With Hawaii’s 2024 Legislature concluded, members of the Democrat-controlled state House are looking at the state’s election season.

The sometimes-volatile House appears to be under the steady control of Speaker Scott Saiki, 59, who was first elected speaker of the House in 2017 and has served in the Legislature since 1994 representing the Kakaako area.

Because the speakership is an elective office, there is no promise that leadership will remain stable — but Saiki, in an interview last week, said he is campaigning both to return to the state House and for his post as speaker.

“I intend to run for speaker, and I haven’t heard of any opposition,” Saiki said.

Although the House leader is informally responsible for organizing the state House and slotting representatives in leadership roles, the entire arrangement is something of a balancing act that falls to the person running for speaker.

“I think this session saw the largest group of freshman legislators, 20,” Saiki said of the 51-member House.

In this year’s elections, Saiki expects to face Kim Coco Iwamoto for a House seat, again. She has lost to Saiki in two previous campaigns. Iwamoto is a former two-term state school board member who unsuccessfully ran for lieutenant governor in 2018.

The state House maintains its lopsided Democratic control with the state’s dominant party holding 45 of the 51 House seats.

Saiki sees money issues, if not resolving, at least temporarily set aside, as the state’s troubling state financial picture emerged from the last legislative session.

There was enough money to provide for an emergen- cy appropriation of more than $375 million for state government workers’ hazard pay because they were working during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Star-Advertiser reports.

“The budget items are going to impact a lot of different people,” said Saiki, adding that “we addressed the tax issues, but also a series of festering issues from labeling macadamia nuts to reimbursement payments for adult care homes that have been on the table for years and years.”

Nothing helps to smooth the political path like a budget surplus, and this year, Hawaii saw enough extra money to extend its ability to spread that extra money around.

First, about $1 billion was dedicated for Maui’s recovery from the Lahaina-destroying fires, to what were called historic tax breaks for residents over the next eight years estimated to be worth $5 billion. There was enough of a surplus to put $300 million extra into Hawaii’s $1.5 billion rainy day fund, plus $135 million reserved for retired government workers’ future benefits.

Saiki said the initial state budget “started with a lot of uncertainty,” but by the time the 60-day session was concluded on May 3, the money was found to resolve the outstanding issues.

Of course, today’s budget surplus becomes tomorrow’s expected obligation — and there is no discussion of the state spending less money in the future.

In the always tenuous world of state House politics, that sort of a predicted future is the best you can get.

Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays. Reach him at 808onpolitics@gmail.com.