Every week, as I knock on doors across Wahiawā, Whitmore Village, Waialua, and Mokulēʻia, I hear many
of the same concerns. Families wonder whether they will ever be able to afford a home. Parents worry about rising grocery bills, childcare, and healthcare costs. Young people ask whether they will be able to build a future here or whether they will have to leave Hawaiʻi to do so. Farmers talk about water, aging infrastructure, and the future of agriculture. Neighbors ask about safer sidewalks, flooding, public safety, and the future of our schools.
What strikes me is not that people have stopped caring. It is that many have begun to wonder whether government is still capable of responding. That is why the recent federal corruption indictments have resonated so deeply. Regardless of how those cases are ultimately resolved, they have caused many people to ask a larger question: Who is government really working for?
That is an uncomfortable question. But it is also an important one. Too often we think of democracy as something that happens every two or four years on Election Day. In reality, democracy is something we practice every day. It is how we decide where public resources go, which communities receive investments, and whose voices are heard. Politics is simply the way a community decides how to care for one another. In Hawaiʻi, we have long understood this through the idea of kuleana—that each of us shares a responsibility for the well-being of our community, and that our futures are bound together.
Every budget tells a story about what we value. Every public investment reflects a choice. Will we invest in affordable housing? In public schools? In healthcare? In flood protection? In agriculture? In safer streets? These are not merely financial decisions. They are expressions of our shared priorities.
That is why corruption matters. The opposite of corruption is not simply honesty. It is democratic accountability. It is the confidence that public decisions are made because they serve the public—not because someone has greater wealth, greater access, or louder political influence.
This past legislative session, the Legislature made progress toward that goal. We expanded automatic voter registration, strengthened public financing of campaigns, and reaffirmed that corporations created under Hawaiʻi law do not possess an inherent right to spend money influencing elections. These were important steps toward making our democracy more representative of the people it serves. But our work is not finished. One of the most important reforms that failed this session would prohibit state contractors from making campaign contributions while they are seeking or performing government contracts. Members of the bipartisan Good Government Caucus have called for a special session to consider that reform because public confidence in government is difficult to rebuild once it has been lost.
At the same time, the recent election reminded us of another challenge. The emergence of well-funded independent expenditure committees capable of spending millions of dollars in legislative races has highlighted just how unequal political influence can become. The issue is not any one organization or any one election. It is whether we are comfortable with a political system in which ordinary citizens can never hope to match the influence of organizations able to spend unlimited sums shaping public debate. None of this means democracy is broken. It means democracy requires us. The antidote to concentrated political power is not simply another law. It is organized community power.
I have seen what that looks like. I have seen neighbors come together after floods to protect one another before government arrived. I have seen parents and teachers organize to improve our schools. I have watched residents advocate for safer pedestrian crossings, better healthcare, stronger agricultural infrastructure, and more resilient communities. Every improvement we enjoy today exists because ordinary people decided that showing up mattered.
That spirit of laulima—working together for the com- mon good—has always been one of Hawaiʻi’s greatest strengths. It reminds us that government is strongest not when it acts alone, but when it works in partnership with informed, organized, and engaged communities.
That is the lesson I hope we take from this moment. The recent scandals should certainly lead to account- ability wherever wrongdoing occurred. But they should also remind us that democracy cannot be something we watch from the sidelines. It depends on citizens who vote, testify, attend community meetings, volunteer, organize, ask difficult questions, and insist that government reflect the values of the communities it serves.
Good government is not simply about preventing corruption. It is about ensuring that power remains accountable to the people. For me, the measure of a healthy economy is not how much wealth accumulates at the very top. It is whether working families can remain in Hawaiʻi, whether young people can build a future here, whether our kūpuna can age with dignity, and whether every child has the opportunity to thrive. Those are economic questions. But they are also democratic ones. Our district has always been at its best when neighbors come together to solve problems—not because someone else will do it, but because we understand that our future belongs to all of us. That is kuleana in action.
The lesson of this moment is not that democracy has failed. It is that democracy requires us, and that if we want a Hawaiʻi that works for ordinary people, then ordinary people have to help shape it.