Rule by Decree: Is Hawaii's Democracy Broken?
By Andrew Walden
Is Hawaii’s democracy broken?
Here is one day of ‘emergency’ proclamations from Hawaii Governor Josh Green -- all dated July 29, 2025:
Do the math: 1+22+14+18+14+8 = 77 emergencies. Each one suspends Hawaii state laws.
Of these, only the tsunami qualifies as an example of the traditional use of gubernatorial emergency proclamations.
The condo insurance crisis is a secondary effect of the 2018 Kilauea eruption and the 2023 Maui Wildfires—yet the legislature hasn’t acted fast enough to eliminate the need for an ‘emergency’ proclamation.
The other ‘emergencies’ are reflective of problems that the legislature has had years to act on:
--Axis deer were introduced into Hawaii in 1867. That’s 158 years of legislative inaction under the Hawaiian Kingdom, The Hawaii Republic, the Territory of Hawaii, and now the State of Hawaii.
--Homelessness: After 1970s Hollywood productions conned America into closing the lunatic asylums, the 1981 introduction of cheap highly addictive crack cocaine quickly produced mass homelessness. In the mid 1980s the Hawaiian Mafia did its part by introducing cheap Chinese-made methamphetamines into Hawaii and then the US Mainland. Legislators did not sit on their hands. Over four decades, they did a lot to help Larry Mehau. They also enacted many phony homeless ‘solutions.’ The only one which worked was Naloxone. It helps the mafia maintain its customer base.
--Uncle Billy’s Hilo Hotel was built in the 1960s and ended operations in 2017. During the ensuing years of legislative inaction, methamphetamines addicts took over the structure. It was demolished in October, 2024, under an earlier version of this emergency proclamation.
--Affordable housing has been a crisis in Hawaii since the adoption of the ‘Alii Trust Agenda’ in the late 1990s and early 2000s. By artificially restricting the availability of developable land, the alii trusts have enhanced their profits while driving the majority of native Hawaiians out of Hawaii. Their purpose was to turn around the deflated Hawaii land market after the bursting of the Japanese Bubble in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Legislators acted many times—to make the affordability problem worse.
---30---
|