A candidate who hoped to be appointed to replace the late state Rep. Clift Tsuji says the vetting process for applicants for the job was unfair and is asking that
Hawaii Democratic Party Chairman Tim Vandeveer
investigate the process.
Dennis “Fresh” Onishi, a four-term Hawaii County councilman, said he didn’t bother to attend a gathering in Hilo on Saturday where party officials interviewed potential candidates to replace Tsuji because Onishi had already seen a text message describing which three people would be nominated.
That message between Democratic Party District 2 Chairman Micah Alameda and another party member was forwarded to Onishi on Friday. It correctly predicted Moana Kelii, Stacy Higa and Christopher Todd would be the three names selected on Saturday and forwarded to Ige.
Tsuji, who had represented District 2 in Hilo since he was first elected in 2004, died on Nov. 15 after suffering a heart attack. State law requires that Gov. David Ige choose a candidate to replace Tsuji from a list of at least three names sent to him by district party officials.
“I’m not disgruntled, I just want to make sure the process is fair and transparent,” Onishi said.
“For me, it was inappropriate what they did,” Onishi said. “They should have been more open and let the precinct officers decide on who they want, so I’m hoping that maybe the state party will step in,” or that Ige will declare that the process was unfair. Onishi said he will raise his concerns with the party through Vandeveer.
Onishi decided to skip the Saturday interviews because “no sense we go, because we’re only going to embarrass ourselves, because they know who they want, and we’re going to be there trying to persuade them to vote for us, and they’re not going to even do that,” he said.
Former Hawaii Council Chairman J Yoshimoto also submitted his name as a possible replacement for Tsuji, but withdrew Saturday morning. He said he withdrew mostly because of family commitments, but also because he also had heard the decision had already been made to send the names of Kelii, Higa and Todd to Ige.
Yoshimoto said he tried to inquire about those reports with the party, “but I did not receive a response, and therefore I decided to withdraw my name.”
Yoshimoto said that as far as he knows, no party rules were violated. “They followed the process, and I’ll respect the process for how it ended up,” he said.
Alameda said in an interview that the exchange of texts that identified the three top candidates before the interviews had been held was not an effort to fix the outcome of the selection process. Alameda said he was conveying his tally of the votes for Kelii, who is a union agent for the Hawaii Government Employees Association and was an unsuccessful candidate for the County Council this year.
“They asked me if we were all good, so I told them that there was nine solid votes for Moana,” Alameda said. “So, I was referring to that — yes, there was a solid nine to Moana.” He said he based that estimate on more than a week of discussions with the district officials who would participate in the voting.
Alameda said there were 15 voting members of the district council, but only
11 attended the interviews on Saturday. Two other members sent proxies, for a total of 13 votes, he said. Alameda said his inquiries with the district officers led him to believe that Yoshimoto and Onishi didn’t have much chance of being selected.
Ige said in an interview Tuesday that concerns about the selection process are a matter for the party to sort out.
“The law requires that the party give me three names, and it is not specific as to what the process should be within the party, so that is really a Democratic Party of Hawaii decision,” he said. Ige said he has not yet received a list from the party.
Vandeveer was unavailable for comment Tuesday.
