Ishii ramps up policy effort for Ige’s re-election drive

For much of the time from 1974 to 1986, when George Ariyoshi was Hawaii’s governor, his success was in part due to an unseen band of youthful state workers.

Today they would be the sort of new college grads bouncing from internship to internship; back then, Ariyoshi put them to work carrying out state policy.

Gary Caulfield, Brad Mossman, Mufi Hannemann, Trudie Saito and Dan Ishii were in Ariyoshi’s office translating his government goals into reality. The Ari- yoshi academy proved to be a good school, as his young students are now old enough to be considering retirement after hugely successful careers in government, politics and business.

That is, except for Dan Ishii: The University of Hawaii associate vice president for federal research relations, former UH student body president and member of the UH Board of Regents is now back at the state Capitol helping another Democratic governor — David Ige.

Ishii, 66, was a key player in Ige’s campaign in 2014, which makes political sense because both men are Ari- yoshi proteges and Ari- yoshi’s endorsement served as a political springboard for Ige’s gubernatorial campaign.

As Ige gets ready to launch a reelection campaign, Ishii was asked to start closing the gaps and connecting the dots in the Ige administration.

“In the short period of time, before the turn of the year, he wanted to turn the ship of state and get it a little more on course so the guys inside for at least the next 18 months will be able to make some major policy differences,” said Ishii in an interview.

Ishii’s first charge is working on Ige’s scheduling — getting the governor out in the community more and coordinating meetings with various community groups.

“The governor asked how he can be more effective in talking to communities and hearing what their potential solutions are,” said Ishii, who is taking an unpaid leave of absence from UH.

At the same time, Ishii also is supposed to draw together the administration to measure the work product of the first three years.

In what Ishii said will be a “major policy review,” he plans to go out to state offices to measure Ige’s successes and failures.

“We are looking for how we can meet departments to get briefed on what they have accomplished in the past three years against what his (Ige’s) initiatives are. If we are falling short or coming ahead in certain areas, it is time to have a major policy review,” Ishii said.

Ishii is dubbed a senior special adviser. Ige already has political and bureaucratic veteran Mike McCartney as chief of staff, but Ishii said McCartney’s time has been taken up working on contract negotiations with public worker unions and lobbying or coordinating with the Legislature.

Ishii also is supposed to start a process to redefine the Department of Budget and Finance, similar to how Ariyoshi had it set up.

Back then, Ishii said, B&F did a lot of analysis of state programs, “not just bean counting, but analyzing.”

“Hopefully starting next session, we will have a cadre of analysts and not just (doing) accounting.

“We are not optimizing our resources in government,” he said.

The end result, Ishii hoped, will be that taking care of business translates into an efficient government rewarded with another term.