The Hawaii Independent // Currents

June 2018

PERCHED ABOVE THE COAST of Hawaiʻi Island’s rugged and stunning Kaʻū district, the Hawaiian archipelago’s highly-active volcano, Kīlauea, stirs and rumbles, sending up a plume of hot gas, ash and other volcanic debris a mile into the air above the Pacific Ocean. The volcano’s main caldera, Halemaʻumaʻu, churns and glows as magma from below the surface emerges to meet the cool air blowing from the northeast Pacific down across the islands.

It’s almost 2 p.m. on Sunday, May 27, 2018, and 30 miles to the northwest of Kīlauea, at the Hilton Waikoloa Village in Hawaiʻi Island’s North Kona district, a rumbling of a different sort is happening. Around 600 members of the Democratic Party of Hawaiʻi (DPH)—delegates to the party’s 2018 state convention—have spent the weekend conducting the business of the party to make changes to its governing bylaws and its platform, to adopt resolutions, and to elect its leadership for the next two years.

The process has pit different factions within the DPH against one another as they jostle and compete for control over the direction of Hawaiʻi’s dominant political party. Now, the delegates are sitting around banquet tables in the grand ballroom of the Hilton Waikoloa, nervous chatter filling the space, as they wait for the final results of the election for DPH chairperson—the individual responsible for leading the party forward for the next two years.

Delegates to the convention are elected primarily by state house district (and precincts), and the leader of each of these district delegations is the house district chair. The district chairs collect the votes for DPH Chair from their delegates on tally sheets. Most of these sheets had long-since been turned in. Hours later, as the convention stretched toward its adjournment time, the results were finally tabulated. Weighted voting for delegates that flew in from Kauaʻi, Oʻahu and Maui counties had been factored in, and the numbers were ready to be displayed.

Some delegates paced behind their tables. Others stared at one of the three jumbo screens set up in the grand ballroom to display results. And still others did their best to count votes, walking from table to table to collect tallies from the districts that were willing to share them. As the unofficial tally was added up, a Facebook Messenger note was sent out between the members of a faction of delegates who had organized themselves around their shared backing of U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential bid—the self-described “progressive wing” of the party: it was going to be a nail-biter of an election.

Tim Vandeveer—a Sanders-supporter with ties to organized labor and the environmental movement on Oʻahu’s north shore (former shop steward for UNITE HERE! Local 5 at Turtle Bay Resort, and leader within the Keep the Country Country movement)—had been elected DPH Chair in 2016. Carried to victory by the massive surge of populist interest in the Democratic Party’s primary process that year that was generated by Sanders’ presidential bid, Vendeveer was now seeking re-election.

Vandeveer’s bid was challenged by Kealiʻi Lopez, a professional lobbyist who from 2015–2017 campaigned on behalf of the agrochemical industry, the pharmaceutical industry, the insurance industry and the interests of Hawaiʻi’s big developers. The two candidates were representatives of a clear divide within the Democratic Party that will continue to define it for years to come. A third candidate for chair, Gloria Borland would end up receiving just a small fraction of votes.

At long last, the results were displayed on the screen, district by district. Delegates held their breath as the final, weighted tally for State House District 51 was entered, and the total was added up: 529 weighted votes for Lopez, 472 weighted votes for Vandeveer, 38 weighted votes for Borland. A cheer erupted from the back of the ballroom where Lopez supporters had gathered together.

Vandeveer congratulated Lopez with grace and a smile, encouraging his supporters to help unify and organize the DPH to make the 2018 midterms a successful election cycle for Democrats, regardless of faction. While Lopez echoed the sentiment in her acceptance speech and promised to work with Vandeveer’s progressive supporters, the fact still remained that Hawaiʻi Democrats had just elected to lead the self-described “party of the people” a paid lobbyist who, as recently as the prior year, had represented some of the most problematic big money special interests in the state.

While Vandeveer was defeated, it took a well-coordinated effort on the part of several “establishment” factions (meaning they are generally supportive of the current status quo, and opposed to progressives who, by definition, are seeking change) to make it happen. These establishment factions within the party are tied to many of the same special interests for which Lopez had just lobbied. It was by no means an easy victory for these traditionally-dominant factions.

The chair’s race is also hardly the only part of the state convention, or even necessarily the best part, with which to measure the influence of progressives within the DPH. The state convention is also where Hawaiʻi Democrats:

• Refine the party platform—its guiding policy document that applies the values of the DPH to general policy areas such as agriculture, veterans affairs, and everything in between;

• Debate amendments to the party bylaws so the business of the party is conducted in alignment with its values;

• Adopt numerous resolutions—statements of support or opposition to specific policies, such as a guaranteed livable wage for all workers, or the need to phase-out all cesspools statewide by a certain date; and

• Elect representatives to the State Central Committee (SCC) by state senate district. These senate district SCC representatives join additional representatives from each of the party caucuses and a handful of others to form the 80+ member SCC, which works with the chair to enact the party agenda for the upcoming two years as spelled out in the platform and resolutions.

In each of these other areas, the 2018 DPH convention was far from a repudiation of the progressive agenda set by Vandeveer over the previous two years. In fact, the results of the convention show that, in spite of losing the chair’s seat to factions that prefer the status quo, progressives are moving the party forward nonetheless.

Bringing Back the Revolution

The Democratic Party of Hawaiʻi has been the dominant political party in Hawaiʻi for more than 50 years now, ever since it swept into power in what is called the Democratic Revolution of ‘54 (but which continued in 1956 and 1958 through Statehood in 1959). Republicans, who had dominated the territorial legislature and executive and judicial branches prior to 1954, have never managed to regained control of the state government, managing at best to secure the Executive Branch from 2002 to 2010 under Governor Linda Lingle (R). Democrats continued to dominate the Legislature under Lingle’s Administration.

While the DPH was forged out of a coalition of working class, immigrant, veteran and women voters, and built its power through grassroots organizing, its own dominance has meant that it has been the target of big money special interests for decades. These special interests, representing the wealthy and big corporations, have slowly but surely dulled the party’s foundational, progressive edge. The party’s traditional leadership has, as a result, gravitated toward and become entrenched in the corporate community. This is reflected in the kind of Democratic lawmakers that usually dominate the state and county governments.

Even some of the big labor unions—the traditional backbone of the Democratic Party of Hawaiʻi—have become more interested in short-term corporate handouts than long-term worker solidarity and power. There is no better example than the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU). The ILWU was the union of the ‘54 Revolution. It is also a union whose shrinking base in 21st century Hawaiʻi has lead to an increasing reliance on corporations like Alexander & Baldwin and the agrochemical industry for its financial survival.

It was out of these “establishment” forces that the 2018 coalition to defeat Vandeveer was built; a direct reaction to the upset that occurred two years prior at the 2016 state convention. At that convention, a four-way race for chair split the establishment vote while most of the upstart Sanders delegates lined up behind Vandeveer to give him a surprise victory.

As mentioned above, delegates to the state convention are chosen at the statewide district/precinct meetings, held every other March (and immediately following the PPP in presidential election years) across the archipelago prior to each state convention. Additional delegates can later be added at the precinct, district and finally district chair levels until the total number of allotted district delegate slots are filled. Each house district’s delegate number is based on its participation level in the previous cycle’s PPP.

Sanders would end up winning the 2016 Hawaiʻi PPP with 70 percent of the vote to Hillary Clinton’s 30 percent—an absolute blowout. The only reason there weren’t even more Sanders-aligned delegates at the 2016 convention than there were (enough to deliver a similar blowout to Vandeveer, for example) is because these new, young, first-time Democrats often didn’t know or care to stay at their precinct meetings after voting for Sanders in the PPP.

In a world in which the Democratic Party of Hawaiʻi was led by people interested in harnessing the power presented by an influx of new, excited Democrats eager to participate, the DPH could have greatly benefited from the surge in participation triggered by the Sanders campaign. The working class, populist appeal that would have returned to the party would have been particularly valuable, as that is the exact area in which the Republican Party of Donald Trump has made inroads, helping him to defeat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 general election.

Sadly, it is exactly this working class, populist appeal that, instead, caused the establishment DPH leadership to close ranks, treat the Sanders delegates and the longtime progressive Democrats they allied with as upstarts and usurpers, and launch a combative campaign to “reclaim” the party. It really is a shame. On the eve of a continuance of the movement to restore the spirit of the Democratic Revolution to the DPH, the party’s traditional leadership spent its energy coordinating a way to block that movement, squandering the opportunity.

Weighting for the Election

In an archipelago state, sometimes it’s the decision of where to hold the convention that ends up being the most significant. That may very well have been the case in 2018.

The 2018 state convention was the first DPH convention to be held off of Oʻahu in some 30 years. State politics are heavily Oʻahu-centric. Honolulu dominates the state in terms of population, economic output and, as a result, political power. The burden of contending with ticket prices, lodging and other expenses to participate in the democratic process—whether that be testifying at the state legislature on a bill or attending the DPH state convention—are far too often born by the residents and party members from Kauaʻi, Maui or Hawaiʻi Counties.

Like other conventions in the past, the convention rules for 2018 also employed a weighted voting system to give delegates who must pay for airfare and lodging a vote counting slightly more than delegates who do not have to fly in. That meant that Hawaiʻi Island delegates had slightly less voting power per delegates.

While progressive Democrats exist on every island and in every county, it’s no secret that the Democrats that dominate Oʻahu’s dense, populous, urban Honolulu core in Congressional District 1 are generally more conservative than those that are able to lead in rural Oʻahu and the rest of the state in Congressional District 2. There are numerous reasons for this, including Honolulu’s status as the economic driver and seat of political power in the state, while environmentalism is a common and significant progressive value found outside of Oʻahu’s urban core that drives progressive participation there. This meant that a significant chunk of Vandeveer’s support would be coming from outside of Oʻahu, and particularly from Hawaiʻi Island, where multiple cycles of strong progressive organizing had created a robust progressive presence within the Hawaiʻi County Democrats.

Vandeveer pushed for the convention to take place in Waikoloa on Hawaiʻi Island, both because it was the right thing to do in terms of fairness and openness, but also—undoubtedly—with the hope that a strong turnout from progressive Hawaiʻi County Democrats at a convention on their home island would help carry him to a second term.

Vandeveer also pushed to allow for remote participation in the convention; again, because greater access and participation is inherently more (small “d”) democratic and therefore in-line with (big “D”) Democratic values, but also because when the party is more open and accessible—dare I say more revolutionary—progressives tend to do better. Naturally, this meant the establishment opposed remote access, voting down the proposal during an SCC meeting in March before the convention.

Of course, progressives knew they couldn’t only rely only on Hawaiʻi County Democrats to re-elect Vandeveer in any case. Simply living on Hawaiʻi Island does not guarantee access to the state convention, particularly when a large portion of Hawaiʻi Island was being concurrently impacted by an active volcanic eruption.

Progressive delegates redoubled their fundraising efforts in the weeks leading up to convention to try and ensure every last progressive that was elected as a delegate would be able to actually make it to Waikoloa to participate. Progressive Hawaiʻi County Democrats graciously opened themselves up to commuting delegates, offering rides to and from the airport, couches and more. Joint fundraisers were put on to fund a “Hawaiʻi Island Progressives,” or “HIP,” suite at the Hilton Waikoloa that could serve as a home base for progressive planning efforts, and as extra sleeping space for visiting delegates that could not afford to pay for a room of their own.

The common denominator in all of this is money. Rotating the convention onto different islands and weighting votes can help to shift some of the burden around to different Democrats in different counties, but regardless of which county they live in, the establishment Democrats are always going to have more money, and therefore more access, than Democrats seeking to buck the current establishment system. This is again a reflection of the corporate. big money special interest-alignment of the DPH leadership over the past decades.

Progressives hoped that, despite the disadvantages they faced, they would still be able to help Vandeveer win. As chair, Vandeveer had brought with him to the role the Sanders’ brand of democratic socialist values, including support for New Deal-style populist economic policy, and an emphasis on fairness, transparency and openness that made it easy for new members of the DPH to access the party structure and participate as precinct and district officers, caucus members and even members of the SCC. This meant that, going into 2018, there were a solid number of progressive delegates to the state convention, earning their delegate slots by virtue of their successful 2016 SCC elections, or by virtue of winning state house district seats at their biennial state house district meetings.

However, by coordinating and uniting behind a single candidate, the various establishment factions were able to come up with a delegate bloc that matched the progressive bloc very closely in terms of raw numbers. It would all come down to the weighted formula, and how many votes the two candidates would get from where. At the most technical level, this would become a major problem for progressives. Oʻahu, Maui and Kauaʻi county delegates had weight assigned to their votes equally based on the number of possible delegates from each county versus the number of actual delegates that made it to convention.

For example, a delegate from Maui who supported Vandeveer, but who could not afford the trip to Waikoloa, had the weight of their missing delegate vote shared equally with delegates who could afford to attend. And with establishment money flowing in to fund the airfare and lodging costs for Maui County ILWU delegates—many of whom were added at the last minute by establishment-aligned district chairs—this meant that it would end up being the establishment that would be able to maximize the benefit of the weighted voting system. When it came to Maui County, Vandeveer would lose with roughly 25 percent of the vote to Lopez’s 75 percent.

Weaponizing Robert’s Rules

The weight of those Maui ILWU votes would end up being enough to crush progressive hopes of another two-year term steering the DPH. But actually, those votes were only made possible at all because of quick and well-executed maneuvering on the part of Lopez supporter Reena Rabago, another corporate lobbyist and former Oʻahu County chairperson, who used her knowledge of Robert’s Rules of Order to ensure that the Maui ILWU delegates being flown in to vote for Lopez would be able to do so when the time came.

Almost immediately after the convention was gaveled in, and before most of the less-experienced progressives could even understand what was happening, Rabago moved to amend both the standing rules and the convention agenda. Progressives—who had met Friday night to strategize about the rule changes the establishment would once again try to introduce to limit access to the party for newcomers—were not expecting such a move and were caught off guard.

Rabago first moved to amend the standing convention rule that closed convention registration at 2 p.m. on Saturday, successfully framing her objection as a question of providing greater access to the convention. Progressives who had been fighting for greater access were left dumbfounded as their own arguments were now used to extend registration until 9 a.m. on Sunday.

This would allow ILWU delegates, who were being shuttled in for the sole purpose of voting Lopez into power, would not have to fly in for both days of the convention or even bother with securing lodging. They could fly in Sunday morning, vote, and then leave, greatly increasing the number of ILWU delegates that would be willing and able to march along to the plan. It also would have meant progressives could have done the same thing, perhaps allowing for greater participation as well. Except, of course, that the move was not really about providing greater access, or progressives would have been part of the discussion. Instead, this was a tactic designed purely to win the chair’s vote, and it worked. The rule was successfully amended.

Immediately after the adoption of the amended rule, Rabago then moved to amend the agenda, which had the vote for party chair scheduled for Saturday at 1 p.m. Rabago argued that delegates who needed to fly out on Sunday would be unable to participate if the vote was held in the afternoon. She proposed that the vote be moved up to 10 a.m. on Sunday to allow delegates who needed to catch flights off the Big Island early on Sunday to do so.

As a result of these two moves, between Saturday and Sunday approximately 150 extra delegates were registered, the vast majority of which were Lopez supporters. To show just how big of a turnaround this maneuvering was, Vandeveer still ended up winning the raw vote count 292 to 277: a huge upset for the establishment (Borland would get just 18 raw votes). Vandeveer’s support was both stronger than anticipated by establishment operatives and much stronger than it was in 2016 during the four-way plurality election when progressives were themselves split between Vandeveer and two of the other candidates.

Considering all the advantages the establishment held—money, organization, experience, weighted votes, unification behind just one candidate and political maneuvering—it still barely succeeded in ousting Vandeveer, behind whom the progressive vote had consolidated. Even though many of the rank-and-file Lopez supporters cheered as the votes were displayed, the whips and organizers who really knew what was happening looked far less enthusiastic about the results.

Embodiment of Progressive Values

In all other areas outside of the chair’s race, progressives made significant advances during the 2018 convention. As chair, Vandeveer was able to appoint many active, committed progressives to each of the convention committees. These committees are responsible for vetting platform changes, rule amendments and proposed resolutions prior to convention. This allowed progressives to steer the direction of the committees, frame the convention debates in these areas, and plan and strategize effectively before hand.

The committee report from the 2018 Platform Committee described “significant amendments to the 2016 DPH Platform.” None of those points received much debate, however, except for a section labeled “HONORING NATIVE HAWAIIANS.” Amendments to this section of the platform cut out all support for the policy of Federal Recognition of Hawaiians as an American Indian tribe. Instead, the amendments reaffirm support for Hawaiian self-determination, including the possibility of total independence from the United States.

The news of the passage of these amendments to the platform was broadcast through social media almost immediately and the resulting debate was such a hot topic on Facebook that a Native Hawaiian couple at Ellison Onizuka Airport in Kailua-Kona—who were on the Big Island for a completely unrelated high school graduation—had already heard about the changes by Sunday night.

Immediately following the platform discussion on Saturday morning, the Rules Committee presented its report. Progressives had spent a couple hours the night before at the HIP suite strategizing about this report because establishment delegates had introduced proposed rule changes seeking to either limit access to newcomers and/or further consolidate power.

Most of these restrictive rule changes had been rejected by the Rules Committee thanks to the progressives on that committee. Although many of these regressive rule changes were not recommended by the committee, they could still be introduced on the floor of the convention for debate. One such proposed change the establishment tried to re-introduce would have made organizing new party members at the PPP more difficult by making the process more cumbersome. The convention body rejected this proposal.

Another proposal would have given party caucuses more voting power on the SCC. Caucuses are relatively small organizing units consisting of highly active members of a traditionally under-served community who wish to advocate on behalf of said community, such as the LGBTQIA+ community. Currently caucuses have two voting SCC members each. The proposed rule change would have made the chair of each caucus a voting member of the SCC as well, increasing the number of votes each caucus has on the SCC from two to three.

Proponents argued that caucuses deserve more voting power on the SCC. They are good organizing tools and they represent the interests of disenfranchised and vulnerable people and issues. While this might seem reasonable on the surface, progressives knew that the move was really about consolidating establishment power, not better representing minority rights. That’s because some of the caucuses have become fiefdoms for establishment DPH members to build power for themselves and exert outsized control over the party.

Of course, that is a difficult argument to make in a convention debate governed by Robert’s Rules without being ruled out of order. Propgressives had planned the night before to argue, instead, that the state senate district representatives represent thousands of party members—far more than any caucus—but each senate district also only gets two voting representatives on the SCC. In fact, whole counties only get three voting representatives on the SCC (each county has one male and one female at-large representative to the SCC, plus each county chair also sits on the SCC).

Finally, the Resolutions Committee gave its report on Sunday afternoon after the race for chair had already been decided. Many of the ILWU union delegates that had been flown in to participate only in the chair’s race had left by that point. The 605 delegates that voted for chair were reduced to roughly 400. Progressives were feeling defeated after Vandeveer’s loss. B despite this, progressives still had to shepherd a whopping 50 resolutions—the vast majority of which had been authored and introduced by members of the progressive faction—across the finish line.

Resolutions are non-binding, but they embody the aspirational direction of the party’s membership. They are bellwethers for the future of the DPH, and they officially establish party support for policy ideas that can translate into binding legislation at the State Capitol. Progressives introduced resolutions supporting:

• Proportional representation;

• Ranked choice voting;

• Disclosure of lobbying activity by party officer candidates;

• Publicly-financed elections;

• Abolition of monetary bail;

• A living wage for all workers;

• A universal basic income;

• Prioritizing sustainability over profits in future development;

• Abolition of a legal sub-minimum wage category for disabled people; and

• So much more.

All in all, 48 of the recommended resolutions passed, giving progressive advocates more ammunition to use in advancing these policy ideas into law through the legislative process.

A resolution urging the Hawaiʻi Congressional Delegation to pressure Israel to respect Palestinian human rights was narrowly defeated by a voice vote on the floor. The debate on the measure was respectful despite the issue’s divisiveness. After the vote was over, opponents of the resolution—some of whom were aligned with the progressive camp—talked with proponents about ways that a compromise resolution might be drafted for the next convention. The conversation indicated that even the median Democratic Party of Hawaiʻi state convention delegate is far out ahead on the Israel-Palestine issue compared to national Democrats pushing the Israel-Anti Boycott Act (including Hawaiʻi’s own Congresswoman Colleen Hanabusa).

Another resolution calling on the Democratic Party of Hawaiʻi to prohibit paid lobbyists that represent for-profit entities from the positions of chairperson and vice chairperson of the party elicited a mixture of nervous laughter from delegates who had just watched a lobbyist for major corporations win the chair’s race. The resolution was ruled out of order on the advice of parliamentarian Dr. William Puette because it would have brought the party into conflict with the results of its own election.

As the author of that resolution, I would like to point out the obvious: that conflict is the whole reason we need the resolution in the first place. The problem with electing a paid corporate lobbyist to represent the party is that such a chair could very easily find themselves in a position in which they are being asked by the DPH to advocate one way on an issue while simultaneously being asked to advocate on the opposing side of the same issue by their professional clients.

Lopez and other paid corporate lobbyists like Rabago are not necessarily bad people, but their employers are nevertheless responsible for some, if not most, of the serious societal ills currently being experienced by working people, young people, Native Hawaiians, disabled folks, women, LGBTQIA+ people, and other disenfranchised groups. These are not party activists who just happen to work for the corporate oligarchy that still dominates our islands. They are, in fact, paid operatives of firms tasked with controlling and limiting the ability of the Democratic Party of Hawaiʻi to serve as a vehicle for change, because limiting change and preserving the status quo is what their corporate masters want. It’s why they have shaped the DPH establishment into the corporatized version of itself that we now see today.

Progressives must continue to fight against the establishment drift into corporate oligarchy, chiefly because the policies the oligarchy enforces are harmful to people and planet, but also because these policies undermine and erode working class support for the Democratic Party. Allowing that trend to continue would be a critical mistake that could cost the Democrats control over the policy direction of the country and, one day, even over a state as blue as Hawaiʻi. Democrats cannot triangulate corporate and working class support. Democrats are rooted in the “party of the people,” and it is from that mandate that Democrats derive their strength and power. Abandoning those roots for corporate power and the pastures of the rich will only spell ruin.