Isle Republican leader ousted

Republicans in the Hawaii House of Representatives on Wednesday ousted minority leader Rep. Beth Fukumoto over her criticism of President Donald Trump, including calling him a bully at last month’s Women’s March in Honolulu.

Fukumoto, 33, has been described as a rising star in Hawaii’s Republican Party, which holds only six seats in the 76-member Legislature. But Fukumoto is now considering switching over to the Democratic Party following this week’s actions by her Republican colleagues, which would further deplete the party of young leadership.

Fukumoto (R, Mililani-Mililani Mauka-Waipio Acres) said she had been told by a faction of her Republican colleagues that if she didn’t commit to not criticizing Trump for the rest of his term, they would oust her as minority leader.

She said she refused.

“I believe it is our job as Americans and as leaders of this body to criticize power when power is wrong,” she said during Wednesday’s House floor session.

The previous day, during a closed-door session, House Republicans voted 3-2 to remove her from leadership. Voting in favor of the leadership reorganization were Reps. Gene Ward, Bob McDermott and Andria Tupola. Reps. Cynthia Thielen and Fukumoto voted against it and Rep. Lauren Matsumoto abstained.

The leadership changes were made official during Wednesday’s House floor session. Tupola is now minority leader and Ward minority floor leader.

Drama in the House

The decision to oust Fukumoto caused friction on the House floor Wednesday with Matsumoto — who played a critical role in Fukumoto’s ouster by abstaining from the vote during Tuesday’s caucus — walking off the floor before debate began on the issue.

She told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser afterward that she chose to abstain and left the floor session to register her frustration over what she described as constant fighting among Republican House members over who would be the party’s leader.

“My main point of everything is that all we have done is fight for four years and to me that is not productive,” she said.

Matsumoto wouldn’t say whether she had wanted Fukumoto to retain her position.

When the session resumed, Thielen gave an emotional speech about why Fukumoto should remain minority leader.

She said the caucus vote was flawed because House members are not allowed to abstain from a leadership vote and lamented that the Republican Party, which she joined as a freshman at Stanford University in 1951, had been overtaken by people intolerant on social issues.

Thielen noted that she too participated in the Women’s March.

“I proudly spoke at the Women’s March, I proudly marched in the Women’s March — for women’s rights, for equality, for human rights, for tolerance,” she said. “We did that together. Now (Fukumoto) is being punished by three and a half of our members for participating in a democratic process.”

“Let me just tell you a couple of reasons we were marching and speaking at the Women’s March,” she continued.

But before she could say more, McDermott jumped to his feet, interrupting her. “This has nothing to do with the Women’s March. This is a motion on leadership. I don’t see Women’s March anywhere in here and I don’t want to waste my time listening to this,” he said.

House Vice Speaker John Mizuno permitted Thielen to continue.

After speaking of the struggles that women face in gaining equality with men, Thielen praised Fukumoto.

“She is what I hoped the face of the Republican Party would be. … I have been so proud of watching her and seeing her be a leader, not just in Hawaii, but nationally,” Thielen said. “She is intelligent, she is inclusive, she is tolerant — all of the things that I had hoped my Republican Party could go back to because it has been captured by a very right-wing, fundamentalist, narrow-minded group.”

‘Our phones are blowing up’

McDermott said Fukumoto wasn’t being punished for speaking out, but for a “pattern of self-loathing comments directed at Republicans.”

He further elaborated in an interview with the Star-Advertiser that her speech at the Women’s March criticizing Trump triggered the latest dispute.

“You have to understand that as elected Republicans, our phones are blowing up,” said McDermott (R, Ewa Beach-Iroquois Point). “We’re getting emails from constituents and party activists, saying, ‘Why is she your leader?’”

He added: “We all kept quiet, we wanted to settle it in house, we wanted to give her a chance to say, ‘Hey, I made a mistake, I won’t do it again.’ But she didn’t; she says, ‘I’m glad I did it, and I’ll do it again.’”

McDermott suggested that Fukumoto would fit in better with the Democrats.

“The Democrats like having her because she’s very accommodating, she doesn’t critique them, she doesn’t criticize them,” he said. “She criticizes the Republicans, calls us sexist and racist, yet not a peep as the minority leader when Democrats are doing things that are foolish or just way out of line. Not a word.”

Ward also said that Fukumoto’s removal was about her criticism of Trump and not her participation in the Women’s March, per se.

“It goes back to the fight she picked in the convention, which was last year. She opened the scab when she did her speech at the rally,” he said. “We are all for women. We are not against women.”

Opening the scab

In May, when Trump was well on his way to securing the Republican Party nomination for president, Fukumoto told Republicans gathered at the Hawaii State Republican Convention in Waipahu that some of Trump’s statements were sexist and racist and that she didn’t want him to become president. The comments triggered an uproar among the crowd of nearly 300 delegates, including an onslaught of boos and catcalls.

She criticized Trump further during her speech at the Women’s March, saying that it was a challenge to explain to her 8-year-old niece how Trump had become president.

“We explained that sometimes people are bullies, but that you should insist that they treat people with respect. We told her that you always stand up to bullies no matter who they are,” she said. “Then she watched a bully win the presidency of the United States.”

Fukumoto encouraged the crowd to push back against Trump.

“A man won the White House with anger and hate, and our kids watched it happen,” she said. “Now, it’s our jobs to make sure they watch us fight back.”

Switching parties

Fukumoto sent a letter to constituents in her district prior to Wednesday’s floor session telling them that she would like to leave the Republican Party, but said she wanted to get their feedback first.

“This week, Republicans in the state Legislature and in the party leadership sought to censure me for raising concerns about the treatment of women and minorities by politicians in power,” she said in her letter. “They have also insisted that I stop working across the aisle and focus more on partisan politics. For these reasons, I am considering leaving the Republican Party and pursuing membership in the Democratic Party.”

House Majority Leader Scott Saiki suggested that House Democrats are open to it.

Fukumoto’s political moves aren’t going over as well with Hawaii’s Republican Party. Fritz Rohlfing, the party’s chairman, urged her to remain in the party, but said if she decided to switch parties three months after being re-elected, then she should resign her seat in the Legislature.

“Moreover, I echo the sentiments of Congresswoman Pat Saiki when she said: ‘It takes courage to stand up to the political machine that has dominated island politics since statehood,’” Rohlfing said in a statement. “I and tens of thousands of other Hawaii Republicans intend to remain the loyal opposition and keep fighting for a better future for our state.”

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Star-Advertiser reporter Kevin Dayton contributed to this report.