I am going to miss the late Sen. Sam Slom.

After Sens. Gordon Trimble and Fred Hemmings left office and Mike Gabbard switched to the Democratic Party, Slom earned the nickname many of you knew as “the Lone Ranger” for being the sole GOP survivor in his chamber.

As is the running tradition with our government organizations, nicknames, call signs, and code names are often unflatteringly bestowed. When I was appointed to work at the state House of Representatives in 2005, Slom was a close sidekick to “Doctor No.”

That was the internal nickname given to Trimble, the minority policy leader by Senate majority caucus staff for his habit of voting “no” on nearly everything, often without giving an explanation beyond “this is a bad idea.”

Though Trimble didn’t always give a persuasive speech, Slom caught my attention for always voicing his legislative inclinations, concerns or disappointments in detail. Before he was the Lone Ranger, he was, to me, the senator who always had to speak, and I was impressed by how he never seemed to tire of articulately speaking out, even during long floor sessions.

Slom’s penchant for making his opinions known wasn’t limited to when he was in committee or on the Senate floor. When I got hired as an aide by the House Republicans in 2009, I was even more amazed by how Slom would often rebuke legislators and even their staffers in the Capitol hallways if he had an issue with them.

“You have no excuse for missing that conference committee,” I’d hear him say sternly and often to chronically absent colleagues. And to staffers who had been goofing around, he’d say “what you did was inappropriate.” Though Slom laughed and joked often, he was extremely serious about our legislative bearing, and when he saw things that brought dishonor or disrupted the character of the office, he let us know without hesitation. 

On one occasion in 2009, Slom even told my caucus leader, then-Rep. Lynn Finnegan, that he thought both House minority representatives and staffers alike had become toxic and too many of us were bickering or gossiping against each other. His act of moral initiative put all of us on notice that “we had gotten on the Senate’s radar for the wrong reasons,” and it immediately changed the atmosphere to a more disciplined environment for the rest of our session.

It was because of this side of Slom that I quickly developed a glowing respect for him. He wasn’t an empty suit that needed staffers with preapproved talking points to prop him up, he was dynamic and someone who paid attention.

I’d always thought “the Lone Ranger” was a label Hawaii Republicans shouldn’t repeat, so after I left the Legislature, when Slom asked me if I could interview him in October 2012 for the Washington Times, I wrote an article talking about how he had become a conservative “Army of One” in the Senate. 

I used the term “Army” because Slom being the only Republican in the Senate reminded me of the story of Benjamin O. Davis Jr. as a Black cadet at West Point in the 1930s. Davis recounted in a Washington Post interview that had to do everything alone, by himself, learning on his own, adapting on his own, achieving whatever he could, whenever he could, all on his own. Like Davis, Slom didn’t care what others thought about him, he had a mission in mind and he stuck to it at all costs.

In the years that followed, Slom and I became friends who volunteered together as debate coaches or speech preppers on various campaigns, worked on policy research together, and he graciously always referred me to people who he thought could learn from my ideas.

By the time that Slom died last week, it had been almost six years since the last time I’d seen the former senator. I wish I had kept up with him and seen him more, but the experience and lessons I learned from him will stay with me, forever. Hawaii legislators and other local elected officials can also learn from Slom’s consistency and steadiness, because he wasn’t just a political personality, he was a decent human being who commanded respect and led by personal example.

As I reflect on Slom’s career and life, I’m reminded of something that President George H.W. Bush said in a State of the Union address in 1991: “Let future generations understand the burden and the blessings of freedom. Let them say we stood, where duty required us to stand. Let them know that together, we affirmed America and the world as a community of conscience.” 

Slom didn’t just represent his constituents, he represented the more important duty to conscience. That inspires me, challenges me and fills me with hope that more people in office will be like him. Anyone can have opinions, but in a time when opinions are so flexible, having conscience is a more important and much-needed quality.

It’s one thing to say that someone was a thought leader in our time. Anyone can talk, because talk is cheap, and money buys all the opinions you want. We have too many talkers and too many influencers and too many thought leaders in 2023. It’s another thing entirely to be a leader, in one’s actions, in one’s standards and in one’s dealings with people, both in public and in private. Slom was a leader. 

Slom may not have been president of the Senate, he may not have been a money chair, he may have been all alone, but Slom set an example as a true leader to remember. He fought hard and lived well. And that, dear friends, is a man to learn from.

In the military, there’s a saying dating back to World War I, that when people we served with or alongside die, they have “gone West.” Slom, the Army of One that he was, has gone West into the sunset, but a new sunrise needs to follow him in the days and years to come of new political leaders guided by conscience and duty.