An election season that could alter Hawaii’s political landscape for a generation, Gov. Neil Abercrombie’s push to allow public funding of private preschool programs and the continuing quest by state and county leaders to deal with housing demand and homelessness are issues expected to dominate local headlines in 2014.

Here’s an overview of what’s occurred and what to look for on each of these issues.

STRUGGLE FOR THE SENATE

Congresswoman Colleen Hana­busa’s challenge of U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz was forged more than a year ago when Abercrombie appointed his lieutenant governor to replace U.S. Sen. Daniel K. Ino­uye, who had urged the governor to pick Hana­busa as his successor.

In May, Hanabusa announced she would give up a re-election bid to take on Schatz, contending that she has the ability and experience to better serve Hawaii’s interests in Washington.

Hanabusa’s decision triggered a series of announcements by high-profile politicos seeking to fill the now open congressional District 1 seat.

John Hart, chairman of Hawaii Pacific University’s Communication Department and a political analyst, said the outcome of the two congressional fights likely will shape the state’s political power structure for decades to come.

"The two federal elections are once in a generation in Hawaii," Hart said, pointing out that 50th State voters have a tendency to keep incumbents around once they have established themselves in Washington. "These are legacy seats, elected-for-a-lifetime seats, and we have two of them in one year," he said.

The winner of the Senate race will fill the two remaining years on Ino­uye’s six-year term and be the odds-on favorite to spend the next few decades in the nation’s Capitol, Hart said.

Schatz and Hana­busa will each try to paint themselves as the candidate of change, Hart said. At 41, Schatz is two decades younger than Hana­busa, 62, and could pre­sent himself as representative of a new generation, he said.

But it is Schatz who is the incumbent handpicked by Abercrombie, Hart said, and Hana­busa has pointed out that she and Schatz are the same "political age" since both were first elected to the state Legislature in 1998.

Schatz can emphasize that Hana­busa was the one anointed by Ino­uye, the longtime titular head of the dominant Demo­cratic Party, Hart said.

As the incumbent, Schatz should be considered the favorite, he said, but polling has been close and Hana­busa is a tough, proven campaigner.

The House race offers a wide-open field that features City Council members Ikaika Anderson and Stanley Chang, state Sen. Will Espero, state Senate President Donna Mercado Kim, state Rep. Mark Takai and human rights activist Kathryn Xian. All are Demo­crats.

Hart said Kim has to be considered the early favorite because of her political stature as Senate president and has significantly more years in elected office than the others. But with so many candidates, all it will take to win the Demo­cratic primary in August is a plurality possibly as low as about 20 percent of the total votes cast, he said.

Two others are also rumored to be considering the race are former Mayor Mufi Hannemann, a Demo­crat, and former U.S. Rep. Charles Djou, a Republican.

Djou won a winner-take-all, nonpartisan special election to replace Neil Abercrombie when he ran for governor in 2010, only to lose to Hana­busa for the ensuing two-year term.

Assuming Djou enters the 2014 race and gets by any GOP opposition, he will face in the general election a battle-tested Demo­crat who emerges from that primary.

BALLOT QUESTION

The November ballot also will include a proposed constitutional amendment asking voters whether public funds should be spent for private preschool programs.

The amendment is a key component of Abercrombie’s early-childhood education initiative. Without it the state won’t be able to use public money to build the necessary capacity at public and private preschools to eventually serve all of the state’s 18,000 4-year-olds. It also will allow the state to regulate the educational quality of preschool programs.

Hawaii is one of 11 states without state-funded preschool. Forty-two percent of island children enter kindergarten without having attended preschool.

"I think it’s going to be a huge issue, with the two biggest impacts being the time frame and cost to help our state move forward," GG Wei­sen­feld, director of the state’s Executive Office on Early Learning, said of the amendment.

A reluctant state Legislature agreed to place the amendment on the ballot and to provide $6 million to expand Preschool Open Doors, an existing state child-care program, to cover subsidies for 900 low-income 4-year-olds who will no longer be eligible for junior kindergarten when it is eliminated in the 2014-15 school year. But lawmakers rejected Abercrombie’s proposal for an early-childhood education program that could cover all of the state’s 4-year-olds if the constitutional amendment is approved by voters.

In the meantime, Abercrombie’s proposed budget for the coming fiscal year includes $4.5 million for the Executive Office on Early Learning to establish pre-kindergarten classes on public school campuses.

Weisenfeld said the funding would pay for 32 preschool classrooms statewide. Her office is working with the state Department of Education to identify possible schools, with priority given to rural and underserved areas.

"The rate at which we’re able to expand capacity will be much lower if (the amendment) does not pass, because we will have to rely solely on the DOE partnership," Wei­sen­feld said. The department is not in a position to double its kindergarten classrooms and create a new grade level at public schools, she said.

A combination of public preschools, private preschools and state-funded slots at private preschools is likely needed to enroll all 4-year-olds.

If the amendment passes, the state also would be able to regulate the educational effects of preschool programs. Now, preschools are regulated as child-care programs because the state Constitution prohibits public funds from being spent to support or benefit any sectarian or nonsectarian private educational institution.

"The state can’t mandate quality linked to DOE kindergarten expectations without the (amendment) passing. We can only regulate quality in DOE-sponsored preschool programs," Wei­sen­feld said.

The nonprofit Good Beginnings Alliance has said it will start a public education campaign in support of the amendment.

NEED FOR HOUSES

An anticipated development boom on Oahu coupled with continuing attempts by state and county leaders to decrease homelessness and a lack of affordable housing collectively represent an area that bears watching in 2014.

The Hawaii Community Development Authority, which oversees land use policies in Kaka­ako, is envisioning as many as 30 residential towers in the area between downtown and Ala Moana in the coming decades. Opposition from neighbors and others has centered on concerns of affordability, urban sprawl and overburdening the existing roads, sewer lines and other infrastructure.

Meanwhile the City Council recently approved the 3,500-unit Koa Ridge development in Central Oahu. This year it likely will also take final votes on the 12,000-unit Hoo­pili project on the Ewa plain, as well as major developments planned for the Kam Drive-In site in Aiea, and housing and commercial projects in Laie included in the Koo­lau­loa Sustainable Communities Plan.

Expected to be part of the debate for the pending projects are the prices of the houses proposed.

Some, like Councilman Ron Menor, believe the city’s affordable-housing policy should be altered to require more units that lower-income families — those making 60 percent of median income or less — can realistically pay for. What’s considered affordable now often doesn’t meet the financial abilities of those in the lower income strata, Menor said.

Others, however, say forcing developers to offer units at those prices could affect the number of market-priced houses they can make available, or kill their projects altogether. They believe it is better to let demand determine how much homes should cost.

Colin Kippen, the state’s homeless coordinator, said one possible solution might be to find ways to make affordable homes less expensive to build.

Kippen said a recent Hawaii Housing Finance & Development Corp. study projected that 19,000 units will be necessary to fill the housing needs of people making $61,800 or less, or about 60 percent of median income for a family of four.

"That study is probably an understatement," he said. "We simply don’t have adequate supply to meet demand."

HHFDC joined by an interagency group are working with graduate students at the University of Hawaii’s School of Architecture to find ways to develop housing units more efficiently and could be offered at significantly lower rates than today’s norm, Kippen said. "Micro units" and "modular units" have worked on the mainland and can work here, he said.

Incentives such as tax credits would be offered to developers who choose to build such units, Kippen said.

Also expected to be discussed at the Legislature this year are proposals to increase the money in the state’s Rental Housing Trust Fund and to encourage homeowners to build ohana dwelling units that could be rented to those in need, Kippen said.

There could also be further developments in the state and city initiatives to develop "Housing First" projects for the homeless, which aim to provide permanent homes, followed by assistance with other issues, such as joblessness, drug abuse and mental illness.