Progress is balance between principle and pragmatism

On the mainland and here at home, recent events have provided lessons in leadership.

What the U.S. Senate failed to do for the nation, the city of Seattle did for itself. It passed legislation to approve the highest minimum wage in the nation: $15 an hour by the end of the decade.

Business, labor and municipal authorities negotiated a deal that gives smaller businesses five years to phase in the increase, while bigger businesses have to get up to the minimum in three.

Seattle also built in a mechanism for increases after the $15 was reached to allow for inflation.

Here in Hawaii, despite the unenviable distinction of having the highest cost of living in the nation, our legislators passed a bill that will move the minimum wage to $10.10 by 2018.

The increase did not include plans for increases based on inflation.

Here in Hawaii, too, the Legislature passed a law to protect more than 600 acres on the North Shore from unwanted development.

But there was angst, even among legislators, about the corners that were cut on public scrutiny of the hastily arranged financing plan to make that deal possible.

Most recently, the crossed signals at the Office of Hawaiian Affairs relating to how we manage our aspirations for sovereignty raise questions about leadership and protocol. Every decision made by OHA trustees and its executives must be preceded by the questions: How is this going to impact the beneficiaries? Is it going to better their conditions?

OHA’s decisions must also be good for all of Hawaii.

I understand the need for both courage and compromise — while meeting our legal obligations. I have learned much from Mother Teresa in Calcutta and the sovereignty movement in Hawaii. I believe in advancing geothermal development here using the community-based model we developed for the Maori Trusts in Aotearoa New Zealand.

I know that you do not get things done if you "let the perfect be the enemy of the good." I empathize with the struggle to balance principle and pragmatism as both elected leaders and bureaucrats try to make the best decisions under less than ideal circumstances.

We have an obligation, all of us, to leave this world a little better than when we entered it. The conflicts across the globe, our local disagreements and the raised voices, mine included, that we sometimes hear, may lead us to conclude that our record on improving the state of the planet, even the state of the state, is less than stellar.

And yet, we have progressed. We call out evil when we see it. We condemn slavery, racism, misogyny, religious persecution and other bad practices even if we have not — and perhaps never will — entirely eradicate them. I truly believe we are getting better at taking the long view and understanding that all each of us can do is give it all we have got in the small window of time each of us is allotted.

The reports on Hawaii having the lowest voter registration and turnout are disturbing. Some argue that distancing oneself from politics and established institutions is an act of intellectual purity. It is sometimes presented as a refusal to legitimize the act of annexation. Others may not want the taint of participating in a less than perfect political system.

But the democratic process is all we have. We have an obligation to encourage our young people, not to opt out, but to lean in, to borrow an already over-used term. Not to do so is to surrender completely. We need leadership that balances principle with pragmatism if we want to move Hawaii forward.