It’s mid-February, do you know where your bills are? Kinda kidding, but now is surely the time to research and seek information on where bills stand locally that might affect you, your family, and the free world. It’s often been said that if you don’t participate, not only do you get what you deserve, but you also have little reason to whine- you simply didn’t play.
And yes, I know the adage “what does my one vote do/mean?”, but if more people felt that way (which, sadly, far too many do in Hawai`i with our weak voting records), it would lead to a system where lots gets discussed (also known as the legislative “I tried”) but little gets accomplished or changes. And frankly, why should we expect change when we don’t demand it?
Local legislators run for office every two to four years, and not rocking the boat seems like a good strategy to not alienate voters. Why bother being controversial or worry about upsetting a particular voting bloc? Occasionally, we do get a so-called upset here, but with most districts having so few voters, it really behooves local legislators to casually talk about lots of things, but then maintain status quo at the end of the day. It’s called job security.
This is not to say there are no efforts or actual results when it comes to bold moves and changes- it just takes far too long. And we do have some hard-working, altruistic legislators. But… that part-time job thing just doesn’t seem right- a six month pseudo-vacation annually?!
Of Hawai`i’s 51 State House districts, there were only 35 races in November as some races, as always, were walkovers- incumbents ran uncontested). In 26 of 35 actual races, the winners got 55% of the vote or more. Many districts had fewer than 10,000 voters go the polls. So why risk alienating even a small group of those people when re-election is not that complicated (in most instances)? Do you proactively give your boss(es) angst and heartburn, at the risk of losing your position? And no, this is not just a Hawai`i issue with incumbent redundancy.
Ballotpedia states that nationally, 95% of local incumbents were re-elected in 2024 (up from 94% in 2022 and 93% in 2020). 97% of Congressional incumbents won in 2024- astounding, yet predictable. Call your employees at the legislature; check on your bills.
Think about it…