How different is Hawaii from Tennessee? Dare we even ask? After all, don’t we like to say “lucky we live Hawaii?” And yet we are subjected daily to the unfolding saga of corruption among some lawmakers and bureaucrats who are supposed to make government work for us.
Politicians have the power to make the world a better place. Some sadly choose the darker path of securing their power and fattening their purses. There is little joy in seeing those who are caught sent to prison: We all feel tainted by the stain of their wrongdoing. We are all more than a little exhausted from wishing for better.
But these recent weeks gave us reason to hope and persevere.
We saw President Joe Biden join in celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement that brought an end to the conflict in Northern Ireland. As Irish Times columnist Fintan O’Toole observed, the agreement and peace that followed show that “politics can work.” It’s easy to be cynical about politics and politicians, but as O’Toole said, it took the skill and courageous determination of many politicians to make what had long seemed impossible, happen.
Our faith in politics and politicians was also both battered and strengthened as we watched the drama of the Tennessee State House unfold. Expelled for violations of decorum for standing with constituents demanding gun safety measures after the massacre in Nashville, Tennessee Reps. Justin Jones and Justin Pearson were promptly reinstated just days later by the Nashville Metropolitan Council and County Commissioners in Memphis, respectively. We heard the prophetic voice of Martin Luther King Jr. reverberate in the pronouncements of the two young lawmakers. In the words of Rep. Pearson:
“We will never be silenced. We will never stop fighting for freedom from gun violence. We will never stop fighting for freedom from the political choices that deny us housing, health care, nutritious food, quality public education, living wages, bodily autonomy and equal rights.”
He declared himself undeterred by the behavior of “leaders in positions of power who are wielding that power abusively.” That, too, is corruption. Right now democracy appears to be losing, but he believes “you can’t expel a movement. You can’t silence the voice of the people. You can’t deny justice.”
Are we ready to admit that democracy and public safety are at risk here in the Aloha State, too?
We cannot continue to take comfort in the belief that Hawaii is different, that dysfunction and sheer incompetence made worse by the abuse of power are foreign to us.
At this point in the legislative session, as the bills that have survived make it — maybe — to conference committees, we should ask how attentive our elected officials have been to the voices of voters, and to the needs of those who maybe did not even vote?
Almost everyone has internalized the unspoken rules of engagement. Do not buck the system. Do not push too hard. Do not make lawmakers unhappy by exposing delaying tactics like the quest for new data when data exists in abundance, or by simply letting bills die quietly without explanation.
Do we place a higher premium on decorum and subservience to authority than to risk-taking for the greater good? Can we honestly say we truly honor the rights of Native Hawaiians whose generosity has allowed so many of us who are not part of the indigenous population to call this home? Or do we act with the presumption of settlers who feel entitled to as much as we can seize?
Are we ready to stop self-censoring, to call out where change is needed, and to make our voices heard through the ballot box? If we are, we too can say as Rep. Pearson did, that those who now wield power “cannot expel hope.”
