Civil Beat reported that Republicans in the state House are one seat short of a threshold. Cross it this November, and House rules let them force floor votes on bills the majority would rather leave in committee.
The report treated this as news, and it is. A minority that can make the majority take public stands on hard questions is a minority with a tool.
Whether it is a minority with a plan is a different matter. Handing a caucus a procedural weapon is a little like handing a neighbor a chainsaw. It’s a tool, yes. But what does he mean to do with it?
The problem with Hawaiʻi Republicans is a focus on tactics in the absence of a clear goal and sound strategy.
Suppose you are going for a drive. A goal is the destination you are trying to reach. A strategy is the route. A tactic is the turn you take at the next light.
Once the destination is set (Costco), the route is unlikely to change (drive east), though the turns may, depending on traffic. Then you arrive and find Costco closed, and you learn something. Costco was never the goal. The goal was toilet paper. Off to Walmart!
Most of us manage this on a Saturday morning and lose the ability the moment we enter politics.
Forced floor votes are a tactic. They earn their keep only under certain conditions. The vote has to pin an opponent to a position he would rather not be seen holding. Someone has to be waiting in his district to run against that position. And the threat of the vote has to be worth more than the vote itself, because a threat can be traded while a lost vote cannot. Without those, you have only caused delay and called it victory.
So what is the goal? Is the Hawaiʻi Republican Party a party for Hawaiʻi first, or a local franchise of the national brand? Is it a libertarian party, or the older conservatism of Buckley, which believed in government and merely wanted less of it? The party’s own materials do not say, and it is hard to build a strategy toward a goal nobody has agreed on. You cannot plot a route to a destination nobody has named.
Consider one representative who, for a stretch, voted no on nearly every bill that grew the government. It is fair to ask what the votes accomplished. Did the government get smaller? Did a colleague change his mind? Did a challenger somewhere get a wedge to run on?
Consider a senator whose bills to bar foreign ownership of land showed a real populist instinct and a shaky grasp of what the courts allow. The rest of the caucus left the bills alone, having guessed correctly that the base would not warm to them.
These are men who want to fight, which is more than can be said for some. But there isn’t much virtue in wanting to fight without knowing what for.
Jesus asked which king, going to war, does not first sit down and consider whether with 10,000 he can meet the one coming against him with 20,000. Smaller armies do sometimes win. Gideon’s did. The Lord cut his force from 32,000 to 300, and the 300 broke the Midianite camp in a night. But they won by doing precisely what they were told, in the way they were told to do it, and they knew whose victory it was.
Small numbers are not a handicap. Small numbers without a plan are a handicap. Small numbers that mistake noise for a plan are a gift to the other side.
A party exists to govern. Winning is the price of admission, not the prize. The Republicans will soon have a threat they can trade, but a trade requires knowing what you want in return.
Here is one answer. Government in Hawaiʻi does a great many things, most of them slowly and at great expense. But a few things are essential: airports, harbors, highways. A caucus that made itself the party of roads that get paved and harbors that get dredged could build a platform of competence rather than protest. It would also earn the trust of the people in this state who actually build things, which is where power in Hawaiʻi has always lived. It would mean trading the pleasures of opposition for the work of governing.
Such a party would focus on government doing a small number of things well. The base for such a party is already here. Hawaiʻi is aging, and its politics run more practical than radical. It mostly likes being American. It wants government smaller and the potholes filled, and sees no contradiction in that. What the party ought to stand for is a longer question, and one for another column.
Republicans may well win another seat in November. But winning a seat was never the goal.
Author Sterling Higa can be reached at hello@sterlinghiga.com.
For the latest news of Hawai‘i, sign up here for our free Daily Edition newsletter.
