In this strangest of election years, the anger or indifference of Republican voters in mainland states like North Carolina and Indiana may create new opportunities in Congress for heavily Democratic Hawaii.
The results of elections in those states and several others this year will dictate which party controls the U.S. Senate, which in turn will decide how much political power Hawaii’s U.S. Sens. Brian Schatz and Mazie Hirono will wield in the years ahead.
The details of any Senate reorganization won’t be decided until after the Nov. 8 election, but Schatz and Hirono are positioned to head as many as four Senate subcommittees if the Democrats do seize control.
Hirono also is angling to return to the powerful Senate Committee on Judiciary, which handles appointments of federal judges, including U.S. Supreme Court justices, and will guide the Senate’s efforts at immigration reform.
Political forecasters such as the website FiveThirty Eight are estimating the odds are about 60-40 that the Democrats will retake control of the Senate this year, in part because of the number of Republican seats that are in play.
There are contests this year for 34 Senate seats, with 24 of them currently held by Republicans. That offers the Democrats an array of opportunities to try to win more seats to shift the balance of power.
To take control, Democrats need to gain four Senate seats if Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine win, and five if GOP candidates Donald Trump and Mike Pence win. That’s because the vice president serves as the tiebreaker in the 100-member Senate.
National attention is focusing largely on close Senate races in states such as New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Indiana and North Carolina, while Democrats appear poised to gain seats in Illinois and Wisconsin.
Colin Moore, director of the Public Policy Center at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, said he expects control of the Senate will switch to the Democrats, in part because of Trump.
“The Trump campaign is tanking, and I think he’s going to take down some Republican senators in swing states like Pennsylvania,” Moore said. “Republicans simply won’t turn out to vote. Either they won’t turn out to vote at all … or they’re going to punish some of them who have spoken against Trump by simply not voting for the down-ticket races.”
In other words, conservative mainland voters who are unhappy with the conduct of the presidential race may inadvertently surrender Republican control of the U.S. Senate.
Schatz said he also believes it is “very likely” control over the Senate will shift.
“The prognosticators have it at slightly better than even odds, but I think the last several days are going to result in a pretty decisive victory for Democrats nationally,” Schatz said in an interview on Thursday. “I think what’s happening is the Republican enthusiasm is low, and that has a down-ballot effect. It is hard to be an enthusiastic Republican voter this year.”
Hirono was somewhat more cautious, saying that “we take nothing for granted,” adding, “This is a very bizarre election cycle.” But “we have a pretty good shot,” she said.
Democratic control of the Senate would open the way for Schatz and Hirono to take more influential positions, which Moore said would bring them a step closer to real power.
The Hawaii senators still don’t have a great deal of seniority and won’t be elevated to lead major committees as the late U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye did, but “even being chair of a subcommittee is important, so it helps Hawaii,” Moore said.
“It’s never going to be like the old days with Sen. Inouye because we don’t have that seniority, and Schatz is of course not going to be chair of Appropriations,” he said. “But it’s still helpful. We have a senator who rises in importance, and his party controls Appropriations and Armed Services (committees), and that absolutely helps us.”
Schatz and Hirono have waded into the Senate elections that could tip the balance of power in their favor.
Schatz said he helped raise money for Democratic Senate challengers including Deborah Ross in North Carolina, Jason Kander in Missouri and Katie McGinty in Pennsylvania, and said he has donated $500,000 from his own campaign funds to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee this year.
Hirono, meanwhile, said she recently wrapped up a flurry of interstate travel to campaign for Ross, McGinty and Maggie Hassan in New Hampshire.
If control of the Senate does shift to the Democrats, Schatz would become chairman of the subcommittee on Communications, Technology, Innovation and the Internet, under the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science &Transportation.
Schatz said he is also in line to be named the next chairman of the Financial Services and General Government subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and he would move up in seniority on the Appropriations Committee itself as well as its subcommittee on defense.
The Financial Services subcommittee oversees the budgets for a long list of agencies including the Treasury Department, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communications Commission.
Leading those committees would make Schatz a significant player in telecommunications because one of his subcommittees would help establish telecommunications policy, while the other would oversee the budget of the FCC that directly regulates telecom.
“It will give me an opportunity to help Hawaii achieve broadband everywhere,” Schatz said. “I want to make sure Hawaii gets the attention it needs in terms of having the infrastructure to compete in the global economy.”
Hirono, meanwhile, would rise to become chairwoman of the Subcommittee on Seapower under the Senate Armed Services Committee if the Democrats can pull off an election coup.
“Having the senator from Hawaii being the chair of that committee, I think that only helps get more resources to our Navy and Marine Corps facilities here, which … of course contributes in big ways to our local economy,” Moore said.
Hirono is the ranking Democrat on the Subcommittee on Water &Power of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, and hopes to become the chairwoman of that subcommittee as well.
Hirono also said her return to the Senate Judiciary Committee is “certainly in the offing” because she was removed from that powerful panel in 2015 when the Republicans took control of the Senate.
“Were I to get back on that committee, I will be engaged in immigration reform” as well as filling the vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court caused by the death of Antonin Scalia in February, she said.
On immigration reform, Hirono said she believes family unification should be a guiding principle.
“As an immigrant, I know how important our families are to our success in a new country,” she said. Hirono, her mother and her brother left Japan for a new life in Hawaii when she was 7 years old.
Looking at the bigger picture, Schatz said an important political angle to moving up in the Senate hierarchy is the opportunities it offers to assist others.
“Look, it’s about your ability to be helpful to other states, and in exchange, other members will be helpful to your state,” Schatz said. “So, the better position I am in to — where appropriate — to be helpful to colleagues, the more that benefits the state of Hawaii.”
