A political flash from the past circulating online among local Republicans offers a telling glimpse of how Hawaii’s homelessness crisis exploded out of control.

The video shows a bizarre 2008 debate in the state House of Representatives on the seemingly obvious question of whether homelessness is an emergency.

Republican Gov. Linda Lingle had declared an emergency after the city abruptly evicted homeless from Ala Moana Beach Park in the middle of torrential rains, using her emergency powers to open the NextStep shelter in Kakaako and a West Oahu project.

This got Democratic lawmakers’ undies  in a bunch from what GOP Rep. Gene Ward described at the time as “irrational fear of Lingle.”

Then-House Speaker Calvin Say introduced HB 2664 to curb the governor’s power to declare emergencies, and floor debate was led by then-House Majority Leader Kirk Caldwell, who demanded to know, “What made homelessness become an emergency?”

“This is something that our state has been dealing with many, many years and it’s not going to be solved immediately,” he declared. “We’re going to continue to struggle with it.”

That drew a stinging rebuke from Republican Rep. Cynthia Thielen, who decried the Democrats’ inaction and scolded Caldwell that she was “personally offended by comments that say homelessness is not an emergency.”

“(Caldwell) has a roof over his head — a very nice roof up in Manoa,” she said. “Being homeless is an emergency. That’s the most heartless comment I’ve ever heard in this chamber.”

Thielen called the bill “mean-spirited” and “disgraceful” and challenged Democrats to “go out there and be with them and see what it’s like and tell me that’s not an emergency in those people’s lives.”

Then-Democratic Floor Leader Blake Oshiro responded, “I will be the one to say that homelessness is not an emergency.”

The bill died in the Senate after passing the House on a mostly party-line vote, but the debate exposed a mindset among Democrats that explains why so little has been done to address the alarming increase in homelessness in the seven years since.

Kirk Caldwell, of course, is now the mayor of Honolulu who has relentlessly evicted homeless from city parks and sidewalks; despite euphemisms about “compassionate disruption” and “Housing First,” no new shelter space has been opened for those displaced.

Blake Oshiro has resumed his legal career with the firm Alston Hunt Floyd & Ing, which joined the ACLU in a lawsuit that accuses Caldwell of unconstitutional cruelty in his homeless sweeps.

Democratic Gov. David Ige finally followed Lingle recently in declaring homelessness an emergency and is considering expanding her NextStep shelter — without a peep of dissent from Caldwell, Oshiro or their former Democratic colleagues in the Legislature.

Thielen is still dishing out epic scoldings when hypocrisy rears its head.

Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com or blog.volcanicash.net.