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On Politics Richard Borreca |
How the Democrats
ended the new beginning
and got their groove backIt is the summer of 2005 and Gov. Linda Lingle's favorability rating continues to drop. It is now hovering near 40 percent and the speculation increases that re-election next year already may be politically impossible.
The plunge in GOP popularity was balanced by a rise for the Democrats, who had decided to fight Lingle on her own battlefield.
The first shot was fired by Democrats during the 2004 legislative session after their sudden reversal on binding arbitration for the Hawaii Government Employees Association. Lingle had demanded the Democrats repeal the law forcing an arbitrator to pick a wage plan for the state's biggest public employees' union.
But Lingle had not counted on the Democrats seizing the challenge, tossing out binding arbitration and then inserting themselves into the bargaining process by demanding that she hold the line on pay raises. The move was controversial within the party, but in the end Democrats hung on to the theory that even with minimal raises, the HGEA would not abandon the Democrats and vote Republican.
"Look at Lingle, she is pro-choice, the Christian right doesn't like it, but they are still Republican," Democratic leaders argued.
Lingle countered, offering the HGEA a 10 percent raise. Demo-crats blocked that by leaking a letter previously sent to the governor, demanding that she hold the line at 2 percent.
The reduced HGEA pay raise gave the 2004 Legislature millions more than expected, which Democrats used to rush through a series of tax cuts on food, drugs and medical expenses. Although Lingle had championed those programs and the reductions had been regular GOP talking points, Lingle had abandoned the tax cut pledge after winning office in 2002 and facing a still weak economy.
Democrats picked up the discarded promise. In the Legislature, Republicans split, some backing Lingle's "fiscal discipline means no tax cut" program and others backing the popular Democrat plan. The tax cuts passed and Lingle let them become law without her signature.
Few noticed the third part of the Democratic strategy, to call Lingle on her platform of open government. The bill requiring Lingle to broadcast her weekly cabinet meetings live on Olelo sailed through both chambers. The TV-savvy administration, unable to resist the free air time, soon spent more time blocking out the meetings and scripting questions and answers for cabinet members than Lingle had for running the entire administration.
With the 2004 session over, Democrats moved into the fall campaign with a platform of reduced budgets and increased tax cuts, while Lingle could only advise the GOP to say "too much change, too fast was too dangerous."
A final report from the Council on Revenues put the state's tax collections at a 10 percent increase, nearly double the forecast 5.2 percent. The economy actually played into Democratic hands as they were able to say that Democratic tax cuts and fiscal discipline spurred on the economy.
At the polls, Republicans found that independents and marginal Democrats who had voted for Lingle and the promise of change in 2002, ran back to the Democratic column with a vengeance.
Republicans lost seats in the state House and Senate, as a Democratic tide washed over the Neighbor Islands, which were enjoying a tax-cut boom.
Observers, who noted that the resurgence started in 2004, the 50th anniversary of the Hawaii Democrats' revolution of 1954, marked 2004 as the point where Democrats in Hawaii stopped living in the past and moved into the future.
See the Columnists section for some past articles.
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.