Barbara Marumoto

The state Capitol still must feel like a second home to Barbara Marumoto — she’s only been retired officially for a few weeks — but her 19th District office is cleared out. The planter box in the rotunda courtyard served as the meeting place for an interview.

There are no regrets, though, for the veteran House member, 73, who represented the Kaimuki-Kahala-Diamond Head area for more than three decades.

There are options: Travel, even during session. Bridge and golf games, once she relearns how to play them. More time with the grandchildren ("eight, and one in the oven") and the six children she and her husband have between them. But they already have dinner at Tutu’s every Sunday night.

Marumoto mused: Who knows? Maybe there’s a book in her future.

"I thought I could do a little writing," she said, "and write down the anecdotes that happen around here. Everybody has these funny stories, but they work here and they don’t want to tell them."

Over her long tenure, the lawmaker earned a reputation as a moderate Republican. Some have been traditional GOP positions: opposing the administration’s pension tax proposal and elements of its prison-reform plan.

She acknowledged the need for some regulation, though, backing bills on vehicle safety and protecting beaches from encroaching vegetation.

And healthy entitlement programs are essential, Marumoto added — except that the U.S. versions aren’t healthy.

"Medicaid, Social Security, Medicare, they’re going broke," she said. "So we’ve got to somehow fix them. I haven’t seen many ideas from Democrats on how we can fix it."

QUESTION: Do you feel a bit sad about the end of a long chapter in the Legislature?

ANSWER: Oh, well, all good things must come to an end, and this was just a good time to exit. I worked in the building 34 years as an elected official, and about six years before that as a legislative aide and researcher.

Q: Who did you work for, to start?

A: Primarily Sen. Fred Rohlfing. But I also worked one session for Rep. John Carroll. This is in the ’70s. And then one year in the Senate Minority Office.

So I knew I could do the work. I never wanted to aspire to be a politician, never saw myself making speeches. But being an aide, you do the constituent service, you write remarks, you research legislation, you write press releases. So the work, I could do.

And as you well know, not all politicians are great orators, great leaders. There’s also the quiet types that don’t do anything, or do a lot.

Q: How would you describe your style as a legislator?

A: Well, you always got to hold to your principles and be able to look yourself in the mirror in the morning. So that was easy for me to do. It’s hard for me to be devious or anything, it’s just not my style. Just be straight on, be yourself, say what you believe in — although sometimes discretion is the better part of valor.

But you speak out and try to make an impact, especially on the committee level, to educate. I think legislation is about a lot of education — of other legislators, the staff, the leadership and the press.

I think it’s very important to educate people on the bills and try and make changes at the committee level, maybe even kill bad bills, slow them down, amend them. If failing everything else they hit the floor, you try and make speeches, you try and talk to chairs.

All you have, since you don’t have the big power position, is your mouth.

Q: It was a different mix when you started out at the Capitol, right?

A: Oh, yeah. I worked in the Senate and there was only one woman who was a senator; that was Eureka Forbes. I remember (Senate President David) McClung was going to put a sauna in the men’s locker room.

Q: What?

A: Yeah, and she spoke up and said, “How about one for the women’s locker room? I don’t think there was a women’s locker room then. But she stopped it. …

Lots of times when I speak out, it’s not like crazy, right-wing rhetoric or socialist philosophy. I think I talk sense as a moderate, mainstream Republican.

Lots of times Democrats come up to me afterwards and say, “You know, I agree with you.” Many times Democrats hide behind Republican skirts. They might agree with us, but they’re passing it because this chairman wants it, or this faction wants it, this union wants it. And they pull the plug later on in a different committee, or amend it.

Q: So the Democrats would like to oppose some things but don’t, and they let the Republicans be the contrarian here?

A: Yes. Like there was a proposed increase in the excise tax. This was a few years ago. And, you know, we have no power; we always have such a small minority. But the bill died, and years later I wanted the endorsement of an entity, and they said, “No, because the Republicans killed the excise tax increase.” How could we with eight, 12, even 17 votes kill anything?

Q: Wasn’t the minority significantly larger when you started as a Senate aide?

A: It varied. In the Senate at the time there were probably eight when I started as a staffer. And then there was the “six pack,” under Mary George. Now they’re down to one. So they’ve been trending downwards.

We (in the House) went up to 19 in 2000. And then there was a big Democrat push to knock us out.

Some very unethical mail pieces, hit pieces that came out against certain Republicans. It didn’t hit Cynthia (Thielen), didn’t hit me. It’s when we lost several, four, five, six Republicans.

Q: What was the issue there?

A: One was, ‘Republicans have gotten millions of dollars from big oil companies; your representative voted against the gas cap.’ Which is blatantly untrue, because two of the Republicans were co-authors of the bill, and several Republican legislators voted for it. And here they’re being blamed for voting against it. It was an outright lie. …

Actually, in the ’90s we were down to three or four. … And I still think we were fairly effective in making our points known.

Q: What is the method for doing that?

A: There are some bills where you talk to certain people. Others may not be of general interest, and you insert remarks. Others, you stand up and speak to. Very little of what we say actually gets covered in the press. … There’s hundreds of bills that pass, thousands that are heard. A lot of the bills go in the budget, which is kind of unseen and unheard. So a lot goes on here. A lot of the budget things, we just talk to the chairs involved.

Sometimes I’d want the Sex Abuse Center to get funding, so I’ll get the Women’s Caucus group to sign a letter, and then we just give it to the chairman. …

If we really want a bill passed, sometimes we ask a Democrat to introduce it. I was working with (former Rep.) Mina Morita on a beach vegetation bill. We  had people growing their vegetation down below the vegetation line and it would narrow the beaches, especially at Kahala. So Mina was very nice to help with that bill. …

Q: What kind of Republican are you, as compared to the outspoken tea party types on the mainland?

A: Well, it’s almost a stereotype, because, to me, Republican principles are solid gold: personal responsibility, individual initiative, limited government, hold the line on taxes. … Maybe some Republicans are more religious, or more tea party types, or maybe they’re more moderate.

Cynthia and I have been called RINOs — Republicans in name only. But we consider ourselves true Republicans, traditional Republicans, mainstream Republicans. …

You want people to be able to start a small business and prosper without too much government intervention, rules and regulations. It’s really hard to sustain a business in Hawaii. If you would talk to small business people, you would understand that.

And they employ most of our people, so it’s very important to all the workers.

Q: That’s the kind of freedom you want to see, a more business-friendly environment?

A: Some entitlements are very important. A lot of Republicans realize that Medicare and Medicaid, with hospital and health costs being out of sight, they’ve got to have some help. A very small percentage of the population would be able to afford intensive care at $10,000 a day.

I think that they’ve got to understand that government takes care of some very important needs. Health, education, fire, garbage, public health. … The job of the legislator really is to be able to craft the programs so they’re not totally wasteful — they don’t go on forever and ever when there is no need.

Q: There’s been talk since the election among some Republicans nationally that there needs to be a change in approach. What are your thoughts?

A: I think a lot of people are finding out, especially on the mainland … demographics is leading the change.

And so I think Republicans have to realize that when it comes to immigration policy, John McCain and George Bush tried to introduce packages and they got slapped down in their own party. They come from southern states and they’ve lived with this problem, and they know the people … and they want to be able to help them. It’s just an untenable situation.

Republicans have been very bad controlling their message. They talk about debt. And to the average person on the street, it’s just a very …

Q: Theoretical?

A: Yeah, a theoretical idea, and they don’t see how it affects them. They have to couch their words so they feel people’s pain, what they’re going through, the struggles of the average family.

I think they’ve got to understand that the place is changing, and they’ve got to change, too.