Over the past two years, many of us have been transfixed by the steady stream of attacks on the institutions that form the foundations of our democracy. There have been almost daily challenges to the rule of law and the balance of powers between our president, Congress and the courts.

Unfortunately, we do not have to look to Washington to see this drama play out. A look at our local legislative process, especially during this past session, will provide plenty of examples of this dysfunction on display right here in our island state.

The economic and social challenges faced by our residents, especially those in the lower and middle classes, are too often insurmountable. Especially painful is the increased migration to the mainland of our children, who seek opportunities to own homes and provide for themselves not available in their own place of birth. The litany of barriers is familiar to all of us. Our wages are low and our cost of housing is high. Meanwhile, we struggle against an extremely burdensome tax policy due to the state’s reliance on the highly regressive general excise tax (GET).

At the beginning of each legislative session, our representatives and their leaders have been presented with many options to make significant progress in reducing these barriers.

The playbook is now familiar: legislators voice support for various measures, most of which fail behind closed doors as the clock runs out. The greatest insult is reserved for those bills that are not even scheduled for a conference committee despite having passed multiple hearings in both the House and the Senate.

This past session provided us with too many examples of legislative indifference. The poster child is perhaps the failure to make any change to the minimum wage provided to our lowest-paid workers. Although virtually the entire legislative leadership, including the governor, voiced strong support for finally doing something about increasing the floor, the last days of the session ended with efforts at a standstill. Blame was directed at the chairpersons of the two money committees for not permitting a resolution to be reached.

Legislation to stop taxing those living in poverty and adjust the tax credit given to renters — which hasn’t been updated since 1981 — suffered the same fate.

Even a bill that would have finally provided renters, who make up 43% of all residents, with the most basic of rights to have critical repairs made to their rental units could not get a final conference committee to approve adoption after being unanimously approved by the four committees that reviewed the bill.

On the other end of the spectrum, damaging legislation was forced through with little regard for the deliberative process. Leadership in both chambers used hardball tactics to pass vacation rental legislation that legitimized illegal units without putting in place any enforcement mechanism to ensure the illegal rentals would be stopped. If the governor does not veto this bill, we will now build part of our tax structure on illegal activities. The reason given was that the state needed the money. Forget about the clear evidence that illegal rentals are rapidly affecting not only the character of our communities, but also the availability of housing for our own residents.

I have become discouraged about the consequences of what I see playing out in Washington. Yet I am just as discouraged by the disregard for the challenges low- and moderate-income residents face in Hawaii and the difficulty the Legislature has in passing initiatives that will make a real difference in their lives. We deserve better.

Victor Geminiani is executive director of Lawyers for Equal Justice.