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U.S. House
2nd District
Rural Oahu, Neighbor Islands
*Denotes incumbent
Charles 'Lucky' Collins
DEMOCRATWhat are the unique qualifications you bring to this job?
Did not respond.
What are the top three issues facing Hawaii (from most pressing to least)?
Did not respond.
What role should the federal government have in the native Hawaiian sovereignty issue?
Did not respond.
James M. 'The Ump' Donovan
REPUBLICAN
Age: 52
Job: Certified public accountant
Years here: 4What are the unique qualifications you bring to this job?
A certified public accountant serving as architectural control chairman of Kohala Ranch (and also an NCAA and youth leagues baseball umpire), I believe that tax laws should be written by people who understand taxes. I believe that I am the best qualified candidate to help rewrite the Internal Revenue Code.
What are the top three issues facing Hawaii (from most pressing to least)?
a) Hawaii lags behind the rest of the country in the economic recovery. This is largely due to "out-of-date" provisions of the Jones Act and the current regressive tax structure. b) Education: Freedom of choice makes for better products in the marketplace, better services in the professional sector, and better schooling in the educational arena. c) Hawaii is often treated like a "second-class citizen state."
What role should the federal government have in the native Hawaiian sovereignty issue?
The United States government owes the people of native Hawaiian ancestry a debt for the inappropriate annexation of Hawaii in 1898. Sen. Akaka's recommendation to treat Hawaiians similar to American Indians is well-intentioned, but seriously flawed. Restitution is warranted, but creating Hawaiian "reservations" with gambling casinos is not the answer.
Carol J. Douglass
REPUBLICAN
Age: 37
Job: Art teacher at St. Francis School
Years here: 3What are the unique qualifications you bring to this job?
The reasons I am running for the U.S. Congress are: I am a conservative, pro-life Republican woman, and also a proud wife and motehr who feels that real family women are inadequately represented in the U.S. Congress. The qualifications I bring are: I am a mother, wife and politically conservative woman very concerned about issues concerning women, children and families.
What are the top three issues facing Hawaii (from most pressing to least)?
a) Taxes on both the federal and state level ... need to be reduced and the tax code simplified. b) Federal and state regulations on small businesses need to be minimized and duplication ended, and c) Control and responsibility for public education needs to be brought back to the local level, and away from the huge bureaucracies...
What role should the federal government have in the native Hawaiian sovereignty issue?
The federal government's role should be "hands off," with a return of title of current federal and state land wrongfully appropriated when Hawaii was annexed, and appropriate rent paid on any further use, to a local Hawaiian entity set up by native Hawaiians for native Hawaiians. Another department in the Department of the Interior is the wrong direction.
Lawrence G. K. Duquesne
LIBERTARIAN
Age: 40
Job: Audit clerk at Hilton Waikoloa Village
Years here: 5What are the unique qualifications you bring to this job?
I will bring to Congress a clear vision of the limits of federal authority, which are spelled out in the Constitution. The theme of my campaign, hard money and a secure frontier, is consistent with constitutional authority. I promise neither pork nor special favors, but freedom and opportunity for all.
What are the top three issues facing Hawaii (from most pressing to least)?
Hawaii's greatest burdens are crushing taxes, suffocating regulations, and inflexible labor laws. Hawaii is rich in resources and opportunities, but it goes nowhere if people are unwilling to invest. A business-friendly Hawaii, freed of artificial restraints, could become a real worker's paradise -- the Hong Kong of the Pacific.
What role should the federal government have in the native Hawaiian sovereignty issue?
What is "sovereignty?" Native Hawaiians may well deserve the same status as the Shoshone or Lakota (eternal welfare bondage), but independence is a dangerous fantasy. Federal property in Hawaii (ceded crown lands) should be surrendered to all the peoples of Hawaii on the basis of heredity, nativity, and longevity.
Russ Francis
REPUBLICAN
Age: 47
Job: None given
Years here: 47What are the unique qualifications you bring to this job?
I am not a career politician, and politically have always been an independent. I am not part of any political machine, have a strong business background and don't owe favors to anyone. I will be a strong voice for the people, and not the special interest groups that have for so long dominated Hawaii politics.
What are the top three issues facing Hawaii (from most pressing to least)?
My No. 1 concern is Hawaii's poor economy that forces our children to move to the mainland to find opportunity and requires those who remain to pay the highest taxes in the country. Other top issues are establishing a quality and safe public educational system, protecting Social Security, and expanding Medicare.
What role should the federal government have in the native Hawaiian sovereignty issue?
Native Hawaiians should decide this issue. At the very least, there should be federal recognition of Native Hawaiians as a distinct indigenous people with a right to self-determination. All members of our state congressional delegation, with at least one member in the majority party (Republican), should unite to further Native Hawaiian initiatives in Congress.
Patsy Takemoto Mink*
DEMOCRAT
Age: 72
Job: Attorney at law
Years here: 72What are the unique qualifications you bring to this job?
My nearly 22 years of legislative experience as a member of Congress is my most notable qualification. With the possibility that majority control of the U.S. House may switch back to the Democrats next year, I have the prospect of chairing an important subcommittee of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.
What are the top three issues facing Hawaii (from most pressing to least)?
The top three issues facing Hawaii are: 1) Improving the quality of education in our public schools, by reducing class size in all levels, and finding the resources to rehabilitate our old and dilapidated schools; 2) Making sure all students have access to the Internet and to computer technology; and 3) working to save our sugar industry.
What role should the federal government have in the native Hawaiian sovereignty issue?
The federal government's role is to ascertain what the majority of the native Hawaiian people want and to help them achieve their goals. The federal role is to assist in formulating the exact status that the majority of the Native Hawaiians want and to help them achieve it.
