Mazie Hirono:
"Previous lieutenant governors
didn't work very closely with the governor and
I wanted to change that."
Mazie Hirono:
"Previous lieutenant governors
didn't work very closely with the governor and
I wanted to change that."
In Hawaii, being lieutenant governor has traditionally meant shepherding visiting dignitaries around Honolulu, lending official clout to charitable campaigns, filling in for the governor in his absence and supervising elections.
It's also the office you go to if you want to change your name. Long on ceremony and short on pith, the post has often left the state's No. 2 official substantively challenged.
While the lieutenant governor is no longer responsible for elections (that duty was abolished by the Legislature in 1995), Hirono's schedule is still full of largely ceremonial appearances. Greeting foreign delegations. Tossing out pitches. Delivering a few words of welcome.
It comes with the territory.
But Hirono and Gov. Ben Cayetano have been nibbling at the boundaries.
Cayetano didn't attend Cabinet meetings under then-Gov. John Waihee. Hirono does.
Jean King wasn't charged with spearheading economic development projects under Gov. George Ariyoshi. Hirono is. Cayetano and King weren't particularly close to their running mates. By all appearances, Hirono is.
"Previous lieutenant governors didn't work very closely with the governor and I wanted to change that," Hirono said last week.
"I think the governor's view is that there are enough challenges for everybody."
In taking on those challenges, Hirono, 48, feels she's creating "new expectations" of what a lieutenant governor does.
Early on, Hirono led the administration push for workers compensation reform, an effort that critics say produced mixed results. Now she's chairing the governor's Advisory Council on Airline Relations and the governor's Task Force on Science and Technology.
Key issues include obtaining visa waivers for South Koreans visiting Hawaii and minimizing the impact of heightened airport security requirements on the state's tourism industry.
Hirono said: "It's a tourism, economic issue...If we can get rid of the visa requirement, we can probably increase our visitors from Korea 20 percent. That would translate to $30 million to $40 million."
Hirono said she's also focusing on the potentially serious impact that increased federal airport security requirements will have on the state's economy.
Hirono also points to her role in pushing through a nonprofit mutual insurance fund to replace the costly workers compensation assigned risk pool.
Sam Slom of Small Business Hawaii praised Hirono for putting together the loose-knit workers compensation task force but complained that the resulting legislation takes a "Band-Aid approach" to the issue. Slom said it didn't deal with fraud in the system or a burden of proof weighted against employers.
"It was made clear from the outset that the administration wasn't going to touch that because it didn't find favor with the unions," said Slom, a Republican candidate for the state Senate. "But it's more than any lieutenant governor has done in the past."
King agrees.
"Her capabilities are being utilized by the governor," King said. "Because the relationship with Gov. Ariyoshi turned out, to my disappointment, not to be one of teamwork where he would assign me specific projects, I had to, in effect, create my own projects and task forces. Fortunately I had a superb staff."
But there's still that niggling doubt about the lieutenant governor's clout.
"She's been given special projects but nothing that's made a great deal of change in the direction of the state," said tax reform advocate Lowell Kalapa.
Hirono disagrees and contends her lack of visibility is "one of the frustrations" of the job. "People don't realize what I'm doing," she said.
Hirono hasn't ruffled too many feathers. She sparred with Frank Fasi over his request to examine the ballots after his unsuccessful gubernatorial bid in 1994 and complained loudly when the Senate Ways and Means Committee pared the lieutenant governor's budget by more than 30 percent. And she was cleared by the state Ethics Commission of a charge that she improperly used the state seal on invitations to a political fund-raiser.
"It appears she serves as a roving ambassador for the governor," said Democratic Party Chairman Richard Port.
"I haven't heard a negative word about her from any part of the community ... I think she'll make a good governor one day."
Hirono won't say for sure whether she'd like to follow her two immediate predecessors into Washington Place.
"If I do a good job where I am, those other opportunities will be there," she said.
Hirono, a Democrat, said she's not actively campaigning for any specific candidates this season.