From its inception, the Kamehameha dynasty ruled a centralized kingdom with a force that kept the Hawaiian islands tightly together, reflected even today in a statewide school board, totally unique in the United States, and the absence of mayors for some of Hawaii’s cities.

In the pre-statehood era, only Maui had the audacity to campaign for the new state capital to be based on Maui, recalling Lahaina’s glorious period as the kingdom’s capital — but had to acquiesce to Oahu’s accelerating dominance since World War II.

After statehood, Hawaii became aggressively Oahu-centric. Honolulu had everything: a booming state government, military bases, corporate "Big Five" and banking headquarters, a university and Waikiki, the tourism-fueled "engine" leading the state’s economy.

Though Maui Mayor Linda Lingle won the 2002 gubernatorial race, ironically, her unique leadership status disappeared after alienating the neighbor islands over the Superferry. But now the appointment of Lt. Gov. Shan Tsutsui, a former Maui senator, reveals that the neighbor islands are back in the spotlight — foreshadowed in 2010 when Gov. Neil Abercrombie proclaimed that they were the key to his victory.

The new lieutenant governor obtained a state office to be based on Maui, perhaps the first statewide official based on a neighbor island since kingdom ministers convened in Lahaina in the 1850s. Also, Mauian Joe Souki, speaker of the House two decades ago, is most likely House speaker again, overseeing all-important state taxes and spending.

In the early 1950s, youthful, driven Hawaii politicians were mostly from Maui: Elmer Cravalho, Mamoru Yamasaki, Nadao Yoshinaga, Toshio Anzai and Patsy Mink. Maui High graduate Dan Aoki, a classmate of my father, steered political strategy for Gov. John Burns. Even the recent Maui celebration of the late U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye’s life overflowed with his Maui ties, as his mother was born in Puukolii.

The "1954 Democratic Revolution" generation enjoyed on Maui a superior education in the pre-World War II period: Lahainaluna, under Hawaiian educator David Malo, enrolled Hawaiian students in the early 19th century; Maui High opened in 1913; and New Deal-influenced teachers taught Shakespeare, Greek politics and the Constitution to plantation children like Mink.

Current Maui politicians like Tsutsui, Sens. Kalani English, Roz Baker and Gil Keith-Agaran, and House freshman Kaniela Ing share a philosophy of careful development and sustainability. They gained insights through years of community discussions on energy, tourism, land use and agriculture on an island that doubled its population from the mid-1990s to 160,000 today. They are sensitive to economic diversification and jobs creation, as the recession affected Maui and the other neighbor islands deeper and longer than Oahu.

Perhaps historians will point to 2013 as the year when statewide decentralization began, resulting in a leadership with a neighbor island view of the world — doing more with less, rather than the charge-ahead, majority-rules Oahu-centric planning, and with a more balanced approach to resource allocation among all the islands.