Since 1959, 16 people have served as Hawai‘i’s lieutenant governor.
It’s a position without power that provides a path to power.
Where it often requires a great degree of name recognition to gain election and serves as a natural stepping stone to higher office, the position functions as a political incubator.
Per state law, candidates for both offices run separately in their respective party primaries. Once a candidate triumphs in each primary race, a party’s nominees for lieutenant governor and governor join forces on a single ticket for the general election.
When candidates have different priorities, philosophies, or personalities, it can create some politically tricky headaches.
It’s a high-profile position with lots of paid staff and a big office on the fifth floor of the State Capitol. The lieutenant governor is effectively Hawai‘i’s equivalent of the U.S. vice presidency.
It’s also an office where political patience is a necessity. Once elected, successful candidates are often frustrated by the lack of actual authority. As a result, a discontented lieutenant governor can also serve as a source of conflict in the executive branch.
Those who become lieutenant governor are often from politically-influential roles in state politics. In a Faustian fashion, they may bargain away political power in order to gain a more prestigious office.
It’s a huge gamble for any politician, but many still clamber to take the bet.
The Years of Early Instability
Governors and lieutenant governors have a history of not getting along. When this happens, governors are left in a politically compromised position, while lieutenant governors stand to lose their political careers.
For the first three decades of the State of Hawai‘i’s history, lieutenant governors frequently clashed with their governors. In fact, these clashes politically weakened governors, sewing chaos across the executive branch.
Political divisions between the governor and lieutenant governor destroyed the administration of Governor William Quinn. His lieutenant governor, James Kealoha, felt slighted by the lack of control over political appointments. The relationship soured, with Kealoha challenging Quinn in the 1962 primaries. Despite Keahola's defeat, the fractured GOP lacked the energy to defeat the Democratic Party's candidate, John A. Burns.
Burns was elected in 1962 alongside party ally William S. Richardson. Richardson, as his first lieutenant governor, was seen as a potential successor. However, the sudden resignation of the Hawai‘i Supreme Court Chief Justice Wilfred Tsukiyama created a unique opportunity for Burns. Richardson, instead of continuing as lieutenant governor, was elevated as chief justice. A technocrat, Andrew Ing, temporarily served as lieutenant governor for a year.
Even so, Burns had trouble finding a loyal lieutenant governor to succeed him. He tried to get Kenneth Brown elected to the position in 1966, but voters didn’t warm to this hand-picked successor. Instead, Burns was saddled with former U.S. Congressman Tom Gill. Gill and Burns were of different political temperaments. Their inability to get along led to another politically brutal fight at the ballot box in 1970, where Lieutenant Governor Gill nearly ousted Burns.
Luckily for Burns, he triumphed. A new candidate for lieutenant governor, George Ariyoshi, was tapped to succeed Burns. Unlike Gill, Ariyoshi was neither outspoken nor abrasive. When Burns became incapacitated in 1973 by an accelerating cancer, the silent Ariyoshi rose to power as governor.
The Case for Abolition
Like Quinn and Burns, Ariyoshi struggled to settle on a stable lieutenant governor in his administration. His first lieutenant governor, Nelson Doi, was part of Tom Gill’s political faction and refused to serve more than a single term.
Ironically, Doi also became an outspoken critic of the lieutenant governor’s office. He called for its outright abolition at the 1978 Constitutional Convention.
Doi was burnt out from the position, so he ditched the boredom and political stability of the position after one term to return to the Big Island. It’s a bit odd, as he could have stayed in office, bided his time, and eventually run for governor in 1986.
That never happened. Instead, Doi was succeeded by another political upstart, Jean King. Like Doi, King did not care for the Ariyoshi administration and directly challenged Ariyoshi in the 1982 primaries, narrowly losing to the two-term governor. It was a fight akin to the duel between Burns and Gill in 1970.
At this point, the next lieutenant governor appeared to be hesitant about opposing Ariyoshi. John Waihe‘e, a former delegate to the 1978 Constitutional Convention (which had limited governors to serving no more than two full terms) and legislator, set out to wait four years before running for governor.
Waihe‘e won in his race for governor in 1986. From this point onwards, lieutenant governors no longer ran against incumbent governors in an election.
Throughout Waihe‘e’s tenure, Benjamin Cayetano sat quietly as lieutenant governor. Arguably, his tenure set the stage for the contemporary, two-term lieutenant governor who had (until recently) dominated Hawai‘i’s political landscape.
Cayetano, like his eventual successors Mazie Hirono and James ‘Duke’ Aiona, played a largely quiet, supporting role to his governor. In Cayetano’s case, the reward was his own two-term tenure as governor. Neither Hirono nor Aiona got the same opportunity.
The Return of Temporary Lieutenant Governors
Since 2010, no lieutenant governor has served in office for a full two terms. If voters re-elect incumbent Lieutenant Governor Sylvia Luke in 2026, she could break that trend.
Governor Abercrombie had two lieutenant governors. Shan Tsutsui, the former Senate President who also served as lieutenant governor under Governor David Ige, quit midway through his term. Ige also had three lieutenant governors, with then-state senator Josh Green serving throughout Ige’s final term.
As was the case with Waihe‘e’s single term as lieutenant governor, Green’s tenure positioned him to run for governor in 2022. It’s a situation whose calculus parallels Kaua‘i County Mayor Derek Kawakami’s own situation in 2026. If he manages to win the 2022 primary for lieutenant governor, he’ll be set to run for governor in four years.
The Successful Lieutenant Governors
One out of every four of those lieutenant governors used the office as a stepping stone to the governor's seat. Hawai‘i’s two U.S. Senators, Brian Schatz and Mazie Hirono, also served time in the position.
Keeping a lieutenant governor happy often benefits the governor. Governors Quinn, Burns, and Ariyoshi faced challenges from their lieutenant governors. Ige could have arguably faced a challenge in 2018 from then-Lieutenant Governor Shan Tsutsui, but no such challenge ever came. In an unprecedented move, Tsutsui instead resigned to enter the private sector.
In turn, working with the governor as a lieutenant governor is politically advantageous. George Ariyoshi, John Waihe‘e, and Josh Green served as lieutenant governor for only a single term without serious squabbles with their governors.
Through their own initiatives, lieutenant governors can stay busy without bothering the governor. Lieutenant Governor Luke, for instance, has focused on pre-kindergarten education. Other lieutenant governors took the same approach, finding policy priorities often ignored by the governor. Cayetano focused on afterschool programs for students, while Green focused on ending homelessness.
Luke’s peaceful tenure as lieutenant governor has been shaken in 2026 as a result of her admission that she might be the target of federal—and now state—investigations into her campaign contributions. The admission followed an announcement in late January by Hawai‘i Attorney General Anne Lopez that her office would share evidence with federal authorities.
It’s all to say that a lieutenant governor occupies a precarious place in Hawai‘i’s political landscape. It’s a position of little political power that positions the politically ambitious for office as a governor.
If mismanaged, however, lieutenant governors may find themselves forgotten. That’s simply part of the political bet.
