Colleen’s paradox

I believe that if Rep. Colleen Hanabusa truly wishes to follow in Senator Inouye’s footsteps, she will quickly and graciously concede the U.S. Senate Democratic primary.

Given that Senator Inouye explicitly said that this should be Hanabusa’s seat to hold, you may be asking how a quick concession would best honor him. You may be asking why I have the audacity to even suggest such a thing. I do so based on my personal and direct experience. 

First, I must note I am a supporter of Senator Brian Schatz. We have many values and goals in common, but my support is built off a foundation created when I first met him fifteen years ago while he was running a small environmental non-profit. Over the years, and through many conversations and interactions with him, that support has deepened. I have great respect for him, and believe that having him in the U.S. Senate is in Hawai‘i’s best interest. Savor that piece of pa‘akai when you consider my position.

I have had very few opportunities to work with Rep. Hanabusa. However, my few interactions with her have left me impressed with her savvy, fierceness and tenacity. This includes instances where I was (inadvertently) on the receiving end of these qualities. Most notably, in 2008 I was the lead presenter for the Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA) at 40 of 45 meetings we held statewide over the course of two months on a proposed (and wildly unpopular) settlement of the $200 million past due revenue from the Public Land Trust (the so called “ceded” lands). About a dozen of these meetings were held in direct response to resolutions introduced by then State Senator Hanabusa requiring us to hold community meetings. I was screamed at (and worse) from one end of the archipelago to the other, and the state Senate (officially Senator Jill Tokuda) killed our bill days before the Senate-required report on our meetings was due. Only in retrospect did I understand that our efforts were dead from the get go, and our exercise in outreach mostly purposeless. The Senate, led by Hanabusa, had decided to kill the deal before our first community meeting ever began. 

Rep. Hanabusa is, and I say this with great and honest admiration, someone who does not stray from a goal when she sets her mind to it. She is also willing to inflict (or at least let others experience) pain if that is a requirement to reaching her goal. So I understand and appreciate that my admonition for a quick concession after a hard campaign goes against that grain. Her “natural” move, and what everyone should expect, is that she will exhaust every legal remedy to gain the Senate seat; the seat which Inouye sought for her as he lay dying; the seat that she very nearly gained in the voting booths of Hawai`i during this month’s primary. No matter if this drags out for weeks or months. No matter if it hinders Schatz, her fellow Democrat, in being a successful legislator for Hawai‘i. No matter if it helps further destroy faith in our electoral process.

But it is my last interaction with the late Senator Inouye–truly my only meaningful interface with him–that convinces me that conceding gracefully is what Hanabusa should do.

In addition to my work on the past due revenue issue, I had the great opportunity to lead OHA’s efforts to acquire the Wao Kele O Puna rain forest and settle a two-decade long dispute over the use and ownership of that property. These 25,000+ acres of former kingdom lands in the heart of Puna were traded by the state of Hawai`i to the Campbell Estate in the 1980s to allow them to pursue the development of geothermal energy. This was not energy for on-island consumption, but rather a proposed network of plants producing 500 megawatts of power that was to be transmitted to O`ahu via an undersea cable. Much of the funding and support for these efforts, while arranged at the state level, came directly from Senator Inouye. 

Two decades of lawsuits, large civil protests, engineering failures and other forces resulted in Campbell’s abandonment of the plan and ultimately the land.  Working with the Trust for Public Land, OHA was able to use federal funds (secured by Inouye) to acquire the land and set it aside for traditional and customary practices forever.

In 2006, we held an incredibly moving ceremony at the old well site on the property to rededicate the land and formally mark its transfer to OHA. The gathering was full of emotion, with stunning speeches from Palikapu Dedman and Emily Naeole who had both been repeatedly arrested while practicing civil disobedience at the site.

But the highlight for me, and for many, was the speech made by Senator Inouye. He could have taken an easy way out and spoke in general terms, but his speech was very personal. He was one of the most politically powerful people in the country; but here he was miles out on a gravel road, under a small white tent, standing with the very people who had defeated him.

At that gathering his words were few and he paused often. He talked about his earlier support for industrializing that native rain forest and of the failure to do so: “Thank God,” he said. He looked directly at Palikapu and Emily and said, “I hope all of you will forgive me.” He asked for this forgiveness even after his efforts to secure money to transfer the land to OHA had already made all the amends his opponents wanted.

Despite a lifetime of his huge accomplishments, my greatest and deepest admiration for the late senator was at this moment of statesmanship, with this great humility. He did not need to humble himself or admit defeat, yet he did, directly and personally, to those who had opposed him.

And so that is why–once again in the beautiful lands of Puna–I think Rep. Hanabusa should concede. Senator Inouye’s truest strength was not his political power, but his willingness to let go of that power when circumstances changed, and to embrace those who he had stiffly opposed. If Hanabusa concedes, and embraces Senator Schatz’s candidacy, it is only then that she will truly be following in Inouye’s footsteps.