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Finally! Last week, Gov. Josh Green, not Doc Green, nor private citizen Green or Legislative Observer Green, met the Hawaii State Legislature and the result was both unpleasant and needlessly heated.
Green’s omnibus housing honcho Nani Medeiros collided with bombastic GOP state Sen. Kurt Fevella, in a confrontation that, according to a Honolulu Star-Advertiser story, resulted in an outburst over how to spend $600 million for Native Hawaiian homes. The blowup happened as Fevella complained about Green’s pick to run the Hawaiian Homes Commission, but then expanded to include Medeiros, saying she lacks “passion” for Hawaiians.
The report quoted Fevella as saying Medeiros has “nothing, or no knowledge, about our Hawaiian people. I don’t care if she says she’s Hawaiian. Just remember now, the devil also was an angel. Remember that. So just because you’re Hawaiian doesn’t mean you have the passion for the people.”
“I found it highly offensive that he brought my race into question, my Hawaiian-ness, and not knowing anything about Hawaiians,” Medeiros told the newspaper.
“His point was I had no business being at the table because I’m not qualified and I’m the devil,” said Medeiros.
Green jumped to the defense, demanding an apology and showing he was ready to square off with the Senate leadership.
Fevella “equated Ms. Medeiros with the devil, falsely suggested that Ms. Medeiros is not really Hawaiian, and stated that Ms. Medeiros has ‘no knowledge about her own ethnicity,’” Green wrote in his complaint. “Senator Fevella should be held accountable for his behavior to restore expectations that people can come before the Senate and be received with decency, decorum, and aloha.”
As of last week the report had already gotten more than 236 comments from readers as the early legislative quarrel was particularly vicious.
Fevella then made one of those weak, conditional apologies saying if you are offended, then I’m sorry.
“If I hurt her and her family … If I hurt any of them, I apologize,” Fevella said in a TV interview Wednesday. “If the governor felt that I was bullying his people, I apologize for that,” he said.
On Friday, Fevella publicly apologized to Medeiros on the Senate floor.
All this was happening while freshman Gov. Green was striving to win over lawmakers. His friendship campaign included bringing a half-dozen new lawmakers to the Capitol fifth-floor lanai where a cluster of picnic tables have been set up and Green could videotape the lawmakers and provide brief profiles and video snippets of them arm wrestling and playing “jan ken po.”
“I’m out here with our future leaders,” Green said.
The issue was bluster, not policy, and Fevella’s remarks just showed that name-calling never wins the day.
As for Green’s troops, it also shows that at least in this confrontation, he has their backs and is willing to publicly defend them — an assurance that can go a long way in earning political loyalty from the staff, if little legislative aloha.
Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays. Reach him at 808onpolitics@gmail.com.
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