On Politics
BY RICHARD BORRECA
Will ‘New Beginning’
end the honeymoon?The trouble with a political honeymoon is, how do you tell when it is over?
Outside of watching the House of Representatives burn you in effigy, the signs that the honeymoon has ended are subtle.
Regular folks may figure the wine and soft music ends with the first disagreement over picking up wet towels in the bathroom, but for legislators and governors, the honeymoon ends when the new governor starts to flesh out all those campaign promises.
For Gov. Linda Lingle, the legislative honeymoon will start to wane Tuesday, when she promises to fill in the specifics of her "Agenda for a New Beginning" during her first State of the State speech.
As the first Republican governor to go before a Democratic-controlled Legislature in 40 years, Lingle will be working harder for each applause line than any other governor in memory.
The State of the State speech will set Lingle's agenda, and if the issues hold, it also will frame the debate for all 76 state lawmakers.
Hawaii's system gives the governor great powers and allows the chief executive to draw the blueprints for the government action. Although legislators can toy with new pro- grams, without the concurrence of the governor, a new and controversial program has little chance of success.
But new governors also find out that without some allies in the Legislature, they will watch their key issues be gutted one by one.
Lingle, however, appears ready to govern, if not by consensus, at least with inclusion. To do so, Lingle has to get the ear of influential Democrats in the Legislature. So far she has had several private meetings with Sens. Colleen Hanabusa, Judiciary Committee chairwoman and Senate Democratic leader, and Donna Mercado Kim, a City Council and legislative veteran. Both are powerful figures in the Legislature, and Lingle is smart to establish a talking relationship with them. Lingle is also starting to meet with Senate President Robert Bunda.
So far no such clear lines of communication appear to have been opened with the House Democrats, but Lingle is likely to keep on looking for some allies among the 36 Democrats in that body.
In the next three months, we will watch both legislative and gubernatorial learning curves heighten and, in the end, lawmakers will discover that the map they are following was set on Jan. 21 when Lingle gave her first State of the State Address.
And by May, when the legislative session is scheduled to adjourn, we will have gone past the honeymoon stage and Hawaii will know just how peacefully a Republican governor and a Democratic Legislature can live together in the land of aloha.
Richard Borreca writes on politics every Sunday in the Star-Bulletin.
He can be reached at 525-8630 or by e-mail at rborreca@starbulletin.com.
