I get the question every single day.
The question, of course, is “What can we do to make our government (island, state, world) a better place?”
I offer two suggestions, and I’ll expand on them here.
The first: Think globally, act locally.
The second: SHOW UP – at demonstrations, in the rooms, online, and at the ballot box.
Acting locally means starting at the County Council level.
Thinking globally and acting locally translates to County issues, including…
Agriculture: Ensuring food safety and production, regardless of tariffs, barge schedules, or national food laws/practices. This can be done via County land use requirements and tax incentives for food crops farmed with healthy, sustainable methods.
Law Enforcement: Protecting the Constitutional right of all County residents to due process, via agreements with federal authorities authorizing County support only when the federal actions follow County-specified legal guidelines.
Affordable Housing: Protecting a County resident’s right to sleep in a private car parked in a designated County-owned area when no other legal options for shelter exist in the County. Requiring by County ordinance that large employers who want land use zoning changes, and who use workers from outside the County, must provide additional housing for those workers, thus increasing existing housing inventories. The County could also amend property tax and land use policies to incentivize the development of affordable housing, paid for by absentee, foreign, corporate owners, the resort industry and others.
Environmental Protection: Via County land use and zoning ordinances, protecting sensitive areas like aquifers, shorelines, and coastal areas that may be at risk due to state or federal actions (or inactions).
These are just four areas in which County governments could significantly impact all of Hawai‘i, and even the planet. If all four Hawai’i Counties took similar action, the impact would be statewide… and as a model, even worldwide.
Fundamental political fact: Majority rules.
Passing any Hawai’i State law requires the approval of 13 State Senators, 26 Representatives, and the Governor.
A Council majority on Kaua`i is four.
FOUR Council-members have the power to change the laws within Kaua`i County. The Mayor is also needed to approve such change and/or a fifth member of the Council must be available to override a veto.
In other words, a total of 5 people must agree in order to change a law for Kaua`i County, versus 40 people for a State law.
For Maui, Hawai‘i County, and the City and County of Honolulu, the magic number is five, plus the Mayor… which means that for change to happen, six people must come to agreement.
Seems pretty obvious that getting 5 or 6 people onboard is much easier than trying to corral 40 to do the same thing.
So why aren’t we focusing more on making change happen via our County Councils?
True, the County area of responsibility and legal authority is narrower than that of State government, but the regulatory authority is still huge.
Creative County lawmakers can also develop “work-arounds.”
For example, the County may not have the power to tell farmers what they can and cannot grow — but they can leverage property tax authority by “use,” to incentivize healthy food crops grown for local consumption, and disincentivize unhealthy “factory farms.”
Similarly, the County may not have the power to legislate what restaurants can serve and sell — but they could provide a generous property tax incentive to those food establishments who commit in writing to serving and selling a minimum of X% locally grown agricultural products. The County already provides similar incentives to landowners who rent their residential properties at affordable rates.
Bottom line: We need to spend more time and energy focusing on our County Councils — acting locally, but thinking globally.
Gary Hooser
Former Kaua`i County Councilmember
Former Hawai‘i State Senator – Majority Leader
Presently retired and looking for good trouble-maker
GaryHooser's Blog 
Well said Richard. Well said. You’ve moved me.
I agree that citizens United is one of the worst things that ever happened to this country. I work for several years to try to get things changed at the state level. But everything just gets killed because money is too delicious to the politicians. Why do we not have more state ballot initiatives like public funding of elections or marijuana legalization? If this were a true democracy things like this should be decided by the people not just the politicians.
Unfortunately our State constitution does not give citizens the right to initiate ballot initiatives. Only the legislature has the power under the Hawaii constitution…to put something on the ballot for direct citizen approval or disapproval. Citizens in each County do have the power to change County laws directly via the citizen initiative process…but that can only be used on issues that fall within the County’s legal authority…so public funding of elections…is probably does not fall within that authority…ditto to marijuana…but I’m not a lawyer…and sometimes there are “work arounds” utilizing County laws to accomplish things that might normally not be within their legal purview.
it sounds like the people who wrote the constitution made sure to keep as much power as possible out of the hands of the people. Is there a way to amend the state constitution? I know that the state Congress won’t allow that at all. They don’t want to give us an inch.
Both the State constitution and the U.S. constitution can be amended but the process is difficult and yes, constitutions are normally made intentionally difficult to amend so that change comes only gradually.