GaryHooser's Blog

See Chapter 1- It all started in a living room

Chapter 2 – Big lies disguised as little lies – Doing the Homework

As I promised Sol and Fern, shortly after that first living room meeting I began “looking into it” – doing my basic homework on the industry. What companies were operating on Kauaʻi? How much land were they using? What were they growing? What pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides were they using, where were they using it, and how much were they using?

I soon discovered that there were four companies on Kauaʻi actively doing both experimental GMO research and “parent seed production”. This is when it became clear that these companies were not really “seed companies” as they called themselves, but in reality were “chemical companies” – they were four of the largest chemical companies on the planet. Their primary source of income and profits was developing, manufacturing, and selling chemicals – pesticides and the like.

BASF SE was a German multinational chemical company and the largest chemical producer in the world with sales of 72.3 billion US$ in 2020.

Syngenta was at the time a Swiss company and is now owned by Chinese conglomerate ChemChina/Sinopec, who also claims to be the largest chemical company in the world.

Dow AgroSciences – US-based and #3 in world chemical production.

Dupont/Pioneer – U.S. based chemical and hybrid seed company.

All four have since merged, changed their names, and or left Kauaʻi. Note: Monsanto closed its Kauaʻi operation in 2010 and thus was not an active player in the Bill 2491 saga.

As a newly elected member of the County Council, I decided to just cut to the chase, meet with the executives of the 4 Kauaʻi companies, express my concerns, and ask them directly many of the questions being asked by the community.

So I did. We met in a downstairs conference room at the historical county building on Rice street. I remember clearly it was a very cordial meeting where my questions were evaded and I was fed huge chunks of industry talking points.

The industry executives felt compelled to constantly reassure me they were good guys, doing good work, and their companies were an important part of our community (read economy).

When I asked what experimental GMO crops were being grown, they said they couldn’t tell me. Proprietary information – trade secrets they said.

Move along, nothing to see here – “The technology is safe, we are already highly regulated, and we are feeding the world” was the mantra repeated ad nauseam.

When I explained the community health concerns and asked what chemicals and pesticides were being used and in what quantities, I was told they could not tell me. Proprietary information – trade secrets they said.

In an effort to reassure me I suppose, they then told me the pesticides used by their companies were safe and were the same pesticides every other farmer uses.

The meeting closed, we shook hands, and the industry executives went home.

I know what gaslighting looks like. I had been in many a room before this with cocky executives attempting to pull the wool over the eyes of uninformed politicians. The messaging was clear. These were educated scientists. I was just an ignorant small town councilmember who knew nothing of the science, nor the importance of their work.

I rolled up my sleeves and immediately began making telephone calls.

The first person I called was Earth Justice (EJ) attorney Paul Achitoff who headed the Hawaiʻi Mid-Pacific office. As those young people did to me a few weeks prior, I now did to a friend and ally who had a wealth of experience in these matters.

“Paul, I need your help on this.” I said.

“Absolutely,” was his immediate response.

Next, I reached out to Andrew (Andy) Kimbrell head of the Center for Food Safety (CFS) with the same question. Andy’s response was an enthusiastic “Yes, let’s do this.” He then introduced me to his brother George and Sylvia Shih-Yau Wu, all top-flight attorneys with deep experience in the subject-matter and a steadfast commitment to fighting for health and justice.

These four highly qualified nationally recognized attorneys were joined on the ground by local Kauaʻi attorney Elif Beal who had become part of what were now our regular living room meetings. This illustrious group was then ultimately backed up at times by another half dozen outstanding lawyers including Teri Tico the former head of the Kauaʻi Bar Association, retired former Hawaiʻi Supreme Court Justice Steven Levinson, and Native Hawaiian Legal Corp attorney Alan Murakami.

Very quickly, my learning curve turned into a learning right angle heading straight up.

Paul from EJ and the attorneys from CFS began researching the legal precedent and assembling a list of what other states and localities have done.

I began a deep dive into all of it. I dove down into the history of Kauaʻi kids getting sick at Waimea Canyon Middle School, I discovered a “50,000 sea urchin die-off” that occurred on the coast near the fields.

The industry executives made a big deal about “reading and following the labels” and so I began reading pesticide labels. Some of these labels were 50 pages long with skulls and cross bones along-side paragraph after paragraph of instructions on how to apply the stuff without killing fish, wildlife, or humans.

These were not your mothers labels. This was not just the Miracle Grow you grab at the five and dime to throw on the rose bush you’ve been fighting with.

I requested the “Restricted Use Pesticides (RUP) sales records from the State Department of Agriculture (SDOA) for Kauaʻi. RUP’s can only be purchased and used by individuals who have a special license to do so. You can’t buy RUP’s at Walmart or Home Depot.

This was some bad, bad, nasty bad stuff. Much of it banned in other countries. The kind of stuff that you certainly don’t want to be using around children or pregnant women, or old people with pre-existing conditions, or anyone really.

I then contacted the State Department of Health (SDOH) seeking to review the Federal GMO permits that were supposed to be on file. I also reached out to the Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR) to check on the public land leases held by the companies.

After months of research, I knew for a fact what I had felt in my stomach the moment that first meeting was over. Those executives had lied to me.

They told me little lies that were actually big lies. These were the same lies the industry tells the world over and over again to reassure those who raise questions. They are feeding the world, they are highly regulated, the work being done and the chemicals being used are safe.

It’s absolutely categorically not true.

These companies are not feeding the world. The vast majority of corn grown by them is used for ethanol, high-fructose corn syrup, and cattle feed. They feed only diabetes, obesity, heart disease, and cars.

The GMO research being done is primarily centered around making crops “pesticide/herbicide resistant” thus allowing the chemical companies the opportunity to sell more chemicals. The so-called golden rice research announced decades ago is still nothing but a pipe dream – window dressing for the industry to trot out whenever they need to justify their claim of feeding the world. *see footnote explaining Golden Rice

A cursory review of their income statements and corporate balance sheets will show clearly that these international conglomerates make a majority of their money developing and selling industrial chemicals including highly toxic pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides.

The “this GMO research is safe” narrative runs contrary to the federal permit that says “not for release into the natural environment” and “not for human consumption”. They were/are ostensibly growing experimental “food crops” that you’re not allowed to eat. The companies are hopeful that ultimately the food crops they are experimenting with today will someday be approved as real food by the federal government.

AND these non edible food crops were/are being grown outdoors in open fields even though they are not approved for release into the environment.

What could possibly go wrong?

“The industry is already highly regulated” is also a false narrative. While on the surface it appears to be true, the truth is there’s just a facade of high regulation. No doubt there’s lots of paperwork, pages and pages of forms to fill out, and lots of fancy sounding government agencies managed by former industry executives – but there’s very little actual direct over-sight of the industry.

The industry tells the federal regulator “our proposed research is safe” and provides the regulator with documents explaining how they came to that conclusion. The regulator may or may not actually do an independent review before stamping the application “safe and approved” which is then filed away, never to be seen again. Essentially the industry is self-regulated both in the review of their initial research permit applications, and with regards to follow-up reporting requirements.

This is not hyperbole. After learning of a law requiring companies doing GMO research in Hawaiʻi to provide the Hawaiʻi State Department of Health (SDOH) with copies of their federal permits – I went searching for those same permits (federal permits on file with the state).

After making a few inquiries and a trip to Honolulu, I was directed to a room (more like a large closet) that contained several dozen unopened boxes, that further contained hundreds of unopened envelopes, that contained federal permits allowing these companies to grow experimental GMO crops in Hawaiʻi. So I did what should have been done by actual regulators, I opened the envelopes and actually read the (heavily redacted) permits. 

No one from the State Department of Health had ever even looked at these permits. They never even opened the envelopes. They just assumed the documentation was there and was done correctly. 

It seems, the Hawaiʻi law doesn’t actually require any permit review, but merely requires the industry to provide a copy of the permit. And, if anyone actually opened the envelope, they would find a heavily redacted document difficult and sometimes impossible to decipher.

Highly regulated? I’m not sure by what definition that could be true.

Except when there were incidents such as when field workers suffered pesticide poisoning and it made the headlines, no representative of the EPA or the FDA or any federal organization charged with regulating this industry ever comes to Kauaʻi.

Many of the pesticides used by these companies are banned in other countries around the world. The toxic herbicide atrazine which was used widely in the corn fields all over Kauaʻi has been banned for the past 20 years in 31 countries including Switzerland, where it was first patented and where Syngenta is/was headquartered.

That’s right. Syngenta was using a toxic chemical by the ton Kauaʻi which they were prohibited by law from using in their own country.

Upon further digging I found numerous scientific studies showing that atrazine contamination is ubiquitous in European and North American surface waters, and has been detected in more than 800 drinking water systems in 19 states at levels exceeding health-protective guidelines.

These company executives looked me in the eye and told me they were only using what every other farmer was using, and it was all safe.

Yes, another big lie disguised as a little one. What they meant to say is that they only use what every other chemical company growing experimental GMO corn uses. After finally obtaining the data from the Hawaiʻi Department of Agriculture it became clear that most regular farmers growing real food to eat use only a tiny fraction of the pesticides used by these companies, both in terms of variety and quantity used.

The more I dug, the more I said to myself “wow” I can’t believe this, and the more motivated I became to find out what else was being hidden from my community.

When reporting back to our growing citizen “GMO living-room working group” the outrage and the determination to do something just kept building.

It became ludicrous at times with countless “Can’t make this stuff up” moments.

I once witnessed an industry official who actually said out-loud and on camera, “Well, it’s almost like the real thing” when discussing GMO tomato’s.

On a whim I checked with the County Finance Department and discovered that two of these billion dollar chemical companies were not paying their Kauai property taxes. In addition, because these large wealthy transnational corporations transfer their end products to related subsidiaries outside of Hawaiʻi, and some also benefit from Enterprise Zone and other General Excise Tax (GET) exemptions, they consequently pay zero GET tax on the products they produce and sell. *See footnote on GET

I started looking at the land ownership records and found about half the land used for GMO production on Kauai was leased from the State. These were publicly owned State lands that were former Hawaiian Kingdom Crown Lands.

The use of State lands require compliance with Hawaii’s environmental review law Chapter 343HRS, yet no documentation demonstrating compliance exists.
See footnote3

Using publicly owned lands that abut a pristine coast line, growing experimental genetically modified organisms outside of a greenhouse, openly spraying a wide array of restricted and non restricted pesticides on a mass scale next to neighborhoods, schools, and parks – most defnately have impacts on health and environment.

These impacts have never been reviewed, evaluated or even measured. There are direct impacts, secondary impacts and cumulative impacts but we don’t know what those impacts are – and the companies in question won’t even give us the information needed to make a proper evaluation.

It was time to start writing a bill.

I called Paul Achitoff again and after a long discussion we agreed, “Let’s start with disclosure. They’re telling us it’s safe so why would they not be willing to tell us what they are growing and spraying? This is a reasonable ask. In any case, until we know exactly what they are doing, it’s impossible to study the health and environmental impacts so we must have disclosure.”

And so it began. And as disturbing as the information that had already been discovered was, in the weeks and months ahead it would only get worse.

DRAFT – Chapter 3 – Writing The Bill

So the process of bill writing began.

Working with Paul Achitoff of Earth Justice (EJ) and the Center for Food Safety (CFS) we started drafting a bill that would hopefully become a County ordinance requiring the agrochemical industry to disclose what pesticides they were using, and what experimental crops they were growing in Kauai County.

The purpose of course was to ultimately protect the health of residents and the islands natural environment. But first, we needed the data.

One of the first questions to be answered was: Did the County even have the legal authority to pass such an ordinance?

Our legal research concluded there was no state or federal law prohibiting the county from doing so and no court had ever ruled on the question. We found also that federal law explicitly gave states the right to regulate pesticides, and counties were also allowed to “further regulate” unless prohibited by the state from doing so.

This legal principle is called “preemption”. It’s important and we’ll come back to it later.
Our legal team said, there was nothing in the law or in any court decision telling us we couldn’t do it, and so we should go for it.

So legally we were good to go (or so we thought at the time), so we went.

Politically we knew passing such an ordinance would be an uphill battle but we really had no idea that this would end up without exaggeration being the battle of a lifetime.

At the time I personally had no idea of the storm that was to come, but I did know enough to understand the coming discussion must be limited to only these large companies if possible.

I had enough experience in drafting and passing laws at both the county and state level to know the bill had to be narrow in scope and avoid impacting every single gardener, small farmer, and occasional user of regular “over-the -counter” pesticides.

We had to focus only on the big guys and most egregious users of the most nasty and dangerous of the chemicals. If the bill was too broad and impacted too many small users, the public opposition would be swift and insurmountable.

So we kept it narrow targeting only the largest users of Restricted Use Pesticides (RUP’s) and included a component that required disclosure of any experimental food crops, not approved for release into the environment.

Kaboom. We were good to go (or so I thought). We had the makings of a bill that if passed into law would yield valuable information leading to the next steps limiting or eliminating those uses and/or impacts.

I took the draft to Fern for her thoughts and hopefully, her approval.

She was gentle yet ruthless in her dismissal. This will never fly she said.“Woefully inadequate and miles away from what the people want, which is to kick those fucking companies off our island.” are the words I remember.

My response was to try my best to explain that we did not possess the legal authority to kick those fucking companies off our island, nor would we likely have the political support for such an action.
Kauai is a small community and these companies were major employers of hundreds of local residents.

Even if we had the legal authority or figured out a way to make it happen, there was no way we could get the 5 council votes needed to pass such a bill and over-ride the inevitable mayoral veto.

Kicking them off the island was never going to happen and we needed to focus on what we can do, I told her as gently as I could.

“I got it, but we need more” was her response, “If you want to motivate young people, if you want the room packed with people testifying in support, we need more.”

“Ok, I get it…what if we add pesticide-free buffer zones around schools, parks, and houses…does that work?” I said.

“That’s better but still not enough” she said, “Can’t we just get rid of the GMO stuff altogether? Like ban it from the islands?”

“I’ll check with the lawyers” I said “but I’m pretty sure federal law won’t let us ban the growing of GMO’s. Maybe however we can put into place regulations that say experimental food crops, those not approved for release into the environment – can only be grown in green houses or similar indoor facilities.”

“I think we’re getting somewhere now” she responded.

So I went back to work, huddled again with the lawyers, worked on the words, reviewed draft after draft, definition after definition – trying each time to be increasingly clear on what the bill proposed to accomplish and who would be impacted. The EJ and CFS attorneys researched what similar legislation had been passed in other municipalities around the United States, looking for language and ideas that had worked elsewhere.

There was no shortage of examples of pesticide regulation occurring in other counties and municipalities around the country including buffer zones and disclosure, but when it came to the GMO segment, there was slim pickings. It seemed no county anywhere where the industry was established had managed to regulate them as we proposed to do.

After countless conversation among legal, and scientific experts the final (or so we thought) bill draft was ready. I called Fern and Sol and suggested we convene our “working group” that had started out as a simple conversation in that Wailua living room a few months earlier.

I remember clearly that night. There were about 7 of us in the room. I passed out copies of the proposed bill gave everyone a few minutes to review it, provided a brief overview, and then asked if there were any questions. One young man, a surfer by the name of Makai, raised his hand and asked quickly, “Is this going to keep them from crossing the river?”

He was referring to the Wailua River and the fact that 100% of the existing fields were located on the Southside of that waterway. To the north (where most of the folks in that room lived), from the Wailua River to Hanalei Bay were thousands of acres of agricultural land mostly used for cattle grazing.

“No” I said, “Nothing in this bill will keep them from expanding to other agricultural lands north of the river, should they choose to do so.”

“Well that’s fucked” was his response which was then echoed around the room.

All the work. All the effort, that had gone into this measure, and the results and draft I had put on the table, still fell short for those who had started this conversation in the first place.

It still wasn’t good enough.

I was pretty much devastated. The meeting ended soon after that moment, and I went home and poured my heart out to Claudette.

“So…what are you going to do?” she said…as she has done so many other times in our 40 years of marriage when I found myself in similar seemingly intractable situations.

“I’ll think about it” I said “I’ll figure it out.”

So I did.

I went back to the drawing board. I spoke to the attorneys, and I met and spoke at length with my (now deceased) colleague Councilmember Tim Bynum who had agreed to co-sponsor and co-introduce the bill with me. I spoke to Fern, Sol, Elif Beal, and others. I wracked my brain.

Then “the penny dropped”. While we did not have the legal authority or likely the political support to kick them fucking out or ban their operations, we likely did have the legal authority and possibly the political support to pass a “temporary moratorium” on any future expansion – subject to the industry proving it was safe via an environmental impact statement.

It sounded reasonable enough – Include a provision in the bill that prohibited expansion until the health and environmental impact of the industries operation on Kauai was fully known and the public was fully informed. It would likely be politically acceptable because it let the companies continue doing what they were doing, did not shut them down, and thus did not impact jobs – but prevented their expansion until the EIS was completed and accepted which would likely take years to complete.

If passed, the measure as it was now written, would in fact keep them from crossing the river.

Kaboom. We had a bill. There were 6 key component and each if necessary could stand on its own.

* Disclosure of Restricted Use Pesticides
* Disclosure of experimental GMO growing
* Pesticide buffer-zones around schools, hospitals and houses
* Banning of out-door growing of experimental GMO food crops
* A moratorium on the industries expansion until completion of an environmental impact statement.
* A “permitting requirement” requiring county permits for restricted pesticide use and experimental GMO crops – paid for by the companies themselves via permitting fees.

Up until this point the process had been done on the “down low”. We had not wanted to alert the industry ahead of time as we knew they would immediately go on the attack.

Councilmember Bynum and I huddled to discuss strategy and consulted yet again and again with our friends at Earth Justice, The Center for Food Safety, and others that now included attorneys connected to The Native Hawaiian Legal Corporation and experts affiliated with the national Pesticide Action Network.

Fern Holland, Sol Kahn, and Elif Beal were joined by Andrea Brower and Phoebe Ng and many many others who began brainstorming community based outreach and action. Fern and Sol connected further with Dustin Barca a well known surfer and MMA fighter who had been actively and very publicly fighting to kick out the GMO industry from Hawaii.

Separate from the discussions surrounding the proposed bill were growing/festering community concerns about the health of west-side residents and in general the overwhelming presence of the GMO industry on the island and through-out the state of Hawaii. A group of west-siders led by long time resident Klayton Kubo had filed suit against Dupont/Pioneer claiming both negative health impacts and property damage that was occurring from the pervasive pesticide laden red dust blowing in from the nearby fields.

The people on the ground were basically mad as hell and were not going to take it anymore.

The final draft of our proposed county ordinance was formally submitted to the Council and scheduled for its initial hearing on June 26, 2013. It was forever after referred to as Bill 2491.

It was game on.

A copy of the original bill 2491 draft submitted to the Council on this day is here: http://kauai.granicus.com/MetaViewer.php?view_id=2&clip_id=1085&meta_id=49075

Read: The Truth About Bill 2491 https://garyhooser.blog/2013/07/20/the-truth-about-bill-2491-relating-to-pesticides-and-genetically-modified-organisms/

* Note – as earlier mentioned this writing is only a rough draft and will be fully edited once I have written the whole thing…your feed back and comments are welcome!

Unopened boxes containing federal GMO permits plus copies of the permit, once I opened the box and started reading:

*Footnote1: Golden Rice a genetically modified variety of rice containing large amounts of the orange or red plant pigment betacarotene, a substance important in the human diet as a precursor of vitamin A. It has been under development for decades but never approved for human consumption.

Footnote2: The Hawaii General Excise Tax is a state tax applied to wholesaling, retailing, farming, services, construction contracting, rental of personal or real property, business interest income, and royalties.

Footnote3: HRS 343 is Hawaii’s environmental impact statement law that requires an environmental review of any development on public lands and/or on the coast line.

Anyone thinking about becoming a candidate for election to public office needs to answer the question: What’s the worst thing someone’s going to say about you?

Unless of course you are a certain 2024 presidential candidate, now under multiple indictments, and who was found liable for sexually abusing a woman in a luxury department store dressing room.

Local candidates however, running for election to local State Legislative and County Council seats, must indeed answer the question.

Much of the criticism will be personal. You talk too much. You’re too “full of yourself”. Another common and sometimes painful dig is “You’re not from here”.

Next in line will be those times you got way behind paying your rent, electric, water, or the yard guy. Or 30 years ago you perhaps got behind in your taxes (raising my hand here). Some of you have had messy divorces and/or bankruptcies to deal with. I’ve come to believe that everyone has something in their closet they might not be the most proud of.

Most of the above is relatively inconsequential – so long as it’s history and the lessons were learned.

However, some of the bad stuff people say about you will be…well bad. Perhaps it’s an old DUI (or two), or you were arrested some years ago for a “youthful indiscretion” – drug use, shoplifting, or trespassing. Maybe once you had a tad too much to drink – someone pushed you, you pushed them back, the police were called, you pushed the police…you went to jail.

Stuff happens. Humans are imperfect and candidates are human. So long as you’ve learned the lessons none of this should prevent you from being elected to public office. Most people believe in redemption and are willing to forgive and forget the past IF the candidate has proven through their more recent life choices they have indeed changed their ways.

The two key words here are “past” and “redemption”. There’s no statute of limitations that make negative political impacts of bad choices go away, but obviously the further in the past the better. The redemption must be genuine, the candidate must acknowledge the error of their ways, and have stopped completely the activity that drove the bad choices (often drugs and alcohol).

For State legislative and County Council races, negative “hit pieces” focusing on a candidates past are relatively rare. At this level of politics, the “hits” are more likely to come in the form of “whisper campaigns” not as direct mailers or paid advertisements.

However, for those at the top of the political food chain, Mayor, Governor, and Congress – all bets are off. You could be a veritable angel of a candidate (thought I’ve never actually seen one), and the opposition will just make stuff up, pour money on it, and bury you with it.

But again, this kind of negative campaigning historically only happens on the big money races that threaten directly big money interests.

Candidates must first and foremost do “opposition research” – on themselves. They must anticipate what the forthcoming hits might look like, and “inoculate” those closest to the campaign and ultimately the voters in the community.

30 years ago my small Kauaʻi publishing company fell way behind in its taxes. The tax office “waived” penalties and interest and offered a payment plan allowing us to repay 100% of the taxes owed – which we did.

Now when someone says “Gary didn’t pay his taxes”, you know that Gary did actually pay his taxes. He paid them late, but he paid them. Like lots of small businesses just starting out, Gary struggled, Gary got behind, but Gary persevered and caught up, built a successful business, and paid 100% of his taxes.

Inoculation is complete. You now know and are prepared to respond should anyone say to you, “I heard Gary didn’t pay his taxes.”

As a candidate (which I am not), your closest supporters especially must not be taken by surprise when someone brings up negative stuff.

The formula again: Anticipate, fess up, and inoculate.

Yes I did it, I learned from it, I fixed it, and it all happened a long time ago.

Read also:

Campaign 101 – What makes someone a good candidate for public office? Purple Mohawks Need Not Apply

Campaigning 101 #1 – 2024 candidates – first steps

Campaigning 101 #2 The sometimes not so obvious basics

If you want it all – Sign up for my somewhat unconventional email newsletter (though it’s not really a newsletter but I don’t know what else to call it) – Policy & Politics at https://policy-and-politics.mailchimpsites.com

The 2018 federal court decision in Martin v. Boise found that people can’t be punished for sleeping outside on public property if there are no adequate alternatives available.

“The government cannot criminalize indigent, homeless people for sleeping outdoors, on public property, on the false premise they had a choice in the matter,” the court declared.

So why do we continue conducting houseless sweeps? If the intent is truly one of outreach and expanded services, why the heavy police presence? Why does the primary goal seem to be just getting them to move somewhere else?

They are houseless, not homeless. Their home is on the streets, in the parks and on the beach. What they lack is a house.

As long as affordable housing and suitable shelter remains scarce to nonexistent we will have people who are houseless.

Yes, certainly there can be other issues involved, including mental health and addiction. But it’s impossible to deal with the underlying issues effectively if the individual is living on the streets.

Most of us live a life of privilege. We have a roof over our heads, healthcare that works, and ohana we can fall back upon. We don’t live daily worrying about where we are going to sleep, or thinking about getting rained on, or burned in the harsh sun, or getting robbed or raped.

But we have the audacity to look down on our less fortunate neighbors and demand our police and political leaders to get rid of them.

“Why don’t you just arrest them all and fly them back to where they came from? Tear down their tents and tell them to move. Just get them out of here so we can enjoy our peace and quiet without being bothered by the poor, the unwashed, and the unhoused.”

The truth is that there is no place for most of these folks to go. In general the shelters are mostly full, there is a waiting list just to get a bed, and for those seeking an actual home with maybe even a yard – there are no affordable options at all.

As to “send them back to where they came from”…according to recent counts, less than 9% of our houseless are newcomers. The majority are long-term or lifelong residents, and Native Hawaiians are overrepresented.

“They should just get a job!” some will say.

If you don’t have an address how do you fill out a job application? If you don’t have a phone/wifi how do you receive a callback or email follow-up that you potentially got an interview or a job? The cards are immensely stacked against these individuals.

The truth of course is that in spite of the challenges, many of the houseless are working. The other truth is most of these jobs don’t pay a living wage and even when working two jobs finding affordable housing is challenging at best.

Yes, it’s complicated. No, it’s not complicated.

Sweeping poor people who cannot afford a warm, dry, safe place to sleep from one park or doorway to another, is unconscionable – not to mention, expensive.

Community outreach, intensive case management, providing the core services needed such as healthcare AND access to affordable housing, is the answer.

There are good things happening now at both the State and County levels, but much more is needed. The houseless situation, the extreme lack of affordable housing, and the lack of related services – needs to be treated like the dire emergency it is.

10 years ago on June 26, 2013 Kauaʻi County Council Bill 2491, introduced by myself and the late Councilmember Timothy Bynum – passed it’s first reading.

The Council Chambers were packed with an estimated 1,000 people overflowing on to the lawn outside. Hundreds of workers from the four chemical companies concerned about their jobs testified in opposition. Hundreds of other residents concerned about their health offered testimony in support.

At 9:30 p.m. after six hours of testimony — the council approved the bill and scheduled a public hearing for July 31.

Bill 2491 required Kauaʻi’s largest users of Restricted Use Pesticides (RUP), including DuPont Pioneer, Syngenta, DOW AgroSciences, BASF and others — to disclose their pesticide use, and established pesticide-free buffer zones around sensitive areas. It also banned open-air testing of experimental GMO crops, and instituted a temporary moratorium on future expansion pending an environmental impact statement.

The companies claimed the sky was falling, that Bill 2491 would force them to leave, and people would lose their jobs. Advocates claimed the negative health and environmental impacts were significant and increased regulation was urgently needed.

The narrative was set and the battle was on.

Thousands marched, carried signs, and submitted testimony. The July 31st public hearing filled Kauaʻi Veterans Center to capacity. At subsequent meetings folks literally spent the night waiting in line outside the historic County building to ensure a seat inside the Council chambers.

At the time corn fields covered what seemed to be every square inch of agricultural land on half the island. There was corn along the highway by the airport, across from Kukui Grove Shopping Center and surrounding Kauaʻi Community College. To the South even at Maha’ulepu the GMO corn fields flourished. From Hanapepe all the way to Polihale, mauka to makai – everywhere there was corn.

This was GMO corn, experimental corn, herbicide resistant corn, corn grown for ethanol, for high fructose corn syrup, and for cattle feed. Corn shipped out in boxes labeled “unfit for human consumption”. Corn grown with federal permits stating “not approved for release into the environment.”

The corn grew year-round, the continental equivalent of 3 growing seasons, using 3 times the pesticides, herbicides and fungicides.

West side residents complained of the smell and sometimes faint but foul taste of chemical. Families were closing their windows to escape the unnatural odor blowing in from the fields.

There seemed to be more people dealing with cancer and respiratory issues.

Doctors reported what they believed were greater incidents of heart defects among newborns.

At Waimea Canyon Middle School, there were multiple incidents of children being overcome with nausea. The industry denied their spraying of pesticides in adjacent fields was the cause.

On November 16, 2013, after a long tumultuous battle, an amended Bill 2491 requiring disclosure and buffer zones was passed into law.

The chemical companies then sued Kauaʻi County and won. The court ruled only the State, not the County could regulate pesticides.

Advocates then went to the legislature and won passage of a new State law requiring full disclosure of Restricted Use Pesticides applications on every island, and a first in the nation ban of chlorpyrifos (a particularly nasty pesticide). Modest buffer zones around schools statewide were also put into place.

According to the USDA, since 2013 the agrochemical companies have steadily reduced their presence on Kauaʻi and through-out all Hawaiʻi. Today their footprint and over-all impact on our community is less than 50% of what it was then.

Most would call this a win.

Mahalo to those who stepped up to make it happen, and who continue to step up to fight on behalf of health and environment.

If you would like to learn more here is the first chapter of a book I am working on about my Bill 2491 experience (it’s a work in progress). “It all started in a living room”.

To really learn more, read Andrea Noelani Brower’s book “seeds of occupation, seeds of possibility” The Agrochemical-GMO Industry in Hawaiʻi

Watch the documentary”Poisoning Paradise” Produced by Pierce and Keely Brosnan. Directed by Teresa Tico – free on Amazon Prime.

Read also BREAKFAST AT MONSANTO’S: Is Roundup in our food making us fatter, sicker, and sadder? By Kauai resident Dr. Lee Evslin

10 years ago on June 26, 2013 at a regular meeting of the Kauaʻi County Council, Bill 2491 was introduced and passed first reading. Actually, it was anything but a “regular” meeting (IYKYK).

The Story of Bill 2491 – Chapter 1 – It all started in a living room

It all started as a living room conversation with a handful of 20 – 30 year old millennials. I had no idea at the time that this conversation would lead to others, and those conversations would further evolve and grow, culminating in an epic battle between my tiny island home of Kauaʻi Hawaiʻi, and 4 of the largest chemical companies in the world.

Sol Kahn and Fern Holland where the two who initially reached out.

“Uncle Gary, we need your help,” was their message. And, as a family friend and newly elected member of the Kauaʻi County Council, my natural response was of course “I’m not exactly sure what I can do, but put a small group together and let’s meet up soon and talk.”

Needless to say, on November 20, 2012 at 6pm, I met with Sol, Fern and a small group of their friends, perhaps 5 people max. Born and raised Kauaʻi kids to me, but young adults really. A few I knew somewhat, and others I had never met. By day they were surfers, fishermen and scuba divers, and by night they mostly worked in the hospitality industry as wait help, bussing tables, and tending bar – each of them concerned about their community and wanting to do something.

Sol’s parents Carole and Marti Kahn were longtime friends. I remember Marti sending me a note with a link to a documentary film on the issue of GMO’s that Sol had sent him. Marti encouraged me watch the video and talk with Sol.

So I did. Little did I know at the time watching that short film and meeting with that small group would be the catalyst for a major movement. 

Their message to me was succinct and direct. “Uncle, we need your help. These GMO companies have taken over our island, they dominate the west side and now are expanding their fields to the south and to the east. Soon they will be crossing the river to the north as well. People are getting sick. We know folks on the west side who are going door-to-door counting the neighbors who have cancer, asthma, and other health problems. Uncle, you have to do something.”

I listened intently to their earnest pleas for help. This small group of young adults, sitting in a softly lit living room tucked away in the hills of Wailua Homesteads. Most were about the same age as my own children. I knew their parents. I’d watched them grow up, play soccer, and hang out together growing up on this beautiful and special island we all called home.

The seeds of responsibility and a deep obligation to not let them down were planted deep inside me that evening. They were counting on me, and I had to come through for them. There really was no other option.

So, like a good politician and also a good uncle, I did my best to manage their expectations without killing their hope.

At the end of the evening discussion, prior to heading home I said to them, “I’m only a Councilman. Even if I thought it was the right thing to do, I do not have the power or legal authority to kick these companies off our island. I could possibly introduce and maybe pass a county ordinance that might make their operations safer or something, but even then I am only 1 of 7 on the council and it will take at least 4 to pass anything. I’m not sure what I can do, but let me look into it and see what’s going on.”

And so it began, an epic battle between the 4 of the largest chemical companies in the world against literally a handful of young people concerned about the health of their community

I don’t use the word epic, lightly.

Kauaʻi County, a small island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean with a resident population of only 68,000 people was considered “ground zero” by GMO activists around the world. While we did not know it at the time of these first conversations, we soon discovered that more highly toxic Restricted Use Pesticides (RUP) were being used, and more experimental GMO crops were being grown on our island than anywhere else in the United States.

No local county government had ever successfully challenged this industry in communities where the companies were already established, doing their toxic business and employing hundreds of people.

But we set out that day to do exactly that.

And it all started at 6pm on November 20th, 2012 as a conversation in a Wailua Homesteads living room.

To be absolutely clear, if Sol and Fern hadn’t asked for the meeting, and if the other young people there that night had not taken the time to attend and to speak out – Bill 2491 and the epic battle that followed might never have happened.

But they did, and thus the story of Bill 2491 and “the little island that could” begins.

Two weeks prior, I had won election to the Kauaʻi County Council. During the preceding year, while campaigning around the island, the refrain was constant and uniform, “Gary, we have to do something, this GMO thing is out of control.”

The message during those 8 months of island wide campaigning was consistent and came from all sectors of our community. This was not just my usual hippie, environmentalist, white, north shore friends. Little old ladies would pull me aside in the supermarket to express their concerns. Young parents at the park, Rotary Club friends, conservatives and liberals alike, would send me emails, texts, and leave voice mail messages on my phone – “Gary, we have to do something…”.

Gradually, then not so gradually, as I drove around the island, going door to door, attending events, putting up campaign signs – “the penny dropped”.

The corn was everywhere. The GMO corn, grown by the chemical companies was pervasive, covering what seemed to be every square inch of agricultural land on at least half of the island. There was corn along the highway by the airport, in fields directly across from Kukui Grove Shopping Center, surrounding Kauaʻi Community College and Island School. And that was only in the town of Lihue.

On the Southside the corn was planted near the Maha’ulepu coastline and mile after mile along the highway headed west, everywhere you looked on both sides of the highway was corn.

Once you passed Hanapepe Town, you really understood what it meant when they said Kauaʻi was “ground zero” for the GMO industry. From the mountains “mauka” to the ocean “makai” – everywhere there was corn. All the way until the end of the road at Polihale State Beach Park, there was nothing but corn.

GMO corn, experimental corn, corn grown for ethanol, for high fructose corn syrup, and for cattle feed. Corn grown to be shipped out in boxes labeled “unfit for human consumption”. Corn grown utilizing special federal permits that stated “not approved for release into the environment.”

Everywhere there was corn, grown year round, the continental U.S. equivalent of 3 growing seasons, using 3 times the amount of pesticides, herbicides and fungicides that a normal Iowa corn farm might use. What’s the saying? Water water everywhere but not a drop to drink. That’s how it felt. This massive amount of agriculture that was anything but food.

There was corn, corn, everywhere but yet not a kernel to really eat. This was industrial GMO agriculture designed by and for chemical companies so they could make more money selling more chemicals.

Yes, the penny dropped indeed. People around the island were concerned. Residents on the west side especially sensed a general increase in health issues. There seemed to be more people dealing with cancer, more neighbors and more children having respiratory issues.

In the evenings, when the fields were often sprayed, people complained of the smell, and sometimes of even a faint but foul taste of chemical. Families began shutting their windows in the evening to escape the unnatural odor and the ever-present red dirt that blew in from the fields.

At the Waimea Canyon Middle School, there were times when the kids would get sick and have to be taken to the nearby hospital. The companies denied of course it was the spraying of toxic pesticides in the adjacent fields that caused the trauma. Syngenta itself conveniently led the investigation concluding an innocuous “stink weed” was to blame.

Then, a west side resident told me about the lawsuit. 150 local residents in the town of Waimea a community of only 1,700 people total had filed charges against Dupont/Pioneer, the largest employer in the community for contaminating their homes with dust and pesticide drift. Led by long time resident Klayton Kubo, the message was loud and clear. The people of Waimea were literally sick and so very tired of the abuse blowing down upon them from the nearby GMO test fields.

This was the final straw for me that pushed the issue over the top. Waimea was a plantation town, its residents were either former sugar plantation workers or descendants of those plantation workers. Dupont/Pioneer was the new plantation and for plantation workers to sue the plantation – was unheard of.

So when I met with Sol Kahn, Fern Holland and the others that evening of November 20, 2012 – I knew in my heart they were right to be concerned and that yes, as their Council member and as their uncle, I must indeed do something and to be successful it must be we, all of us together focused on making it happen.

Fortunately, this was not my first rodeo. In retrospect, my previous 13 years of experience serving first on the Kauaʻi Council, then in the Hawaiʻi Senate as Majority Leader, plus working for Governor Abercrombie as State Director of the Office of Environmental Quality Control – had prepared me well for the task at hand.

My previous experience had taught me that men in suits, high-paid lawyers, and industry executives were to be challenged, not feared or bowed down to. I’d learned the importance of doing my homework, of choosing my words carefully, and to never accept the words of industry (or the lawyers) at face value. I understood the basics of law-making, of bill drafting, and of the importance of having community support and the facts solidly on your side. Most of all I knew how to count votes, and I knew not to push the vote until the votes were there. I might not have had a law degree, but I was thoroughly schooled in the area of politics and policy at both the State and County level.

When I left Sol’s house that night and headed to my own home just a few miles down the road, I was both exhausted and pumped. I remember speaking with my wife Claudette about that conversation and those young people who called me uncle. I remember discussing with her my obligation to follow through on “seeing what I could do to help”. I also remember sleeping very little that night, tossing and turning as my mind raced down various paths, plans, and strategies of “next steps”.

I awoke in the morning knowing the first order of business was to do my homework. Who were these companies? What exactly were they doing in my community? What were they growing? What chemicals were they using?

Thus began my journey down the path of Bill 2491. It started with a living room conversation, and transitioned rapidly to homework and basic research. After numerous additional living room conversations with that initial group, and with many others young and old, from all corners of our island – and around the globe actually, 8 months later on June 26, 2013, Bill 2491 was formally introduced.

I had no idea at the time how challenging, how tumultuous, how important, and how life-changing the experience of the coming months would be for me and so many others.

This is mostly a Kauaʻi story, though similar battles were occurring on Maui, on Hawaiʻi Island, and across the planet.

And this is my story, seen through my eyes. There are many similar yet different stories to be told by the many others who likewise played critical roles in our common quest to make our community safer, and the epic battle that followed.

Read on and soon you will understand why I use that word so often.

Chapter 2 – Big lies disguised as little lies – Doing the Homework

As I promised Sol and Fern, shortly after that first living room meeting I began “looking into it” – doing my basic homework on the industry. What companies were operating on Kauaʻi? How much land were they using? What were they growing? What pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides were they using, where were they using it, and how much were they using?

I soon discovered that there were four companies on Kauaʻi actively doing both experimental GMO research and “parent seed production”. This is when it became clear that these companies were not really “seed companies” as they called themselves, but in reality were “chemical companies” – they were four of the largest chemical companies on the planet. Their primary source of income and profits was developing, manufacturing, and selling chemicals – pesticides and the like.

BASF SE was a German multinational chemical company and the largest chemical producer in the world with sales of 72.3 billion US$ in 2020.

Syngenta was at the time a Swiss company and is now owned by Chinese conglomerate ChemChina/Sinopec, who also claims to be the largest chemical company in the world.

Dow AgroSciences – US-based and #3 in world chemical production.

Dupont/Pioneer – U.S. based chemical and hybrid seed company.

All four have since merged, changed their names, and or left Kauaʻi. Note: Monsanto closed its Kauaʻi operation in 2010 and thus was not an active player in the Bill 2491 saga.

As a newly elected member of the County Council, I decided to just cut to the chase, meet with the executives of the 4 Kauaʻi companies, express my concerns, and ask them directly many of the questions being asked by the community.

So I did. We met in a downstairs conference room at the historical county building on Rice street. I remember clearly it was a very cordial meeting where my questions were evaded and I was fed huge chunks of industry talking points.

The industry executives felt compelled to constantly reassure me they were good guys, doing good work, and their companies were an important part of our community (read economy).

When I asked what experimental GMO crops were being grown, they said they couldn’t tell me. Proprietary information – trade secrets they said.

Move along, nothing to see here – “The technology is safe, we are already highly regulated, and we are feeding the world” was the mantra repeated ad nauseam.

When I explained the community health concerns and asked what chemicals and pesticides were being used and in what quantities, I was told they could not tell me. Proprietary information – trade secrets they said.

In an effort to reassure me I suppose, they then told me the pesticides used by their companies were safe and were the same pesticides every other farmer uses.

The meeting closed, we shook hands, and the industry executives went home.

I know what gaslighting looks like. I had been in many a room before this with cocky executives attempting to pull the wool over the eyes of uninformed politicians. The messaging was clear. These were educated scientists. I was just an ignorant small town councilmember who knew nothing of the science, nor the importance of their work.

I rolled up my sleeves and immediately began making telephone calls.

The first person I called was Earth Justice (EJ) attorney Paul Achitoff who headed the Hawaiʻi Mid-Pacific office. As those young people did to me a few weeks prior, I now did to a friend and ally who had a wealth of experience in these matters.

“Paul, I need your help on this.” I said.

“Absolutely,” was his immediate response.

Next, I reached out to Andrew (Andy) Kimbrell head of the Center for Food Safety (CFS) with the same question. Andy’s response was an enthusiastic “Yes, let’s do this.” He then introduced me to his brother George and Sylvia Shih-Yau Wu, all top-flight attorneys with deep experience in the subject-matter and a steadfast commitment to fighting for health and justice.

These four highly qualified nationally recognized attorneys were joined on the ground by local Kauaʻi attorney Elif Beal who had become part of what were now our regular living room meetings. This illustrious group was then ultimately backed up at times by another half dozen outstanding lawyers including Teri Tico the former head of the Kauaʻi Bar Association, retired former Hawaiʻi Supreme Court Justice Steven Levinson, and Native Hawaiian Legal Corp attorney Alan Murakami.

Very quickly, my learning curve turned into a learning right angle heading straight up.

Paul from EJ and the attorneys from CFS began researching the legal precedent and assembling a list of what other states and localities have done.

I began a deep dive into all of it. I dove down into the history of Kauaʻi kids getting sick at Waimea Canyon Middle School, I discovered a “50,000 sea urchin die-off” that occurred on the coast near the fields.

The industry executives made a big deal about “reading and following the labels” and so I began reading pesticide labels. Some of these labels were 50 pages long with skulls and cross bones along-side paragraph after paragraph of instructions on how to apply the stuff without killing fish, wildlife, or humans.

These were not your mothers labels. This was not just the Miracle Grow you grab at the five and dime to throw on the rose bush you’ve been fighting with.

I requested the “Restricted Use Pesticides (RUP) sales records from the State Department of Agriculture (SDOA) for Kauaʻi. RUP’s can only be purchased and used by individuals who have a special license to do so. You can’t buy RUP’s at Walmart or Home Depot.

This was some bad, bad, nasty bad stuff. Much of it banned in other countries. The kind of stuff that you certainly don’t want to be using around children or pregnant women, or old people with pre-existing conditions, or anyone really.

I then contacted the State Department of Health (SDOH) seeking to review the Federal GMO permits that were supposed to be on file. I also reached out to the Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR) to check on the public land leases held by the companies.

After months of research, I knew for a fact what I had felt in my stomach the moment that first meeting was over. Those executives had lied to me.

They told me little lies that were actually big lies. These were the same lies the industry tells the world over and over again to reassure those who raise questions. They are feeding the world, they are highly regulated, the work being done and the chemicals being used are safe.

It’s absolutely categorically not true.

These companies are not feeding the world. The vast majority of corn grown by them is used for ethanol, high-fructose corn syrup, and cattle feed. They feed only diabetes, obesity, heart disease, and cars.

The GMO research being done is primarily centered around making crops “pesticide/herbicide resistant” thus allowing the chemical companies the opportunity to sell more chemicals. The so-called golden rice research announced decades ago is still nothing but a pipe dream – window dressing for the industry to trot out whenever they need to justify their claim of feeding the world. *see footnote explaining Golden Rice

A cursory review of their income statements and corporate balance sheets will show clearly that these international conglomerates make a majority of their money developing and selling industrial chemicals including highly toxic pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides.

The “this GMO research is safe” narrative runs contrary to the federal permit that says “not for release into the natural environment” and “not for human consumption”. They were/are ostensibly growing experimental “food crops” that you’re not allowed to eat. The companies are hopeful that ultimately the food crops they are experimenting with today will someday be approved as real food by the federal government.

AND these non edible food crops were/are being grown outdoors in open fields even though they are not approved for release into the environment.

What could possibly go wrong?

“The industry is already highly regulated” is also a false narrative. While on the surface it appears to be true, the truth is there’s just a facade of high regulation. No doubt there’s lots of paperwork, pages and pages of forms to fill out, and lots of fancy sounding government agencies managed by former industry executives – but there’s very little actual direct over-sight of the industry.

The industry tells the federal regulator “our proposed research is safe” and provides the regulator with documents explaining how they came to that conclusion. The regulator may or may not actually do an independent review before stamping the application “safe and approved” which is then filed away, never to be seen again. Essentially the industry is self-regulated both in the review of their initial research permit applications, and with regards to follow-up reporting requirements.

This is not hyperbole. After learning of a law requiring companies doing GMO research in Hawaiʻi to provide the Hawaiʻi State Department of Health (SDOH) with copies of their federal permits – I went searching for those same permits (federal permits on file with the state).

After making a few inquiries and a trip to Honolulu, I was directed to a room (more like a large closet) that contained several dozen unopened boxes, that further contained hundreds of unopened envelopes, that contained federal permits allowing these companies to grow experimental GMO crops in Hawaiʻi. So I did what should have been done by actual regulators, I opened the envelopes and actually read the (heavily redacted) permits. 

No one from the State Department of Health had ever even looked at these permits. They never even opened the envelopes. They just assumed the documentation was there and was done correctly. 

It seems, the Hawaiʻi law doesn’t actually require any permit review, but merely requires the industry to provide a copy of the permit. And, if anyone actually opened the envelope, they would find a heavily redacted document difficult and sometimes impossible to decipher.

Highly regulated? I’m not sure by what definition that could be true.

Except when there were incidents such as when field workers suffered pesticide poisoning and it made the headlines, no representative of the EPA or the FDA or any federal organization charged with regulating this industry ever comes to Kauaʻi.

Many of the pesticides used by these companies are banned in other countries around the world. The toxic herbicide atrazine which was used widely in the corn fields all over Kauaʻi has been banned for the past 20 years in 31 countries including Switzerland, where it was first patented and where Syngenta is/was headquartered.

That’s right. Syngenta was using a toxic chemical by the ton Kauaʻi which they were prohibited by law from using in their own country.

Upon further digging I found numerous scientific studies showing that atrazine contamination is ubiquitous in European and North American surface waters, and has been detected in more than 800 drinking water systems in 19 states at levels exceeding health-protective guidelines.

These company executives looked me in the eye and told me they were only using what every other farmer was using, and it was all safe.

Yes, another big lie disguised as a little one. What they meant to say is that they only use what every other chemical company growing experimental GMO corn uses. After finally obtaining the data from the Hawaiʻi Department of Agriculture it became clear that most regular farmers growing real food to eat use only a tiny fraction of the pesticides used by these companies, both in terms of variety and quantity used.

The more I dug, the more I said to myself “wow” I can’t believe this, and the more motivated I became to find out what else was being hidden from my community.

When reporting back to our growing citizen “GMO living-room working group” the outrage and the determination to do something just kept building.

It became ludicrous at times with countless “Can’t make this stuff up” moments.

I once witnessed an industry official who actually said out-loud and on camera, “Well, it’s almost like the real thing” when discussing GMO tomato’s.

On a whim I checked with the County Finance Department and discovered that two of these billion dollar chemical companies were not paying their Kauai property taxes. In addition, because these large wealthy transnational corporations transfer their end products to related subsidiaries outside of Hawaiʻi, and some also benefit from Enterprise Zone and other General Excise Tax (GET) exemptions, they consequently pay zero GET tax on the products they produce and sell. *See footnote on GET

I started looking at the land ownership records and found about half the land used for GMO production on Kauai was leased from the State. These were publicly owned State lands that were former Hawaiian Kingdom Crown Lands.

The use of State lands require compliance with Hawaii’s environmental review law Chapter 343HRS, yet no documentation demonstrating compliance exists.
See footnote3

Using publicly owned lands that abut a pristine coast line, growing experimental genetically modified organisms outside of a greenhouse, openly spraying a wide array of restricted and non restricted pesticides on a mass scale next to neighborhoods, schools, and parks – most defnately have impacts on health and environment.

These impacts have never been reviewed, evaluated or even measured. There are direct impacts, secondary impacts and cumulative impacts but we don’t know what those impacts are – and the companies in question won’t even give us the information needed to make a proper evaluation.

It was time to start writing a bill.

I called Paul Achitoff again and after a long discussion we agreed, “Let’s start with disclosure. They’re telling us it’s safe so why would they not be willing to tell us what they are growing and spraying? This is a reasonable ask. In any case, until we know exactly what they are doing, it’s impossible to study the health and environmental impacts so we must have disclosure.”

And so it began. And as disturbing as the information that had already been discovered was, in the weeks and months ahead it would only get worse.

DRAFT – Chapter 3 – Writing The Bill

So the process of bill writing began.

Working with Paul Achitoff of Earth Justice (EJ) and the Center for Food Safety (CFS) we started drafting a bill that would hopefully become a County ordinance requiring the agrochemical industry to disclose what pesticides they were using, and what experimental crops they were growing in Kauai County.

The purpose of course was to ultimately protect the health of residents and the islands natural environment. But first, we needed the data.

One of the first questions to be answered was: Did the County even have the legal authority to pass such an ordinance?

Our legal research concluded there was no state or federal law prohibiting the county from doing so and no court had ever ruled on the question. We found also that federal law explicitly gave states the right to regulate pesticides, and counties were also allowed to “further regulate” unless prohibited by the state from doing so.

This legal principle is called “preemption”. It’s important and we’ll come back to it later.
Our legal team said, there was nothing in the law or in any court decision telling us we couldn’t do it, and so we should go for it.

So legally we were good to go (or so we thought at the time), so we went.

Politically we knew passing such an ordinance would be an uphill battle but we really had no idea that this would end up without exaggeration being the battle of a lifetime.

At the time I personally had no idea of the storm that was to come, but I did know enough to understand the coming discussion must be limited to only these large companies if possible.

I had enough experience in drafting and passing laws at both the county and state level to know the bill had to be narrow in scope and avoid impacting every single gardener, small farmer, and occasional user of regular “over-the -counter” pesticides.

We had to focus only on the big guys and most egregious users of the most nasty and dangerous of the chemicals. If the bill was too broad and impacted too many small users, the public opposition would be swift and insurmountable.

So we kept it narrow targeting only the largest users of Restricted Use Pesticides (RUP’s) and included a component that required disclosure of any experimental food crops, not approved for release into the environment.

Kaboom. We were good to go (or so I thought). We had the makings of a bill that if passed into law would yield valuable information leading to the next steps limiting or eliminating those uses and/or impacts.

I took the draft to Fern for her thoughts and hopefully, her approval.

She was gentle yet ruthless in her dismissal. This will never fly she said.“Woefully inadequate and miles away from what the people want, which is to kick those fucking companies off our island.” are the words I remember.

My response was to try my best to explain that we did not possess the legal authority to kick those fucking companies off our island, nor would we likely have the political support for such an action.
Kauai is a small community and these companies were major employers of hundreds of local residents.

Even if we had the legal authority or figured out a way to make it happen, there was no way we could get the 5 council votes needed to pass such a bill and over-ride the inevitable mayoral veto.

Kicking them off the island was never going to happen and we needed to focus on what we can do, I told her as gently as I could.

“I got it, but we need more” was her response, “If you want to motivate young people, if you want the room packed with people testifying in support, we need more.”

“Ok, I get it…what if we add pesticide-free buffer zones around schools, parks, and houses…does that work?” I said.

“That’s better but still not enough” she said, “Can’t we just get rid of the GMO stuff altogether? Like ban it from the islands?”

“I’ll check with the lawyers” I said “but I’m pretty sure federal law won’t let us ban the growing of GMO’s. Maybe however we can put into place regulations that say experimental food crops, those not approved for release into the environment – can only be grown in green houses or similar indoor facilities.”

“I think we’re getting somewhere now” she responded.

So I went back to work, huddled again with the lawyers, worked on the words, reviewed draft after draft, definition after definition – trying each time to be increasingly clear on what the bill proposed to accomplish and who would be impacted. The EJ and CFS attorneys researched what similar legislation had been passed in other municipalities around the United States, looking for language and ideas that had worked elsewhere.

There was no shortage of examples of pesticide regulation occurring in other counties and municipalities around the country including buffer zones and disclosure, but when it came to the GMO segment, there was slim pickings. It seemed no county anywhere where the industry was established had managed to regulate them as we proposed to do.

After countless conversation among legal, and scientific experts the final (or so we thought) bill draft was ready. I called Fern and Sol and suggested we convene our “working group” that had started out as a simple conversation in that Wailua living room a few months earlier.

I remember clearly that night. There were about 7 of us in the room. I passed out copies of the proposed bill gave everyone a few minutes to review it, provided a brief overview, and then asked if there were any questions. One young man, a surfer by the name of Makai, raised his hand and asked quickly, “Is this going to keep them from crossing the river?”

He was referring to the Wailua River and the fact that 100% of the existing fields were located on the Southside of that waterway. To the north (where most of the folks in that room lived), from the Wailua River to Hanalei Bay were thousands of acres of agricultural land mostly used for cattle grazing.

“No” I said, “Nothing in this bill will keep them from expanding to other agricultural lands north of the river, should they choose to do so.”

“Well that’s fucked” was his response which was then echoed around the room.

All the work. All the effort, that had gone into this measure, and the results and draft I had put on the table, still fell short for those who had started this conversation in the first place.

It still wasn’t good enough.

I was pretty much devastated. The meeting ended soon after that moment, and I went home and poured my heart out to Claudette.

“So…what are you going to do?” she said…as she has done so many other times in our 40 years of marriage when I found myself in similar seemingly intractable situations.

“I’ll think about it” I said “I’ll figure it out.”

So I did.

I went back to the drawing board. I spoke to the attorneys, and I met and spoke at length with my (now deceased) colleague Councilmember Tim Bynum who had agreed to co-sponsor and co-introduce the bill with me. I spoke to Fern, Sol, Elif Beal, and others. I wracked my brain.

Then “the penny dropped”. While we did not have the legal authority or likely the political support to kick them fucking out or ban their operations, we likely did have the legal authority and possibly the political support to pass a “temporary moratorium” on any future expansion – subject to the industry proving it was safe via an environmental impact statement.

It sounded reasonable enough – Include a provision in the bill that prohibited expansion until the health and environmental impact of the industries operation on Kauai was fully known and the public was fully informed. It would likely be politically acceptable because it let the companies continue doing what they were doing, did not shut them down, and thus did not impact jobs – but prevented their expansion until the EIS was completed and accepted which would likely take years to complete.

If passed, the measure as it was now written, would in fact keep them from crossing the river.

Kaboom. We had a bill. There were 6 key component and each if necessary could stand on its own.

* Disclosure of Restricted Use Pesticides
* Disclosure of experimental GMO growing
* Pesticide buffer-zones around schools, hospitals and houses
* Banning of out-door growing of experimental GMO food crops
* A moratorium on the industries expansion until completion of an environmental impact statement.
* A “permitting requirement” requiring county permits for restricted pesticide use and experimental GMO crops – paid for by the companies themselves via permitting fees.

Up until this point the process had been done on the “down low”. We had not wanted to alert the industry ahead of time as we knew they would immediately go on the attack.

Councilmember Bynum and I huddled to discuss strategy and consulted yet again and again with our friends at Earth Justice, The Center for Food Safety, and others that now included attorneys connected to The Native Hawaiian Legal Corporation and experts affiliated with the national Pesticide Action Network.

Fern Holland, Sol Kahn, and Elif Beal were joined by Andrea Brower and Phoebe Ng and many many others who began brainstorming community based outreach and action. Fern and Sol connected further with Dustin Barca a well known surfer and MMA fighter who had been actively and very publicly fighting to kick out the GMO industry from Hawaii.

Separate from the discussions surrounding the proposed bill were growing/festering community concerns about the health of west-side residents and in general the overwhelming presence of the GMO industry on the island and through-out the state of Hawaii. A group of west-siders led by long time resident Klayton Kubo had filed suit against Dupont/Pioneer claiming both negative health impacts and property damage that was occurring from the pervasive pesticide laden red dust blowing in from the nearby fields.

The people on the ground were basically mad as hell and were not going to take it anymore.

The final draft of our proposed county ordinance was formally submitted to the Council and scheduled for its initial hearing on June 26, 2013. It was forever after referred to as Bill 2491.

It was game on.

A copy of the original bill 2491draft submitted to the Council on this day is here: http://kauai.granicus.com/MetaViewer.php?view_id=2&clip_id=1085&meta_id=49075
Read: The Truth About Bill 2491 https://garyhooser.blog/2013/07/20/the-truth-about-bill-2491-relating-to-pesticides-and-genetically-modified-organisms/
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Note to readers: The above represents an initial draft of the first 3 Chapters of my very first book that is a “work in progress” 😉 During the coming weeks and months I will be writing and rewriting and adding subsequent chapters. While I enjoy writing “commentary” and blogging…I’ve never written a book before. So hang in there and put up with my errors, constant corrections and rewrites. Please let me know if you have suggestions, corrections or edits you might also suggest.

To be clear, there are many stories to be told through the eyes of many who were involved in Bill 2491. This story is just one of them.

For those interested in digging deep into the topic and the historical roots of the movement, I encourage you to read Andrea Noelani Brower’s book “seeds of occupation, seeds of possibility” The Agrochemical-GMO Industry in Hawaiʻi – available at West Virginia University Press BROWERSEED30 is the 30% discount code!

Take the time also to watch “Poisoning Paradise” Produced by Pierce Brosnan and his wife Keely Brosnan, and directed by Teresa Tico. Available Free on Amazon Prime!

And when you get a moment read BREAKFAST AT MONSANTO’S: Is Roundup in our food making us fatter, sicker, and sadder? by Kauai resident Dr. Lee Evslin.

Unopened boxes containing federal GMO permits plus copies of the permit, once I opened the box and started reading:

*Footnote1: Golden Rice a genetically modified variety of rice containing large amounts of the orange or red plant pigment betacarotene, a substance important in the human diet as a precursor of vitamin A. It has been under development for decades but never approved for human consumption.

Footnote2: The Hawaii General Excise Tax is a state tax applied to wholesaling, retailing, farming, services, construction contracting, rental of personal or real property, business interest income, and royalties.

Footnote3: HRS 343 is Hawaii’s environmental impact statement law that requires an environmental review of any development on public lands and/or on the coast line.

“I’m totally disgusted with government” is a message I get frequently from a whole lot of people.

My response is usually, “So….what are you gonna do about it?” To which the answer is invariably, “It doesn’t matter, they will do what they want regardless. They don’t care about what I think, so why bother?“

Why bother? Because your voice is desperately needed and absolutely can make a difference. Because if you don’t speak up they only hear from the money and the lobbyists.

Trust me on this. Most legislators do care about what you think. Complete the exercise included at the bottom if you don’t believe me.

Your voice, should you choose to use it, can make a difference. I’ve been there. I’ve seen and witnessed it up close and personal.

Sometimes one voice at a particular point in time can push a vote teetering on the edge – especially if that voice is from someone who lives in the district.

Without question a handful of voices delivered via email, telephone, formal testimony, or a single letter to the editor can make a huge difference. 20, or 30, or 100 or more FROM THE DISTRICT can definitely change the vote of a State Legislator.

Politicians abhor the prospect of letters to the editor written by unhappy constituents who live in their district. A letter or oped in the local newspaper calling them out for being unresponsive, or for voting the wrong way, or a letter of thanks and appreciation- will quickly get their attention.

I’m telling you straight. Everyone who serves in public office wants to keep serving in public office. To get reelected they must keep voters in their district happy. It’s not a bad thing. It’s natural really, and it’s a mechanism to hold them accountable if we use it.

Remember also when they do good stuff, publicly thank them. It’s not just about pounding on them when they mess up. You gotta show them the love when they do good. Positive feedback and public appreciation is a powerful motivator.

To discover if your own district legislator cares about what you think or not, please join me in the below policy and politics exercise.

First: Identify the State Senator and Representative elected from your district via “Find Your Legislator” at https://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/fyl/

Next: Send each a short email, introduce yourself, tell them what’s important to you, ask about their positions on those issues, and request a reply.

Something like this perhaps, but choose YOUR issues:

“Aloha Representative/Senator, My name is XXXX, I live in your District and wanted to thank you for your service, let you know the issues most important to me, and find out if we are aligned on those issues. My 4 top priorities include term limits, publicly funded elections, XXX, and XXX. Are these issues you support? I understand you’re very busy (as we all are) however the courtesy of a reply would be greatly appreciated. Sincerely, name/town”

When they respond: Send a brief thank you and contact them again in the future as issues come up. If they don’t reply within 7 days, call, or write a follow-up “did you get my earlier email” note. If they still don’t respond, write a letter to the editor and call them out for being unresponsive to a constituent who lives in the district.

Please – take the time to send this email. I promise you, it will be fun AND you will learn a little, perhaps a whole lot, about the true nature and core values of the Representative and Senator who are supposed to be representing you.

If you feel comfortable sharing in confidence the results of your effort, lmk at gary@garyhooser.blog

June is Pride Month, dedicated to celebrating the LGBTQ+ community, their history, achievements and ongoing struggle for equality.

On June 28, 1970, on the one-year anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising, the first Pride marches were held in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. Thousands of LGBT+ people gathered to commemorate Stonewall and demonstrate for equal rights. The events of Stonewall and the liberation movements that followed were a direct result of prior decades of LGBT+ activism and organizing. (Source: Meg Metcalf, Library of Congress)

As an ally, what can we do to support the movement and celebrate Pride?

It starts with taking the time to learn more about the history of Pride (and LGBTQ+ history in general) by engaging with various resources, which includes, of course, swinging by our local library to learn more about gender and sexuality.

We should take the time this month to also seek out and read books by LGBTQ+ writers and watch documentaries about LGBTQ+ folks, such as “Disclosure” (Netflix), “Always Jane” (Amazon Prime), “How To Survive a Plague” (Amazon Prime), “A Secret Love” (Netflix), “Pray Away” (Netflix), “Flee” (Hulu)‍ and “Kumu Hina” (PBS).

If you are part of the LGBTQ+ community and were in Hawai‘i and alive in 2009, and or if you are policy nerd interested in LGBTQ+ issues, you will enjoy reading The Saga of House Bill 444

It’s been a very rough year in policy for the LGBTQ+ community, especially youth, trans folks, and drag performers. It’s up to all of us to protect and advance the rights of queer folks of all backgrounds — and to do so now.

Unfortunately, ignorance and bigotry is not limited to Florida, Tennessee and Texas. We have our fair share here, also of politicians and community members who are terrified of drag queens and determined to control what books should be on the shelves of our public libraries.

Personally, I think we should trust librarians to fill our libraries with books rather than sidewalk superintendents with too much time on their hands who think they know what’s best for the rest of us.

So, to celebrate Pride Month, give a call to your local librarian and tell them “thank you for standing up for free speech.”

Of course, we should call upon our elected officials to protect and uplift LGBTQ+ folks, and to also leave our books alone.

With the primary election only 14 months away, we should seek out and support those candidates who include in their platform working to improve the lives of all members of the LGBTQ+ community.

There are countless other ways to celebrate and support Pride Month.

Advocate for medically accurate, comprehensive and inclusive sex education.

According to the Center for American Progress, sex education is only legally mandated in 22 states, and of these, only 12 mandate teaching about contraception, and only seven require the information be medically accurate. Comprehensive and inclusive sex education is needed for all students, and helps to decrease levels of prejudice against LGBTQ+ youth.

‍If you’re a teacher, work with your school administration to designate your classroom as an LGBTQ+ safe space and ensure that all students have access to affirming resources about gender and sexuality.

Those of us who have the capacity should make a special effort this month to donate to organizations that support LGBTQ+ folks. They need our financial support now more than ever.

Attend a Pride event. Grab the flag and display it proudly at home and at work.

There’s lots we can do. Now, let’s get on it!

Mahalo to Kamrin Baker and https://www.goodgoodgood.co/articles/how-to-celebrate-pride-month for an exhaustive compilation of excellent resources on the topic of Pride and the LGBTQ+ community.

First published in The Garden Island newspaper 06/14/23

Gary Hooser is the former vice-chair of the Democratic Party of Hawai‘i, and served eight years in the state Senate, where he was majority leader. He also served for eight years on the Kaua‘i County Council, and was the former director of the state Office of Environmental Quality Control.

It seems so obvious, but the truth is many if not most candidates just don’t get it.

At public forums, in letters to the editor, and when knocking of doors in the neighborhood – candidates will speak with deep personal conviction about issues they are most concerned about – perhaps focused on the environment, food self-sufficiency, or matters of social justice.

The voter listens patiently (or perhaps not) thinking to themselves, “That’s all fine and dandy and yes, important. But what about the potholes I bounce over every single flipping day? What about the unbearable traffic? How come every time I go to a public park there’s no toilet paper? And when are they going to paint my children school and repair the playground equipment?”

In the world of electoral politics, to win, a candidate must connect with the issues most important to voters, not the issue most important to themselves. This doesn’t mean the candidate must set aside their own priorities and values, but it does mean they must listen to voters in their district and elevate those issues front and center – if they want to win.

Yes, speak with passion about those issues you care most deeply about, but speak also with conviction about those issues most important to your constituents – which may be different and focused purely on their own neighborhood, school, road, or park.

To put a point on it – in order to win an election to serve in public office, it’s the constituents who live in the district who vote that matter the most. Yes, you serve everyone and yes you can and should work on those issues that matter most to you personally – but to win you must put the immediate need of voting constituents in the district first.

I’ll never forget a teachable moment my incredibly akamai daughter shared with me, that I will now share with you.

It was mid 1998, I was a candidate for the County Council preparing for an upcoming candidate forum. We were sitting at the dinner table discussing my planned “stump speech” when my young somewhat precocious daughter interrupted to tell me, “Why don’t you just tell them you’re going to get rid of the junk cars?”

Kelli-Rose at 10 years old knew exactly what our community wanted. It was brilliant really. Thankfully she shared that brilliance with her dad who then began talking more about getting rid of junk cars and less about the big picture stuff.

Junk cars – it was not a flashy issue, but it was important to the daily lives of the people living and voting in my community.

The Wall Street Journal a few months earlier ran a front page story calling Kauaʻi “the Garbage Island.”

At the time derelict, abandoned, stripped down, graffiti sprayed cars, were everywhere. There was no Puhi Metals Recycling Facility and the problem seemed at the moment to be insurmountable.

Some will say that today, 25 years later we still have that problem but trust me – todays junk car problem is nothing compared to what it was in 1998.

So what issue is front and center today, at this particular moment in time in your district?

Remember, most voters are older folk. Young people have the very worst voting record. The houseless and unemployed also aren’t known to be particularly dependable voters.

My guess is it’s the high cost of housing, traffic, education and those darn pot-holes. But it could be building that new school, or a safe walkway to that school, or more parking at the beach park, or beach access, or perhaps crime.

Personally, I live in Wailua Homesteads and drive up and down Kuamo’o Road every single day and I think about those potholes every single day. Rep. Evslin, Senator Kouchi – are you listening?

The candidate who promises to re-pave Kuamo’o and get rid of those potholes will have my vote in 2024 that’s for sure (unless of course they are corrupt, MAGA, conspiracy theorist, bigoted, or some unhinged/fascist trying to censor our library books).

Here is a blow by blow series of “Campaigning 101” missives that new candidates might find interesting and useful:

Campaign 101 – What makes someone a good candidate for public office? Purple Mohawks Need Not Apply

Campaigning 101 #1 – 2024 candidates – first steps

Campaigning 101 #2 The sometimes not so obvious basics

Campaigning 101 #3 – What is the worst thing someone is going to say about you?

If you want it all – Sign up for my somewhat unconventional email newsletter (though it’s not really a newsletter but I don’t know what else to call it) – Policy & Politics at https://policy-and-politics.mailchimpsites.com

In recognition of Pride Month, I’ve posted below the official Senate Journal of March 23, 2009, a day I am most proud of.

On this day, as the State Senator representing Kauaʻi and Niʻihau, I led an effort to pull HB444 HD1 to the Senate floor.

HB444 HD1 established civil unions and stated “partners to a civil union … shall have all the same rights, benefits, protections, and responsibilities under law … as are granted to spouses in a marriage.”

There are relatively few times when we are called upon to stand up and be counted. Rarely do we as individuals have the opportunity to participate in something truly important and possibly make a lasting difference in the world and in the lives of people – and this was one of them.

We lost that day, but I tell this story with pride.

As Majority Leader of the Hawaiʻi State Senate, part of my job was to “count votes” and in early 2009 our Caucus was presented with the question: “If the House passes out Civil Unions, are there sufficient votes in the Senate to also pass it?”

So I counted. One-on-one, individually and personally, I posed this question to the 23 Democratic Senators in our Caucus. 18 of them said Yes. That’s one more than’s needed to override a veto should Governor Lingle (R) have chosen to exercise her pen. At the time, she had not indicated one way or another her intentions, but we were ready.

During the following Caucus, upon being informed of the strong support – Senate President Colleen Hanabusa gave the green light. We have the votes. If the House passes it, we will too.

It was game on.

We knew it would be contentious. We knew it would be a huge fight. But we had the votes.

The response from the community was immediate and overwhelming. The opposition citing God on their side filled the hearing rooms, galleries, and the rotunda. They came in by the busload, carrying signs, toting bibles, and too often spewing hateful ugly rhetoric. It was awful.

The LGBTQ+ community, friends, and allies, also showed up in numbers, speaking with earnest passion in support of the long overdue right to equal treatment under the law.

The House moved quickly. HB444HD1 passed out of their Judiciary Committee on February 5, 2009, with 12 members voting in favor and none opposed and was approved on the floor February 12, 2009, with 33 members voting in favor and 17 opposed.

On February 24 the Senate Judiciary Committee Chaired by Senator Brian Taniguchi held an 18-hour marathon hearing with over 1,400 people submitting testimony. The hearing ended at 3 a.m. with the vote tied 3/3. The three ayes: Senators Brian Taniguchi, Dwight Takamine, and Clarence Nishihara; the three noes: Senators Robert Bunda, Mike Gabbard, and Sam Slom.

HB444HD1 was thus stuck in committee and dead for the session unless extraordinary action was used to pull it to the Senate floor and allow the full Senate to vote – up or down.

Unfortunately the tide began to turn. Various members in the Senate began having second thoughts culminating in the Senate President suggesting in Caucus that “maybe next year would be a better year to attempt passage” and that pulling HB444HD1 to the floor was perhaps not a good idea.

As the Senate Majority Leader my role was to represent the majority and now that majority was slowly turning against something I had put my heart and soul into.

In the privacy of our majority caucus room, I voiced my inability to turn back. I argued both the righteousness of the cause and the timing of the action – “next year” was an election year and the likelihood of passing something this controversial in an election year was in my opinion – slim to none.

I closed by saying to my colleagues, that it was my intent as an individual Senator (not in my role as Majority Leader) to make a motion to pull HB444HD1 to the floor for a full vote, and if I received a second to that motion – there would then be a full open and public discussion and ultimately a vote.

Senator Rosalyn Baker was the first person in the room to raise her hand and say, “I’m with Gary.” She was followed by a few others who also spoke in support and the process was set in motion.

On March 23, 2009, I rose from my seat on the floor of the Senate to make that motion. We needed 9 votes to actually get the bill to the floor.

It became clear immediately that Senate Leadership did not want to talk about the importance or “substance” of the Bill. The gallery was standing room only, full of people who had been promised that 18 Senators were in support of its passage. Leaderships “floor strategy” was designed to limit debate and to obfuscate the discussion around technical aspects of whether or not the bill could be pulled to the floor.

Of course I ignored (respectfully of course) those attempts and spoke to the “substance of the bill” even though I was repeatedly instructed not to.

We lost the vote and won our pride. The 6 of us walked out of that room holding our heads high. 12 others walked out explaining somewhat confusingly to the community that while they really and truly supported the rights granted in the bill, for technical reasons they could not actually vote for it.

And yes, 7 Senators left the floor that day pleased at their success in stopping the LGBTQ+ community from moving forward towards that ultimate goal of marriage equality.

The 6 Yes votes were Senators Rosalyn Baker, Suzanne Chun Oakland, Carol Fukunaga, Les Ihara, Michelle Kidani, and myself.

The 18 No votes were: Senators Robert Bunda, Will Espero, Mike Gabbard, Brickwood Galuteria, Josh Green, Colleen Hanabusa, Clayton Hee, Fred Hemmings, David Ige, Donna Mercado Kim, Russel Kokubun, Clarence Nishihara, Norman Sakamoto, Sam Slom, Dwight Takamine, Brian Taniguchi, Jill Tokuda, and Shan Tsutsui.

1 Excused and absent from the vote: Senator Kalani English

One of the many lessons I learned that day was that even when you don’t think your voice will make a difference it’s important to stand up and speak out in support of others when you know deep in your na’au it’s the right thing to do. As I spoke that day on the floor, I could think only of those who had worked so hard and sacrificed so much, and who deserved equal treatment, respect, and pride.

Note1: HB444 was ultimately passed the following year in April 2010 and vetoed by Governor Linda Lingle (R) in July, 2.5 months prior to the primary election. There was no attempt by the legislature to override the Bill.

Note2: Three years later, Governor Neil Abercrombie (D) convened a special session and signed into law on November 13, 2013 a bill extending full marriage rights to same-sex couples. The contentiousness of these hearings can also be not be understated. Senator Clayton Hee, Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee responsible for Senate Bill 1, which would eventually become the Marriage Equality Act wore a bullet proof Kevlar vest to his initial public hearings. While some of the opposing rhetoric was ugly and vile, fortunately the measure passed and was signed into law without overt violence or physical harm. Marriage equality had finally arrived in Hawaii.

If you are truly into policy and politics, I think you will find the below full and official transcript of the proceedings fascinating.

Hawaiʻi State Senate Journal
March 23, 2009: RECALL OF HOUSE BILL 444

Pursuant to Senate Rule 52, Senator Hooser moved to recall H.B. No. 444, H.D. 1, entitled: ―A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO CIVIL UNIONS,‖ from the Committee on Judiciary and Government Operations, seconded by Senator Ihara.

The President then inquired:
―Madam Clerk, have 20 days elapsed since H.B. No. 444, H.D. 1 was referred to committee?

The Clerk replied:
―Madam President, H.B. No. 444, H.D. 1 was referred to the Committee on Judiciary and Government Operations on February 18, 2009. The required number of days has elapsed since referral.

The Chair then stated:
―In accordance with parliamentary procedures established pursuant to Mason‘s Manual of Legislative Procedures, 2000 Edition, the Chair will provide for limited debate on the motion to recall, but H.B. No. 444, H.D. 1, is not open to debate.

Senator Hooser rose and said:
―Madam President, I rise today and humbly ask that the members join me in a vote to recall H.B. No. 444, H.D. 1, a bill that extends the same rights, benefits and protections and responsibilities of spouses in a marriage to partners in a civil union. I‘m asking for your help and support, members, not as a Majority Leader, but as an individual Senator and as a primary sponsor of the Senate version of this bill, but more so as someone who believes strongly that it is my duty and obligation—that it is our duty and obligation—to treat people equally and to provide and protect the equal rights of all people.

Senator Tsutsui interjected:
―Madam President, point of order.
The Chair recognized Senator Tsutsui, and Senator Tsutsui continued:
―I believe the speaker should be speaking to the merits of the motion on the floor and not the merits of the underlying measure.

The President then said:
―Senator Hooser, please continue your statements as to the procedural motion.

Senator Hooser continued:
―Yes, Madam President, I‘m speaking in support of pulling this bill to the floor because I believe in the principle that it is our duty and obligation to treat people equally and to provide and protect the equal rights of all people. And that is why I am here today to request that each of the Senators support the pulling of H.B. No. 444, H.D. 1 to the floor because that‘s the only way we will have a full and open debate, and ultimately a full and open vote on these issues. And on answering the important question, ̳should we extend the same rights and benefits, protections and responsibilities…

Senator Kokubun interjected:
―Madam President, point of order.

The Chair recognized Senator Kokubun, and Senator Kokubun continued:
―The Senator that is now speaking has some good points that should be addressed on the substance of the issue, but the motion now is to have us vote to determine whether there is a constitutionally-required one-third number of Senators to recall the measure to the full Senate. Thank you.

The President then said:
―Senator Hooser…

Senator Ihara interjected:
―Madam President, I rise on a point of parliamentary inquiry or information.

The Chair recognized Senator Ihara, and Senator Ihara continued:
―I believe the movant has the right to speak to explain why he wants to recall the bill. I believe that it is not in order to debate the merits of the bill, but I believe he has the constitutional right on this constitutional recall motion to explain why he wants to recall the bill.

The Chair responded:
―Senator Ihara, the point is well taken. Notwithstanding, what we are debating here is the recall motion and it‘s a procedural motion in nature and it is the Chair‘s ruling that the debate is to the procedural motion of the recall.

Senator Hooser interjected:
―Madam President, may I ask a question?

The Chair recognized Senator Hooser, and Senator Hooser continued:
―Am I allowed to describe the bill that we are talking about at all, or just by number?

The Chair responded:
―You can describe the purpose of the…you can describe for a limited purpose what the bill is—and I think you have done that, Senator Hooser. But if you wish to restate what the bill is, please restate what the bill is.

Senator Hooser continued:
―Thank you, Madam President. I think it‘s important that the purpose of the bill, as is stated on the bill itself—these are not my words, Madam President, and I think they speak to the very fundamental nature of this debate. The question is, in the bill, should we extend the same rights, benefits, and protections, and responsibilities of spouses in a marriage to partners in a civil union? That‘s what we‘re debating whether or not to pull to the floor from committee. For me, the answer is, ̳Yes, without question, we should do both.‘ We should pull this to the floor for a full debate, and we should extend the same rights.

―At the minimum, the question deserves to come to this floor for a public discussion and a public vote, rather than to sit bottled up in committee, hamstrung by a 3-3 tie vote. This is an important, important issue about the fundamental rights of people, and if it‘s allowed to sit bottled up—and I‘m here today to un-bottle it and to encourage members to vote—it will simply wither away and die an ignoble and anonymous death, stuck undecided and unresolved in committee because of a tie vote. I believe that‘s what will happen if we do not pull it to the floor and that‘s what I‘m speaking to. This is an important issue. It deserves more than just to sit in that committee, unresolved and undecided because we have a tie. This issue and the people that have brought the issue forward, the people who have worked so hard to get it to where it is today, deserve to have it discussed and voted on by the full Senate, and I am here today to ask for you to join me and allow this to happen.

―H.B. No. 444, H.D.1 lies stuck in committee because of a tie vote, after traveling over two years through the process. A similar effort to pass legislation died in the House two years ago after the House Judiciary failed to take a vote on it. Advocates were told at the time, be patient, take the next year off, build a broad based coalition; include labor, religious groups and others around the community in your effort. Get it passed in the House, and we are pretty confident the votes in the Senate will be there. So guess what? That is exactly what they did. They were patient. They took a year. They gathered broad based community coalition support—loud, diverse support, strong support—and just a few days ago that coalition issued a statement asking this body to recall the bill from committee to take a full vote in the Senate. And I have an open letter to the Senators speaking to the issue of the recall. It says: As leaders of diverse communities across the islands, we call on you to bring the civil unions bill to the floor for passage. We believe this is a civil rights issue. This is an issue of economic justice. This is about ohana. This letter is signed by Dr. Amy Agbayani, Co-Chair of the Friends of Civil Rights and Filipinos for Affirmative Action; Shawn Benton, President of the Japanese American Citizens League; Alphonso Bragg, President of Hawaii NAACP; Puanani Burgess, Principle of One Peace-At-A-Time; Eric Gill, Financial Secretary of the Unite Here! Local 5; Debi Hartmann, Former Chair of the Hawaii State Board of Education; Lynette Hiilani Cruz, Professor of Anthropology, President of Ka Lei Maile Alii Hawaiian Civic Club; Faye Kennedy, Co-Chair of the Hawaii Friends of Civil Rights; Poka Laenui, Director of the Institute for the Advancement of Hawaiian Affairs; Brien Matson, President of the Musicians Association; Wayne Panoke, Executive Director of Ilio ulaokalani Coalition; Vicky Holt Takamine, Executive Director of PAI Foundation; Allicyn Tasaka and Debbie Shimizu, Co-Chairs of the Hawaii State Democratic Women‘s Caucus. These are leaders in our community speaking directly to the issue of pulling the bill from committee and strongly encouraging us to do so.

―H.B. No. 444, H.D.1 passed the House with a 33 to 17 vote, only one vote shy of a supermajority. Even members of the Minority party and previously-thought conservative Democrats voted in support. Eighteen members of this body of the Senate then indicated they were in support, one more than the supermajority needed to override a veto, and the measure was scheduled for committee hearing. Knowing the possibility of a tie vote was strong, members were polled on the possibility of a recall, such as we‘re trying today, and at the end of the day 13 said they would support a pull. Shortly thereafter, a marathon public hearing was held, the vote was taken, the results were 3 for and 3 against. The Chair of the committee voted yes in support of the bill. The Vice-Chair of the committee voted yes in support of the bill. A majority of Democrats on the committee voted in support of the bill, and two Democrats joined with one Republican Minority member to successfully block H.B. No. 444, H.D.1 in committee. In the end, this bill will live or die, not because of the actions taken by that committee but through our action or inaction as a group, which is why the motion is being made here today on the floor, which is why I‘m asking you to join me in allowing this very important measure to be brought to the full floor for a full and open discussion on its merits. As you can see, we‘re not allowed to discuss the issue on its merits here today; we‘re not allowed to discuss why we may or may not support civil unions. We can only discuss this particular measure asking to be pulled from the floor. Why wouldn‘t we be willing to recall this bill from committee for a full discussion and floor vote? What are the reasons why we would not want to have a full and open discussion on this very important issue? If there are 18 Senators who support the bill, if there are 18 Senators who support extending the same rights, benefits, protections and responsibilities of spouses in a marriage to partners in a civil union, why is there hesitation now? That language, by the way, is not new language. Though the word marriage seems to make a lot of people very nervous, that language has been there from the beginning…

Senator Kokubun interjected:
―Madam President, point of order please.

The Chair recognized Senator Kokubun, and Senator Kokubun continued:
―I really would request that this discussion be centered on the motion to recall. Thank you.

The Chair acknowledged the point of order and allowed Senator Hooser to continue.

Senator Hooser continued:
―Madam President, I understand that, and the points I‘m going to raise now are the points that have been discussed in the past as reasons why not to recall this bill. When discussed individually and otherwise asking members why they may or may not support the recall of this bill, there were four general objections.

―Recalling the bill from committee sets a bad precedent, some will say, and somehow violates the internal committee process and structure of the Senate. That‘s number 1. Number 2: H.B. No. 444, H.D.1 is likely to be vetoed by the Governor, and so why should we expose ourselves politically when she will veto and the likelihood of being able to override the veto is slim. So why even bother to take it further? Number 3 objection: H.B. No. 444, H.D.1 is likely to be challenged in court and we could wind up like Connecticut with same-sex marriage being legalized. The fourth most common objection is instead of passing this bill, we should focus on amending the bill, deleting references to marriage, and granting some additional rights but not all the rights. In the interests of time, I will not go into great detail refuting each of those concerns but I will touch briefly on this.

―The ability to recall the bill from committee is a constitutional right that is rarely used but is there for exactly these types of situations. It was created in our Constitution for situations in which bills are kept bottled up in committee. Bills have been recalled for a variety of measures over the years. I‘ve got a list I‘d like to introduce into the record: there was a bill in 1994 relating to marriage, H.B. No. 2312. 1996. 1998. 2002. (The Chair having so ordered, the list is identified as ―ATTACHMENT A‖ to the Journal of this day.) Though it is rare, it is not unheard of; it is not uncommon. A review of the votes and the reasons given will clearly show the recalls were made based on the bill being stuck in committee and members feeling strongly that the full Senate needed to debate and vote on the substance of the issue. This is why they recalled in the past, and this is some of the reasons I‘m asking for the recall today. A further review of the history also clearly shows that in each case of recall, there was no subsequent breakdown of the committee process. There was no rush or flurry of attempts to recall other bills. A review of the history also shows that many members here today, who I believe are not in support of the recall, have in the past voted to recall other measures.

―The second objection regarding the veto: Worrying about whether the Governor will veto the measure or not, worrying about whether we have the votes to override or whether the House has the votes to override, and failing to act as a result of that worry, I believe, is a fruitless and self-defeating exercise. If we truly feel that granting full and equal rights—I‘m sorry, I apologize for talking about the substance of the bill. If we fully believe that doing what we‘re here today, doing what I‘m proposing today is the right thing to do, then we should simply call this measure to the floor, have a full and open discussion, and do it, and let the Governor do what she must do. At the end of the day, we must each look ourselves in the mirror and judge ourselves on the action we take; and the decision we make today should be based on what we believe is right and just, and not on what we speculate the Governor may or may not do.

―Number three: Recent concerns raise that this bill is too close to the Connecticut law and the courts may, as a result, legalize same-sex marriage. These concerns, I believe, are unfounded. Though it is very likely—not unlikely—that the law could be challenged in court, Hawaii attorney and Professor of Constitutional Law and well-respected attorney Jon Van Dyke has stated clearly and in writing that the likelihood of this occurring is remote, and in fact, he used the word impossible. In addition, retired Hawaii Supreme Court Associate Justice Steven Levinson has also written, ―I concur completely with Professor Van Dyke‘s analysis. I have another letter here from the ACLU attorney Lois Perrin that says, There is no legal basis for any argument that H.B. No. 444, as currently written, will be used as a basis for a lawsuit for same-sex marriage under the Hawaii State Constitution. I would like to enter those three communications into the record as well. (The Chair having so ordered, the letters are identified as ―ATTACHMENT B‖ to the Journal of this day.)

―Last but not least is the objection that we should amend the bill; somehow remove the word marriage from the language, reduce the amount of rights we are granting, and pass it back over to the House, an amended version that the Governor is not likely to veto. This option, the one that I do not personally support, remains a possibility.

―I would like to thank the Senator from Ewa Beach, the Senator from Downtown who have each worked very hard, spending many hours trying to craft such an amendment that might be acceptable to the advocates and to the Senate majority. I applaud their efforts and encourage them today to support the vote today and then offer the amendments to the full Senate on Friday. Should a majority of members vote in support of those amendments, I will join you in that support for the final amended vote. I‘ll repeat that: Should a majority of members vote in support of those amendments, I will join in that vote of support for the final amended bill.

―In conclusion, Madam President, members, this is a tough issue, probably the toughest one we‘ve been involved with in a while. For myself, I think it‘s important. I think the reason I was elected was to make these kinds of decisions. You know, we have plenty of pressure from all sides. There‘s no shortage of pressure. There are plenty of reasons we can come up with to postpone this vote or to vote no. For me, the main reason to vote yes, the main reason that I‘ve personally have not been able to avoid is one of principle and one of obligation. The principle, of course, is that all people are created equal, and all people deserve to be treated fairly, equally, and with respect and dignity. All people are created equal and that all people deserve to be treated fairly, equally, and with respect and dignity—I cannot say that often enough. The principle that knowing this is the right thing to do, the principle that the people affected by this legislation deserve better and deserve our vote and support.

―I‘m voting in support of this measure today, and I‘m asking you to join me because we owe it to these people. These are our friends, our neighbors, our family members. We owe them a full and open discussion of the issue and a full vote on the floor of this chamber, and I‘m here today requesting your support in recalling H.B. No. 444, H.D.1 to the floor of the Senate, but more than that, I am asking that each of you simply vote your conscience. Vote the issue. Vote the principle. Vote for what you know and believe to be right in your heart. Thank you, Madam President.

Senator Slom rose in opposition to the motion and said: ―Madam President, I rise in opposition to the motion…

At this time, Senator Baker rose on a point of order.

The Chair then said:
―Member of the gallery, please have decorum. Thank you.

Senator Slom continued:
―Madam President, unlike the previous speaker, I will respect your wishes and your ruling and stick within the argument about the recall.

―I must say, however, as a member of the Judiciary Committee, I take great umbrage at the misinformation and false statements made by the previous speaker. If we‘re talking about principle and obligation, then one must ask, ̳Where is the principle and obligation if we have a stated procedure? Why do we not follow it?‘ And before I go any further, Madam President, let me make sure that I specifically request a Roll Call vote when this debate is finished. (The Chair so ordered.)

―I want to tell you that I was here for the pulling of two of the last measures that the good Senator from Kauai spoke about, and I voted for the pulling. But what the good Senator neglected to tell this body and the gallery was that those bills were pulled because the committee chairs refused to hold hearing on those bills. And when we talk about a bill being stuck in a committee and when the good Senator says we need a full and open debate, where was the good Senator for the 18 hours of full and open debate that this Senate committee held just a few short weeks ago? Eighteen hours, the longest continuous hearing on any single issue ever held in the State Senate; from 9:00 a.m. on Tuesday to 3:00 a.m. on Wednesday. And everyone, everyone, had ample opportunity to stand up and say whatever they wanted to say. We had nearly 1,500 pieces of testimony and nearly 500 people came and testified in that auditorium. It was an amazing sight. It was democracy in action. And I credit the Judiciary Chairman for not only his patience and forbearance, but the ability to allow everyone to be heard. And then what happened? After a full and open debate with arguments back and forth, the committee of six voted, and the vote was 3 to 3, and the bill failed. It is not unusual to have tie votes or tie actions. We have them in athletics, we have them in educational decision making, and we certainly have them in politics. And a tie vote is a vote. Everyone had their opportunity to do that. What could we do differently if we yanked—and notice it is always talked about yanking the bill or forcing—the bill out of the Judiciary Committee after that full and open hearing? What could we do differently in this body on this floor? Well, I think we heard some of it in some of the remarks that were supposed to be addressed to the procedure. By pointing out the political representation on the Committee and pointing out the alleged votes by members of a political party, I think that some members of this body and some of the advocates want to truly politicize this issue. Is it really something that is necessary and needed at this time when we have supposedly been struggling the budget and the livelihood and the standard of living of individuals, families, and businesses in this community? I don‘t think so. We have a process. The process has been followed. We had a hearing. We had a vote, and the vote has been tallied. Now, some people don‘t like the vote and they want to get their way, and there was ample opportunity to amend this bill prior to and during the hearing. But it was made clear by advocates of this bill they don‘t want any changes. They don‘t want anything that is different from erasing the dividing line between so-called civil unions and marriage. That‘s what they want; and that is their right, and I respect that right. But we have thoroughly legislated it, and now to say we‘re going to force this onto the floor because some people may have additional political aspirations next year is not going to help this community, is not going to reflect positively on this Senate
.
Senator Baker rose on a point of order. The Chair called for order.


Senator Slom continued:
―So, Madam President, we must vote ̳no‘ on this measure because the bill is not stuck in the committee, the bill is not bottled up in the committee, the bill has not done without hearing. We followed the process. We have done all of that and we came to a conclusion, and the conclusion was there was not enough support to pass this bill at this time. Now the good Senator from Kauai brought up four canards about why we shouldn‘t do this or why we should yank the bill, and he talked about bad precedent and I mentioned what the precedents have been. Certainly we have a constitutional right to do this, but the idea is why should we when we have followed all of the things that we have to do and when everyone has spoken out about this?

―Secondly, I almost fell off my chair, Madam President, when the good Senator said the Governor is likely to veto this bill. I don‘t know where he got his information. I would be very, very surprised if the Governor vetoed this bill. And why should the good Senator worry with 23 members out of 25 in this body, and with a record of overriding the Governor‘s vetoes at whim? Why worry about that?

―Thirdly, he talked about a challenge being made, and he talked about Connecticut, and he talked about Professor Van Dyke. If he would have gone a little further and given you more accurate information, he would have mentioned that Professor Van Dyke discussed the Connecticut case and there is a basic difference between Connecticut and the State of Hawaii. The Connecticut case relied upon the state constitution in Connecticut and not the federal Constitution. As Professor Van Dyke pointed out, it would be very difficult in Hawaii, at the appellate level, to change things here because in 1998 more than 70 percent of the people voted for what they believed to be a definition of marriage between one man and one woman, but they did reserve the final decision to the Legislature, and the Legislature acted, amending chapter 572-1 and 572-1.5, which states: ̳marriage in the State of Hawaii is between a man and a woman. So, we‘re not talking about civil rights here. We‘re not talking about equality. We‘re talking about trying to erase bright lines and we‘re talking about, in the end, as so many people testified, money and benefits and not civil rights. We have had the debate—I am certain this debate will continue—but to try to force this on the floor when the committee and its members did their job and when everyone in the community had ample opportunity—not only to testify, not only to send in information—to watch live 18 hours of that debate. That is reason for us to reject this motion, and I urge my colleagues to do so. Thank you, Madam President.

The Chair addressed the chamber and said:
―Members…members of the public…members of the public, you are here to watch the Senators‘ debate. We would like to ask you to respect the decorum of the Senate chambers. We would like to ask all sides of this issue to please refrain from any outbursts, and the reason being that the Senators are here to debate a very critical issue that all of you may have—and we believe have opinions of—but please permit us to complete our process.

Senator Ihara rose in support of the motion to recall and said:
―Madam President, I will endeavor to keep my comments within the interpretation that you had laid out. I would hope that the Senate would continue its tradition of not having narrow interpretations of parliamentary rules, but I‘ll do my best.

―I first want to address the motion itself: the motion to recall the civil unions bill from committee. In 1950, Hawaii voters ratified a constitutional amendment, article III, section 10, that empowered a minority of legislators to recall a bill for full Senate action. Oahu delegate Elizabeth Kellerman introduced this proposal, and there was a debate in the 1950 Constitutional Convention on July 7, 1950. In that debate she said:If the minority can bring a bill out to the floor, it will give them an opportunity to express their views, and it seems to me that the people ought to know how the members of the legislature feel and stand on certain measures. I believe that everything should be out in the open, and I think this amendment will provide for ―putting democracy to work and I believe this amendment will help to do that, and that is why I am in favor of it. That was the statement from the proposer of this Constitutional right to recall given to a minority of legislators. This constitutional right of a minority was designed to protect our majority: to protect it from what historians have called ̳the tyranny of the majority. Our democracy depends on hearing the voices of the minority, and the minority right to recall was so important to our constitutional framers that this right was placed in the Hawaii State Constitution. While a minority has a right to recall and vote on a bill that‘s in committee, bottled up or otherwise, it is the majority that decides the fate of such a bill. Whether the recall motion succeeds or fails will determine, in fact, whether a minority of same gender couples and families will finally receive the legal rights that heterosexuals already enjoy. I would like to ask fellow Senators, respectfully, especially the majority that may oppose this motion, if it might be possible to honor Hawaii‘s constitutional minority right motion to recall a bill from committee, and hold those thoughts about acting against those who may support this motion.

―Martin Luther King said, Means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek. Madam President, I support the motion to recall H.B. No. 444 because I believe there is no better day than today to stand up for the basic human right of every person to enjoy a family relationship without discrimination. I believe today is the day the Legislature could signal its intention to finally use its constitutional authority to grant equal legal rights to gay and lesbian couples. I will vote… I will vote for the recall motion because the denial of equal rights to same gender couples is too important to delay another day. I‘m trying to censor some of my speaking as I go along to not be too offensive in bringing up the subject matter.

―Madam President, I believe this motion to recall is an appropriate method for a minority of Senators to invite other Senators to finally debate and vote on the merits of civil unions bill. I am interested in understanding the public policy rationale, hopefully in a future debate, that might be proposed for denying same sex couples the legal rights that heterosexual families already have. I believe it is time, starting today hopefully, to move past the fear of H.B. No. 444, which I believe is legitimate, and face the reality that same gender families exist in our society today. And I believe they deserve equal rights under the laws of the State of Hawaii. I have let go of my own fear of being disliked as gay and lesbians may have felt sometimes and perhaps intensely by some that may dislike myself and others who may support this motion to recall. I have compassion for the fear that segments of our community may feel about this bill and their disappointment of those Senators who are supporting this motion, but I say to you that we are standing up for equal protection, equal rights, to same gender couples as civil unions, not as marriage.

―I support the motion to recall because I believe this vote may be the last chance this year to address the civil unions issue and allow the people‘s elected representatives to vote on whether same gender couples and families should receive the same legal rights as opposite sex couples. To the majority in the Senate, I am presuming that those who support this motion are a minority and I want to speak for the rights of minorities, and as I do sometimes with our political Minority, I do want to stand up for the minorities and invoke this constitutional minority rights‘ power to bring this issue to the floor if we succeed, if we have nine votes, and then have the debate on the issue. Thank you, Madam President.

Senator Taniguchi rose in opposition to the motion and said:
―This is a very difficult decision for me. I don‘t have to remind you that I did vote in favor of the bill in committee and have supported the bill, and as Chairman of the committee, actually heard the bill. I didn‘t anticipate it would take 18 hours, but I think we did have a thorough hearing on the bill, and I think we at least touched upon a lot of the issues that are intertwined with this bill. But I am voting today in opposition to this motion because I believe it is premature. I believe we still have some time. I did ask the Senator from Kauai to hold off on his motion, but he felt the necessity to do so today. I believe if we have additional time, it will allow us to work on possibly passing this bill or possibly amending this bill. Approving the motion today, I believe, will foreclose all that, and I ask my colleagues to vote in opposition to this motion. Thank you.

Senator Baker rose in support of the motion and said:
―Some might ask, particularly after the Chair‘s remarks, why a current committee chair would support a move to recall a bill from somebody else‘s committee: Don‘t you support the committee process?‘ I can hear some of my colleagues asking. Yes, I do in fact support the committee process because it is integral to how we get our work done, and for 99 percent of the time I think it works well. Bills are heard. Testimony is taken. Decisions are made. Most all of our committees have an uneven number of members so tie votes are rare, even rarer on this floor. There are, however, those unique situations when the committee system, I believe, doesn‘t work as it was intended, and that is what I believe has transpired with the action on H.B. No. 444, H.D.1. After long hours of hearings and much deliberation, the Chair of the committee did in fact make a motion to pass the bill unamended, but the committee with all of the members present could not move the bill forward, but didn‘t flat-out reject the Chair‘s recommendation either. In addition, I believe that a bill of such importance as this one deserves to be handled by the entire body on a clear vote. The framers of our Constitution provided a procedure for such situations as we are in today. In invoking that safety valve, I believe we are honoring our rules and paying tribute to the integrity of the process afforded to us by our Constitution. I ask my colleagues to join me, so that the entire Senate can address an issue which will impact many people in our state. It is because I believe in the process that I stand in support of this measure. In my view, it is simply the right thing to do. Mahalo.

Senator Kokubun rose in opposition of the motion to recall and said:
―You know, I certainly respect the Constitutional provision regarding recall, particularly when there is a situation where a measure is being held in committee by a chair or not being heard at all. This situation, in my opinion, though was very different. Let me first thank the Chair and members of the Judiciary and Government Operations Committee for providing, through a public hearing, the opportunity for people to express themselves on an issue of great interest. It is also important to note that, as mentioned previously, the hearing took close to 18 hours to complete and provided all who wished to testify that opportunity. It is also to the credit of the Chair and committee members that they listened intently and participated for the duration of the hearing, including decision making that occurred after the extended hearing ended at 3:00 a.m. Notably, at the conclusion of the hearing, people who participated in the hearing, whether they were for or against the measure, expressed gratitude for the respect and courtesies provided to all by Chair Taniguchi and the committee members. Chair Taniguchi and the members of the Judiciary and Government Operations Committee, thank you for representing the Senate with forthrightness and earnestness. As we all know, the committee vote ended in a deadlock. My point is that the bill received an extraordinary hearing and decision making process. This is not a situation where a measure is being held by a chair. The Senate Committee structure and the leadership demonstrated by chairs and members functions very well. This situation does not rise, in my opinion, to the level of abuse that requires the extraordinary action of recall. I ask my colleagues to support the integrity of the Senate and its functions, and vote no on this motion. Thank you, Madam President.

Senator Kidani rose and said:
―Thank you Madam President. As a candidate for this office I supported…

The Chair interjected:
―Senator Kidani, for what purpose do you rise?

Senator Kidani responded:
―Sorry, I stand in support of this measure. As a candidate for this office, I supported civil unions because I believed that it was the right thing to do. I supported the pull from committee because three weeks ago I thought the Chair and Vice Chair also supported that measure, and I made commitments based on that. I can‘t turn my back on those commitments because other senators have changed their mind. As a freshman senator, I know I have a lot to learn and I have to hit the ground running. And I‘m sorry if this vote is not what you guys want to hear, but it is my conscience. So today, in honor and in memory of Ah Quon McElrath, I will cast a vote in support. Thank you.

Senator Tokuda rose in opposition to the motion and said:
―We all have very different reasons for supporting or opposing pulling this bill to the floor, and let me be very clear: My opposition to this pull does not in any way diminish or change my strong support for civil unions and my desire to live in a society where equal rights and equal treatment exists for all. But that is not what we are discussing today. While some may disagree, the discussion we‘re having right now is not on the merits or the importance of the bill, but rather our legislative process and the exception to the rule that we are considering today. To many, the work that we do is quite a mystery and we do this work on behalf of the people that we serve. While many may not understand the complexity of our calendar or how our committee system works, they do know that a process exists by which an individual may voice their opinion prior to decisions being made. And, like decisions made in all other sectors of government, business, and in our everyday life, they expect us to stand by the decisions that are made. While not pulling the bill to the floor in deference to the process and out of respect to the committee structure and its chair may seem cold and overly technical, at the end of the day our process validates the decisions that we make. Our system has been established on the basis that the process legitimizes the purposes we act upon. It gives weight and credence to the decisions that we make, and if there are questions or a lack of trust in how we do things and how things are done, what faith will people have in what we have done? This is very difficult for me, Madam Chair and colleagues, for even as I stand before you here today and look around the room at all of you, it’s not your faces that I see. I see many of the faces of my friends, family members, loved ones and constituents who have waited for equality and justice for too long, and I feel the full weight of their disappointment and loss upon me. This issue has once again seriously divided our communities when really ensuring equal treatment and equal rights for all should unite us. The hate, the stereotypes, the misinformation and threats we have heard on this has been nothing short of blasphemous. It has made it clear to me that while this debate has been about civil unions, we still have such a long way to go in seeing each other as human beings—all equal, all unique, and all free to be who we are under the eyes of whatever, if any, God we so choose. While I do not support the motion to pull this bill to the floor, my support for equal rights, civil rights, remains unwavering. Today is the day when there will be no winners, for when one individual is denied the rights of others, we all lose. But there will be a tomorrow, and I remain committed to the fight going forward. Thank you.

Senator Slom rose in brief rebuttal and said:
―I just want to comment on a couple statements that had been made. As I had mentioned in my original remarks, I certainly understand our constitutional right to do this and the good Senator from Kaimuki read passages from someone who I knew and respected, Mrs. Kellerman. But just because you put a right into a document doesn’t mean that you are to use it frivolously. It is there, and I would fight for the right to have it there, for use in extraordinary circumstances. And as you’ve heard today, this is not an extraordinary circumstance. We followed procedure, we had the hearing, we had people testify, and then we took a vote. And that is absolutely different from the other situations which I described where I supported pulling bills because the chairmen of those committees refused to have open hearings. We’ve had the hearing. We’ve had the debate. And when it comes to minorities, I absolutely know what it means to be a minority, particular in this political house. My colleague, Senator Hemmings and I—every day we come to work, it’s 23 to 2. And many times, if you look at the votes, it’ll even be 24 to 1; I can’t even convince him to vote with me. But that’s the nature of the political system and as long as it’s done transparently, and with openness, and we follow the procedures, you can’t say, ‘Well, I don’t like it here, and so I want to change the rules.’ Can’t do that. “I also want to reiterate some statement that was made—a quotation from Dr. Martin Luther King, who we all respect and admire. During that 18-hour hearing, there were many African Americans who spoke, and each one of them—each one of them—said that they were not comfortable with the fact that people were using Dr. King to speak on this issue because he never made one utterance about civil unions or same sex marriages. So to use his name and take it out of context, I think, is not something that we should be doing.

―Also, to paint those of us that either voted ‘no’ on the bill or are going to vote ‘no’ on this procedure as being afraid, or being disrespectful, or being somehow uncomfortable with individuals because of their lifestyle, is missing the point entirely. We are talking about the condition of law. We’re talking about procedures, both in the judiciary and also in the legislative branch, that we should follow. If we do it on one issue and one area, we should do it on all others.

―And then the statement was brought up that how unique this was that the Judiciary Committee had only six people and it resulted in a tie of 3 to 3. Well, Madam President, as you well know, there are fourteen Senate committees and five of those committees have even numbered members: Education and Housing, the Health Committee, the Human Services Committee, the Judiciary Committee, and even the Ways and Means Committee. Five out of the fourteen. So, it’s possible to have tie votes. It’s very rare. And when people listen to the testimony, generally they’re not that equal or not that split, but in this case, we were.

―So, don’t make shabby the process by doing this. Vote your conscience, by all means. Keep your promises, by all means, but in the end all of us will do the right thing as our conscience demands. And maybe, Madam President, the last thing to say is maybe we could get out of this quandary if we ordered an environmental impact statement of civil unions before we vote. Thank you, Madam President.

The Chair addressed the chamber and said:
―Members…members of the gallery, members of the public, may we have order.

Senator Tsutsui rose in opposition to the motion and said:
―Madam President, it has been said today on the Senate floor that this bill will sit here and wither and die. It has also been said that we can’t wait any longer, and I also heard a statement saying that this is our last chance.

―Madam President, colleagues, I disagree. We still have time. I have seen several members propose various amendments and unfortunately, because of one person’s political agenda, one person’s political timeline, we are being asked to vote on a measure prematurely.

Senator Ihara interjected and said:
―I believe our parliamentary procedures do not allow the criticism of another member of the Senate or ascribing a motive to a motion.

The Chair acknowledged Senator Ihara and said:
―You are correct. I’m not quite sure which member it’s being ascribed to, but you may proceed, Senator Tsutsui, with that admonishment.

Senator Tsutsui continued:
―Thank you, Madam President. Madam President, you know, I believe, again, we still have time to work on a measure. We have time to work on a measure that will bring this community together, not divide them as this procedure is trying to do. Madam President, I believe with your leadership we can continue to engage with individuals on both sides of the issue, and to have a measure that would both provide equality and the protection of civil rights for every single person in our state. Thank you, Madam President.

Senator Baker rose again in support of the motion and said:
―Once again, I rise in support of this motion. As I was looking through the materials that I brought down to the chamber with me, I came across a small bumper sticker that you’ll start seeing cropped up around. It says, ‘Practice Aloha’. As we are about to cast our votes, maybe that’s the Hawaiian value that we need to keep in our mind as we exercise our right to vote. Thank you.

The motion to recall H.B. No. 444, H.D. 1 from the Committee on Judiciary and Government Operations was put by the Chair and, Roll Call vote having been requested, failed on the following showing of Ayes and Noes:

Ayes, 6. Noes, 18 (Bunda, Espero, Gabbard, Galuteria, Green, Hanabusa, Hee, Hemmings, Ige, Kim, Kokubun, Nishihara, Sakamoto, Slom, Takamine, Taniguchi, Tokuda, Tsutsui). Excused, 1 (English).

The Chair addressed the chamber and said:
―Members of the public. Members of the public. Please, please respect the decorum of the Senate. Thank you.

At 12:55 p.m., the Senate stood in recess subject to the call of the Chair.

The Senate reconvened at 12:56 p.m.
The Chair addressed the chamber and said:
―Members of the public, as you leave the chamber we ask that you please do it quietly.

The Chair continued, making the following announcements:
―The deadline for filing bills moving laterally to final committee that need to pass Second Reading is 9:00 p.m. tonight.
―Referrals and re-referrals are made in accordance with the Supplemental Order of the Day that may be distributed to your offices later this afternoon.

With the Aug. 10, 2024, primary election only 14 months away, local candidates need to get moving.

In Hawai‘i, given the dominance of the Democratic Party, the primary is “everything.” You win the primary and you sail through the general election. For most races, this is the reality.

While a candidate cannot actually file to run for office until February 2024, serious candidates seeking to win for the first time can and should begin running now.

The first step is making that commitment, taking that initial step off the ledge and into the abyss. Say the words out loud to your immediate networks. “I’m running for election to the county council or state house or fill in the blank.”

There’s no going back. It’s full tilt boogie, pedal to the metal for the next 14 months.

Next, starting with family and friends, you build a team.

Grass roots, community-based candidates can beat the well-funded “good-ole-boy establishment types” if they are willing to do the work, and if they start early and don’t stop until they cross the finish line.

Yes, having the money for glossy mailers is helpful, but face-to-face contact, knocking on doors and listening to the voters in the district is what wins elections.

An organized candidate with a small team that starts early can literally knock on the door and meet face to face every single voter in a state House or Senate district. In a house district it’s possible to meet that voter two or three times.

Trust me. Most voters vote on name recognition, first impressions and intuition. If a candidate actually comes to their house, knocks on their door and spends a few minutes to speak and listen to them, when it comes time to vote they will remember.

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Before spending or receiving any money the campaign must register with the state Campaign Spending Commission.

Don’t mess this part up! Every campaign must have a treasurer who will be meticulous in keeping track of the money and reporting requirements.

A simple campaign brochure, a basic website, and “campaign business cards” will get you started. A basic website with resume, pictures of the candidate at home and in the district, visuals showing broad-based, diverse support is sufficient. Later there will be yard signs, banners and advertising expenses, but in the beginning the cost is minimal.

Sometimes it’s necessary to pay a stipend for a campaign manager or treasurer, but often qualified retirees or others with time on their hands can/will step up to fill these roles.

So that’s the long and the short of it.

1) Get off the dime, consult with family and friends, and announce you are running.

2) Assemble your team.

3) Follow the campaign spending law.

4) Do some basic district analysis, grab a voter list, start walking and attending more community events.

It’s never too early to start. The first walk is simply an introduction. The candidate introduces themselves to the voter and listens. The candidate learns what’s important to the district, and then makes those issues the top campaign priorities.

Go for it. Our community needs you.

Serious candidates – keep reading…

If you want to know which seats are up for election in 2024 here is the office of elections 2024 CONTEST SCHEDULE.

Here is a blow by blow series of “Campaigning 101” missives that new candidates might find interesting and useful:

Campaign 101 – What makes someone a good candidate for public office? Purple Mohawks Need Not Apply

Campaigning 101 #1 – 2024 candidates – first steps

Campaigning 101 #2 The sometimes not so obvious basics

Campaigning 101 #3 – What is the worst thing someone is going to say about you?

If you want it all – Sign up for my somewhat unconventional email newsletter (though it’s not really a newsletter but I don’t know what else to call it) – Policy & Politics at https://policy-and-politics.mailchimpsites.com

Gary Hooser is the former vice-chair of the Democratic Party of Hawai‘i, and served eight years in the state Senate, where he was majority leader. He also served for eight years on the Kaua‘i County Council, and was the former director of the state Office of Environmental Quality Control.