Is Souki’s House leadership in trouble?
Within today's House committee chair shuffle lies the very real potential for an impending leadership shakeup.
The Hawaiʻi State House of Representatives’ leadership team announced a shuffle in committee chairships on March 13, 2017. Three committees will be impacted by the changes. Representative Angus McKelvey will be removed as chair from the House Committee on Consumer Protection (CPC) and instated as chair of the House Committee on Higher Education (HED) instead. Former House Committee on Education (EDN) chair Roy Takumi will now take over as chair of the CPC, while Representative Justin Woodson will take over as chair of EDN.
While the Speaker of the House, Representative Joe Souki, is sticking to the line that this rare, mid-session shuffle was “mutually agreeable,” the reorganization could mean a lot more than leadership is letting on.
The resolution to reassign McKelvey, and therefore Takumi and Woodson, was introduced amid growing criticism over McKelvey’s handling of the CPC committee (passing bills without consultation, as well as adding last minute amendments to sabotage bills as was the case with HB790, the pesticide disclosure bill). However, during the lead up to the day’s session, Speaker Souki spoke strongly against any motion to remove McKelvey, effectively attempting to strong arm House members who were upset with the CPC committee chairship into falling in line. This appears to have backfired, inflaming fracture lines within the majority caucus that could threaten the cohesion of the fragile coalition that brought Representative Souki the Speakership in 2013. He replaced former Speaker of the House Representative Calvin Say.
A source within the legislature informed The Independent that a meeting took place with select members of the majority caucus to decide what to do about Speaker Souki. Representative Souki did not return requests for comment at the time of publication.
The resolution to shuffle committee chairships ultimately went forward to the floor for a vote, for which Representative Souki was conspicuously absent. The vote passed and the reassignments went forward. No resolution regarding Souki’s speakership was introduced.
The Maui County mayorship is up this coming year, and rumor has it that current Lieutenant Governor (LG) Shan Tsutsui could make a run for the office. That would mean that the President of the Senate, Ronald Kouchi, would be up to inherit the LG position. However, it’s not clear that Kouchi would take the job given the power his ruling senate faction currently enjoys. If he were to turn down the LG job, that would then leave the road open for Joe Souki to step into the LG role. If the younger members of the current House leadership coalition are unwilling to force Souki out, they may be waiting for him to leave on his own.
