Thielen would provide moderation, integrity to Senate
THE ISSUE
State Rep. Cynthia Thielen is running for the U.S. Senate, challenging incumbent Sen. Daniel Akaka.
|
STATE Rep. Cynthia Thielen was late entering this year's race for the U.S. Senate, but voters should make an extra effort to learn about her. Those who do will discover a woman of integrity, a moderate Republican who regards principle above party loyalty. She deserves election to the Senate, retiring incumbent Daniel Akaka.
Thielen's views are similar to those of Rep. Ed Case, who challenged but lost to Akaka in the Democratic primary. Her dedication to environmental protection has been exceptional, and her concern about the war in Iraq is more thoughtful than the "stay the course" position of Bush loyalists or the premature exit of U.S. troops proposed by Akaka and other Bush critics.
Her demand is for adoption of "a new approach, one that is substantially different from what we are doing now and has a reasonable chance of success," for the firing of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Gen. John P. Abizaid, commander of the Central Command, and that the Iraqi legislature asks us to stay or holds a referendum on the question.
Polls show that most Iraqis want U.S. troops to go home. If the Iraqis want American soldiers to leave, Thielen says, "then we choose either to become an occupying power, or we leave." She prefers the latter, "under an orderly plan that seeks to minimize loss of life and provide places of refuge."
In the 1950s, Thielen dropped out of Stanford University, where she was a roommate of now-Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., to marry Mickey Thielen. Four children later, she earned her law degree from the University of Hawaii in 1979.
As an attorney, she has represented Protect Kaho'olawe Ohana, successful in halting military bombing of the island, and the Stop H-3 Association, winning in court and forcing Sen. Dan Inouye to gain a congressional exemption of the freeway's construction from environmental laws.
Thielen has been endorsed by the Sierra Club* and has been critical of Akaka's vote in support of oil drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. That position is consistent with her cosponsorship of the renewable energy package enacted by the Legislature last year.
She has represented her Kailua-Kaneohe district in the state House since 1990 with unprecedented success as a Republican in a Democratic-controlled Legislature. She single-handedly won approval of a controversial experimental industrial hemp farm in Wahiawa in 1999, the only such farm in the nation in 60 years.
As a member of the majority party in the Senate, Thielen would be in a position to exert influence from the day she is sworn to office. Hawaii should join other states that have found an advantage in having both parties represented in the Senate.
CLARIFICATION
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
» The Sierra Club endorsed Cynthia Thielen for the state House in the primary election, but it endorsed Daniel Akaka in the U.S. Senate race for the general election. A Star-Bulletin editorial on Oct. 18 implied that the Sierra Club had endorsed Thielen in the Senate race.
|
