Election resurrection: What a turnaround. People were mostly really nice to each other. No one got kicked out of the meeting. And it lasted just under three hours.
The Sunshine Blog was surprised and happy to see that last week’s meeting of the Hawaiʻi Elections Commission — the first in five months — was much less acrimonious and a heck of a lot shorter than in the past. The politically polarized commission even managed to elect a pro tem chair to serve until members can find a permanent one.
But, alas, all is not hunky-dory. Only five of the eight commissioners tuned into the Zoom meeting and only one of those was a commissioner appointed by Democrats. The other three Dem-appointed members skipped the meeting.
The next meeting is scheduled for Thursday, but commissioner John Sabas — the sole Dem who made it to the Nov. 12 meeting — will be out of town. Good luck reaching quorum, let alone agreeing on new agenda items. The commission has also seen a lot of turnover, and it would not be a surprise to see more commissioners bail.
The commission fell apart in June when it could not reach consensus on a chair, who would also be the ninth member. Two of the candidates at the time, Ralph Cushnie and Tamara McKay, are now running the show, with McKay (pronounced makai) getting the unanimous nod to be the temporary chair.
McKay is clearly a nice and capable person who has boned up on administrative procedure and Robert’s Rules of Order, something a chair must master. But many of the same people who tuned in to testify raised the same gripes that have long slowed the business of the commission.
It includes a lot of personal attacks, especially on commissioners who disagree with Cushnie, who has led investigations into whether Hawaiʻi’s 2024 election was fair and valid. Some of those attacking the commission are also pushing for the abolition of mail-in voting and a return to election day-only voting.
They also really really really want to get rid of Chief Election Officer Scott Nago. Some still accuse him of treason and other criminal acts. One testifier said he should be fired and forced to leave the islands. Yikes.
But the Elections Commission also has substantive matters before it that Nago may ultimately have to answer for. One of those who is not too happy with him is Rep. Kanani Souza, who ultimately was reelected even though she was knocked out after the primary by the Elections Office’s tiebreaker lottery-like drawing. It took a Supreme Court ruling to get her back on the ballot where voters had the final say.
“The recent controversy surrounding the method used to resolve a tied legislative race is one example,” Rep. Kanani Souza wrote in her testimony. “Questions have also been raised about voters receiving ballots for the wrong district. These are not matters that should be dismissed or left unresolved. They warrant a thorough examination of the procedures, oversight, and leadership responsible for ensuring that elections are conducted properly.”
Cushnie has raised concerns about the quality of advice Nago’s Office of Elections was getting from Deputy Attorney General Jordan Ching when Cushnie and McKay urged the Elections Office to allow the Elections Commission to meet. The two commissioners had to take their case to the Hawaiʻi Supreme Court, which ordered the commission to get back to work with the office’s help. Cushnie now wants the commission to hire its own legal counsel.
The Elections Commission did not meet during the primary and general election. Thus far, it has not been able to review any objections or complaints lodged about both elections, which is actually a core part of their unpaid jobs. At least for now, McKay seems committed to ensuring that they do exactly that.
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Survival of the unfittest: And speaking of Democrats who went MIA last week, to use a baseball term: It was a swing and a miss.
Democrats had the chance to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for high crimes and misdemeanors related to his handling of the Iran War, abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and extrajudicial killings on the high seas.
But House Republicans successfully blocked the efforts, which was spearheaded by one of their own, U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, because 11 Democrats didn’t show up to vote. Some of them said they were stuck in D.C. traffic. The impeachment effort failed 211 to 204.
Hawaiʻi Reps. Ed Case and Jill Tokuda both managed to find their way to the vote on time. And both voted to move the impeachment effort along.
Case told Civil Beat’s Nick Grube that while he wished his Democratic colleagues had shown up for the vote he doesn’t see it as an indication of the party’s ability to take charge once they’re in the majority come January.
Case believes Hegseth still deserves to be impeached. The Defense Secretary has obstructed congressional oversight by withholding information, including about the cost of the Iran War, and has undermined merit-based military promotions by sidelining or blocking officers for political reasons, such as for their connection to the military’s Covid-19 vaccine policy or the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Some of the information Hegseth has provided, Case said, has been inaccurate, twisted or misrepresented.
“He completely dismisses and does not fundamentally understand the role of Congress in overseeing the largest portion of our entire federal budget and an area that has life or death consequences,” Case says. “I’m not prepared to accept any longer a secretary that is in charge of a department and leads a culture of basically blowing Congress off.”
Whether that means Hegseth will face impeachment in the new Congress remains to be seen. After the failed vote this week, House Speaker Hakeem Jeffries said: “This is not the end of it. It’s just the beginning.”
But Case said that he and many of his Democratic colleagues are not in the mood for “endless impeachment proceedings,” especially given the many other priorities aimed at reducing costs and improving affordability.
If Democrats do take another swing at ousting Hegseth, he said he’d prefer a more methodical approach, one that includes hearings and gathering evidence, rather than a forced vote by an outgoing Republican during a lame-duck session. This time around he felt that Democrats were pressured into voting for Hegseth’s impeachment before they were ready.
“This is not how most Democrats want to deal with oversight of this administration,” Case says. “I would welcome a very deliberate analysis of Secretary Hegseth’s conduct in office, and if that led to a proposed impeachment of him, I would be willing to do it.”
Family feud?: Also in the nation’s capital, Congress has been considering a controversial permitting reform bill that’s dividing members and led to a lot of hand-wringing among conservationists, including those in the islands.
Count Hawaiʻi’s two Democratic senators among the delegations who split their votes this week while advancing the proposal.
The Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act seeks to make it easier to build energy and infrastructure projects, such as pipelines, offshore wind farms and data centers, by accelerating environmental and cultural reviews and making it harder for lawsuits to halt progress.
Proponents of the measures, including U.S. Sen Brian Schatz, have said that this will help get clean energy projects off the ground and lead to cheaper, faster electricity and drive down energy costs for Americans while creating good-paying jobs.
“This bill is a bipartisan compromise,” he said, “and deals like this are tough.”
Opponents, however, warn that such reforms will also make it easier for polluters in the gas and oil industry to trample over existing environmental protections as well as those that seek to protect Indigenous lands and cultures.
That’s why U.S. Sen. Mazie Hirono said she couldn’t go along with the bill as currently constituted and voted against it with 24 other senators, including several of her progressive colleagues. Hirono’s staff told Civil Beat she was particularly concerned about the bill diminishing the voice of Indigenous communities while locking in fossil fuel projects that she said were hastily approved by President Donald Trump’s administration without a chance for amendment or revocation.
Schatz, who is the ranking member on the Indian Affairs Committee, said that changes had been made to the bill to make sure that federal agencies consults with Native Hawaiian organizations and tribes about the potential impacts future projects might have on historic and cultural resources.
“I understand these changes won’t be enough for everyone to support the bill,” he said, “but we’ll continue working to ensure Native Hawaiian organizations and Tribes have a meaningful voice in decisions affecting their communities.”
Local environmental and Indigenous rights groups have lined up in opposition to the bill, including the NDN Collective, Sierra Club of Hawaiʻi, Earthjustice and Local Power Hawaiʻi, calling it an “end-run” around bedrock environmental and cultural protections, such as the Endangered Species Act, Clean Water Act and National Environmental Policy Act. They want to pause work on the bill until Democrats are fully in control of Congress which starts in January.
As of now the Senate is expecting its final vote on the bill next week.
Cabinet maker: Gov. Josh Green continues to make more changes to his second-term Cabinet.
The latest new face, The Blog hears, is Robert Yu as director of the Department of Budget and Finance. He was president and general manager of Oahu Transit Services and a member of the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation board. Yu would succeed Seth Colby, if confirmed by the state Senate.
George “Rick” Bruno, meanwhile, may be named by Green to run the Department of Health, sources tell The Blog. He was formerly president of The Queen’s Medical Center. Bruno, if appointed and if confirmed by the Senate, would succeed Kenny Fink.
