Colleen Hanabusa

Democrat

Age: 57

Job: Attorney and senator

Past: State senator representing District 21 since 1998

What is the most important issue facing your district, and what would you do about it?

The economic and social inequities facing residents of the Waianae Coast are among the most important issues for my district. As I have done for the last 10 years, I will continue to fight for improved education and for providing students with the proper tools necessary to succeed. For my district specifically, this means the infrastructure needs must be addressed in order to provide the proper environment in which maximum learning can be achieved.

What qualifies you to be a state senator?

I have represented the Waianae Coast in the state Senate since first being elected in 1998. 

What is one thing you would do in office to improve the local economy?

While improving our state’s economy is a complex undertaking requiring a number of related actions, my top priority would be establishing as a primary mission of our state government, the development and support of a stronger, more diversified, and more sustainable economy.

Recent visitor industry statistics have shown us once again that we must focus on ending our over-reliance on tourism as a primary driver of our economy. While the visitor industry has done well for Hawaii and has provided both jobs and economic opportunities, we remain vulnerable to external pressures that threaten our state’s economic health, such as the current spike in fuel prices and changes in travel patterns around the world.

Instead, we need to direct our interest at industries that make the best use of our natural and human resources, along with the unique “brand” that Hawaii has established in areas such as coffee production and our desirable lifestyle. Building on our strengths, we have an opportunity to extend our reach into other spheres, like alternative energy research, intellectual property development, local agriculture, and biotechnology.

The goals of Hawaii’s new economy will be to provide and maintain more and better jobs and opportunities for our workers, attractive careers for our young people, assurances that we will be able to preserve what is most important to us — including cultural preservation, protection of our natural environment and a focus on core values — and ways of keeping a larger portion of our spending within our state, rather than spreading it to the mainland and around the world. 

Do you support convening a Constitutional Convention? Please explain.

No. The cost to convene such a body may be prohibitive, especially since the legislature has been responsive in deliberating proposals to amend our state Constitution since our last Constitutional Convention in 1978. 

Do you support Oahu’s planned rail-transit system? Please explain. 

While I am supportive of mass-transit alternatives to private vehicles and public buses, I am not yet convinced that the planned rail transit is the right system to implement in Honolulu. 

What can the Legislature do to improve Hawaii’s public education?

Reduce class size.

Dicky J. Johnson

Republican

Age: 77

Job: Retired

Past: U.S. Treasury Dept. agent; Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Fire-arms; child support enforcement

What is the most important issue facing your district, and what would you do about it?

Waianae is being dumped on by the current politicians both state and city/county. The Waimanalo Gulch is in Waianae, not Waimanalo.

What qualifies you to be a state senator?

Forty years in law enforcement in federal, state, county and local police department. 

What is one thing you would do in office to improve the local economy?

Get the state government out of housing and transportation. Leave that to the city and county. Get rid of the HI5 and mandate that all soft drinks and beer be only sold in aluminum cans, not bottles. The recyclers used to pay us for the cans. Now they only return $.05 of the $.06 we pay for the soft drinks. No one picks up broken bottles, but they do pick up aluminum cans. What a tax increase for the state. 

Do you support convening a Constitutional Convention? Please explain.

Yes, I support a Constitutional Convention. Our current Constitution requires it, but the entrenched politicians don’t want to know what the public wants and don’t want. 

Do you support Oahu’s planned rail-transit system? Please explain.

No, but I think such an expensive undertaking should be voted on the voters, not only by the mayor who said we wouldn’t spend money that we couldn’t afford or five city councilmen. We have the best bus system in the world, and the people won’t ride the bus. Instead they pay $80 or more to park downtown, where the bus only charges $40 per month. For what we are spending on the rail we could have free bus transportation. 

What can the Legislature do to improve Hawaii’s public education?

The state should get out of running the education of our children. Turn it over to the city/county. We are the only state that has state-sponsored education.