Ige ices out state’s No. 2 despite clear need for help

Lt. Gov. Shan Tsutsui’s announced intention to leave his post to run for Maui mayor — possibly before his term ends — exposes a flaw in the way our state government is structured at the top.

Tsutsui is bailing from the state’s No. 2 job mainly because he’s bored.

He’s bored because Gov. David Ige has put him on ice with little to do, for reasons that appear political and petty.

It’s not the first disconnect on the Capitol’s fifth floor, and it’s time for a constitutional change to either give the LG a real job independent from the governor’s whims or abolish the office and fill gubernatorial vacancies with a Cabinet officer until a special election is held.

Ige inherited Tsutsui from former Gov. Neil Abercrombie, whom he ousted in 2014; the two were in rival factions when they served together in the state Senate.

But whatever the politics, it’s to Ige’s discredit that he’s frozen out an asset capable of heavy lifting instead of finding productive projects for Tsutsui in an administration that’s floundering on many fronts.

As a former Senate president, Tsutsui has proven himself an able facilitator. He’s paid $148,800 a year, and has made clear to the governor that he’s eager to work for it.

But Ige has mostly limited Tsutsui to his only official function of overseeing routine paperwork such as name changes, squandering the salary taxpayers put up for the LG.

It’s not as if Ige couldn’t use the help, with many of his priorities dead in the water and poor relations with the Legislature.

For instance, the governor has barely moved the needle on his pledge to end homelessness in Hawaii by 2020 and build 10,000 new affordable homes by then.

Do you think a prominent point person like the LG, with the clout to work across agency lines and coordinate with the Legislature and private sector, might have advanced the initiative?

Could an empowered lieutenant governor have cut through the stifling bureaucracy responsible for endless delays in upgrading Honolulu’s dilapidated airport?

Would the bumbling transition to privatized Maui hospitals have gone more smoothly if Tsutsui had been more involved on an issue of critical importance to his home island?

Ige looks especially bad following four governors — Abercrombie, Linda Lingle, Ben Cayetano and John Waihee — who gave their No. 2s meaningful portfolios.

He’s followed the path of his mentor, former Gov. George Ariyoshi, who politically benched two of his LGs, Nelson Doi and Jean King.

Tsutsui has handled the snub with reasonable class, resisting what must be a powerful temptation to publicly bad-mouth Ige or go rogue while in charge during the governor’s frequent out-of-state trips.

That Ige can’t find something useful for his LG to do is but another example of his lack of imagination.

Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com.