, gay and lesbian civil rights, gun control laws, affirmative action, and Native Hawaiian land and water rights.

Decay Paves the Way

The Right's task has been made easier by the corruption, arrogance and absence of fresh ideas displayed by the top leaders of Hawaii's Democratic Party. They and their well-connected friends have coasted on the party's dominance for 40 years. They do not grasp the public's desire for change. Bear in mind, the major sweep of Republicans in the 1994 federal elections was preceded by the public's disillusionment with a Democratic Congress.

This disillusionment with the ruling party showed up in our own 1994 election, when nearly two-thirds of the voters cast their ballots against Democrat Party standard-bearer Ben Cayetano (who won only a slight plurality in a four-person race). In 1996, several of the more liberal Democrat legislators (and one liberal Republican) who were targeted by the Religious Right were defeated.

Neither Democratic legislative leaders nor the governor seem to understand the fundamental forces causing Hawaii's economic downturn, or what to do about them.

Hawaii's economy is at a cross-roads, as its sugar and pineapple plantations close down, its military bases shrink, and its main economic engine — the tourism industry — faces many challenges after years of easy hypergrowth.

Hawaii's unique island culture and natural beauty are also rapidly disappearing.

While debate goes on among business people, community activists, ordinary citizens and a few government leaders, Democratic kingpins seem bewildered and paralyzed.

Their responses have been unimaginative. They have slashed funding — the good with the bad — and passed minor bills that reflect token adjustments. They have tinkered with budget accounting by raiding special funds and reserves. They have pumped up the economy with $1 billion in state bonds for construction and given tens of millions to the Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau.

In sum, the Democrats have failed to come up with even the semblance of a coherent program to alter the form and function of state government itself, let alone implemented one.

Voters Are Changing

Hawaii's political landscape has altered from what it was years ago. Many Mainland-born voters have settled here who are independents or conservative — their impact is heaviest on the Neighbor Islands, where the Republicans are already strongest. Newcomers do not share plantation-era experiences, the historical roots of the Democrat takeover in 1954.

The passage of time has also affected Island-born voters. Old-time party loyalists are literally dying off.

Their children, having grown up better off, in an era dominated by Reagan-influenced, pro-business, anti-government economic values, are more conservative. Note the victory of stridently independent Peter Carlisle over party-supported Democrat David Arakawa in the 1996 Honolulu prosecutor's race. And the near-defeat of liberal Democrat Neil Abercrombie by ultra-conservative Orson Swindle. Many young people are so alienated that they don't bother to vote.

The Right Knows How to Win Elections

Its inflammatory rhetoric and well-honed fund-raising capabilities enable the Right to pour millions of dollars into local campaigns. It wouldn't cost much to have a major impact on our elections. You can run a decent House campaign for under $20,000; a Senate race for $75,000.

If the Right were to go after half the Democrat House seats (22 at $20,000 = $440,000) and half the Democrat Senate seats open in 1998 (12 x $75,000 = $900,000), that equals dumping only $1.5 million into state races.

Besides waging a well-financed, slick media campaign, the new missionaries will work as efficiently, if less visibly, through local churches. They will host coffee hours, district mailings and organized door knocking and telephoning, to register and reinforce pro-amendment voters. (Remember, half of Hawaii's eligible voters do not normally vote.)

With this kind of money and campaign muscle placed at their disposal, conservative challengers can be enticed to enter races they never thought winnable before.

Can Democrats Survive?

Incumbent Democrats and moderates of other parties will find it difficult to stand up to a conservative juggernaut.

As a rule, legislative candidates run pretty much on their own. They must raise their own funds and enlist their own campaign workers. For this reason, labor union-endorsements are invaluable. But a lot of the union money and manpower they need will be drawn into the races for governor and federal Senate and House seats.

Furthermore. the Democratic Party is fragmented. Two networks of old-time big players are competing for power. Cayetano is linked to the old Ariyoshi crowd, while Honolulu Mayor Jeremy Harris is tied up with Waihee supporters.

A third, liberal, "grass-roots" faction, drawing largely on old Rainbow Coalition and Democratic Movement activists, has been dispirited by Cayetano's budget cuts, absence of innovation and closed style of decision-making, yet remains skeptical of Harris and his allies.

Public relations experts are already massaging Ben Cayetano's image as the '98 campaign unfolds.

His handlers may even get him to mouth a "vision" statement and bring forth a well thought-out legislative package next year. But the truth will win out — "the emperor has no clothes." Although Cayetano ran as an "outsider" in '94, he can't play the White Knight reformer card again.

The liberals themselves have no real answer to Hawaii's economic plight, either. Statist 1960s big-government solutions have been discredited.

The sad truth is that there exists a vacuum in intellectual leadership in state government.

Progressives Rallied in Other States -- Will We?

The Religious Right has been defeated in several recent Mainland elections. But it took a heroic effort by a network of informed and committed citizens to win.

In San Diego County, Calif. in 1990, 56 right-wing candidates swept into office. Leaders of the Christian Coalition had joined forces with other Religious Right groups and individuals to field 90 candidates for state legislative seats and positions on hospital planning boards, city councils, water district boards and, most significantly, school boards.

Nearly two-thirds of the rightists won.

In the aftermath, an eclectic coalition of grass-roots organizations came together. Whatever their differences, and party affiliations, they shared the belief that their government should be moderate and inclusive rather than extremist.

For the 1992 election, a clearinghouse group compiled a voter guide that identified issues, positions and backgrounds for all candidates. A grass-roots campaign group, the Community Coalition Network, recruited and supported moderate candidates. This mobilization of liberal and moderate voters resulted in the defeat of San Diego's rightists.

Similar experiences were reported in Oregon and in Colorado, in response to a series of right-wing political victories.

Will a multi-partisan community coalition come together in Hawaii to fight the Religious Right in 1998? I'm not optimistic. Democratic stalwarts are heavily burdened with their attachments to a decaying party apparatus.

But voters are increasingly angry with politicians lacking vision and solutions. Many are ready for change.

Perhaps the Democrats need a purging — though, unfortunately, some of the better ones are likely to be kicked out of office. Perhaps the Religious Right will openly take over Hawaii's Republican Party, as it has done in many Mainland states.

Perhaps moderates need to be outraged when our own Republican-style "Contract with Hawaii" translates cliches about helping business and cutting back government into bills that really advantage big corporations, off-shore investors, land developers and the well-off, while weakening environmental protection, workers' rights, civil liberties, social services, Native Hawaiian rights, etc.

For the last 40 years, most important decisions have been made by the powerholders in the back rooms. With the oldboy network in disarray, perhaps a more open form of policy-making can emerge.