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You wouldn’t know it from the deluge of political advertising in the final weeks of the Democratic primary, but Gov. David Ige and U.S. Rep. Colleen Hanabusa have strikingly similar views on many of Hawaii’s hot-button issues.
They both oppose legalized gambling in Hawaii, and both support the city’s rail project. Both support the Thirty Meter Telescope on Hawaii island, and both reject the notion of allowing firearms to be openly carried in public.
Shared views are to be expected since Ige and Hanabusa are in the same political party. Still, the leading candidates for governor this year are “surprisingly similar in their stated positions,” said Robert Perkinson, an associate professor of American Studies at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.
“It’s so unlike races in other parts of the country that are polarized,” Perkinson said. “There’s very little difference between them on their official policy pronouncements.”
DAVID IGE & COLLEEN HANABUSA
SHARED VIEWS: SUPPORT
>> Increase minimum wage to $15 per hour
>> Thirty Meter Telescope
>> Proposed constitutional amendment to allow lawmakers to impose a property tax surcharge on investment properties to help fund education
>> Direct utilities to switch to 100 percent renewable electrical generation by 2045
SHARED VIEWS: OPPOSE
>> Legalized gambling
>> Allow “open carry” of firearms in Hawaii
>> Proposal by NextEra Energy Inc. to purchase Hawaiian Electric Industries Inc. for $4.3 billion (the Public Utilities Commission rejected the buyout in 2016)
>> Legalize marijuana
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DIFFERING VIEWS
Create safe zones for the homeless
>> Hanabusa: Support
>> Ige: Opposes, saying homeless campsdon’t work and the focus should be on long-term housing.
Activate Hawaii National Guard if necessary to allow TMT construction to proceed
>> Hanabusa: Would not
>> Ige: Refused to answer, saying it would depend on the situation
Extending the city’s rail line to Manoa
>> Hanabusa: Says the city’s agreement with the federal government obligates the city to extend the rail line to Manoa
>> Ige: Supports extending rail to Manoa either by extending the elevated system, or with a street-level extension.
Extending the half-percent excise tax on Oahu to pay for extending rail
>> Hanabusa: Opposes “until we know for sure that it is the only way to fund it.”
>> Ige: Is “open” to the idea
Ige is seeking a second term as governor and Hanabusa is challenging him. Mail-in absentee voting has begun for the Aug. 11 primary election.
Political parties in other states are often divided by race, income or gender issues, and the candidates “almost get forced to stake out really opposite positions,” Perkinson said.
But in Hawaii’s Democratic primary, “if you read between the lines on these things, they’re trying to make it out that they have a different position on rail, but it’s not clear that they do. They don’t have a different position on TMT (Thirty Meter Telescope), or not a very significant one. They are the same on minimum wage, which is a potentially big issue,” Perkinson said.
On certain prominent issues, there are sound political reasons why the candidates would stand firm on the same positions.
“There are certain constituencies that vote on certain issues like minimum wage, environmental issues, TMT, and both of them are hoping to get those constituencies, and the rest of the voters, the majority of the voters are going to vote on other factors,” Perkinson said.
Some of the candidates’ positions closely track public opinion, but not all of them. For example, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser’s Hawaii Poll in March found that 77 percent of the voters support construction of the TMT, which both Ige and Hanabusa also support.
However, the poll found 51 percent of voters support legalization of marijuana for recreational use, which the candidates do not support. And 62 percent of those polled support the creation of “safe zones” for homeless encampments. Hanabusa supports safe zones, but Ige does not.
In general, Perkinson said, the Democrats’ positions are quite progressive by national standards, with both Ige and Hanabusa supporting raising the minimum wage in Hawaii, and both in favor of the largest infrastructure project in state history: rail.
State Rep. Andria Tupola, who is the leading Republican candidate for governor, said she has heard the two Democrats repeat most of their positions time and again in public forums, and “you’re voting for two people that are on the same exact platform.”
She said that means the Democratic primary boils down to “style.”
“I think their personalities are different, but I think their stances are very similar,” Tupola said. “Either you like one style or you don’t like one style, but you’re not going to get anything different.”
Tupola contrasted the Democrats’ positions with her own. She opposes moving ahead with the TMT project until the state reforms the management of Mauna Kea, and she flatly opposes any extension of the half-percent excise tax for rail.
She also opposes the proposed constitutional amendment to authorize state lawmakers to tax investment properties to help fund public education, and supports allowing people with permits to openly carry firearms in Hawaii in accordance with a recent decision by a panel of judges at the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Republicans have struggled to remain viable in Hawaii. There are no Republicans in the 25-member state Senate and only five in the 51-member House.
Tupola said the similarities in the Democratic gubernatorial candidates’ positions “should be a wake-up call for the people of Hawaii to remember that no matter how you vote, if you don’t like the way things are going here in Hawaii, and you saw the stances on whoever you voted for, and you know they’re offering you the same thing you’ve been getting for four years, eight years, whatever, then you need to make a better decision.”
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