In 2009, After a few months of working in the Legislature, I looked to get involved in politics because I was frustrated with politicians paying more attention to their internal power dynamics and donors than to the needs of Hawaii residents who were struggling through a recession.
I chose to join the Hawaii Republican Party when they replaced a platform similar in specificity and conservativism to the national Republican platform with a broad list of values: Liberty, Limited Government, Individual Responsibility, Fiscal Accountability, and Equality of Opportunity.
The Hawaii Republican Party, under its new value statement, appeared to be an organization that would be flexible enough to collect diverse voices that were being marginalized and challenge the existing political power structure.
I wanted local residents, including my family and community, to feel like they had ownership of state government again. I hoped that we could increase participation and reverse the polling trends that showed a majority of Hawaii residents agree the state was becoming increasingly unlivable, that government was ineffective, and that they couldn’t do anything about it.
Our state has the lowest voter turnout in the nation, in part, because our communities don’t believe their votes matter.
At the time, I saw enough evidence working at the legislature to believe that elevating new voices would require challenging the established politicians that were blocking policy changes. Those politicians were a faction of conservative-leaning Democrats who withstood a decade of Democratic challengers. At the time, I met people working to build a more inclusive Hawaii Republican Party, and I thought that was the best way to make progress.
I worked to make changes from various leadership positions, including State Chair, House Republican Floor Leader, and House Republican Leader. I was transparent about what I was trying to do, and I had a lot of friends and allies that wanted to do the same.
For a while, it even looked like the Republican National Committee might transform into a more inclusive and diverse entity.
In 2013, the Growth and Opportunity Project, a task force commissioned by the RNC to perform a comprehensive autopsy of the 2012 election cycle released a self-titled report. They named a lack of moderate, inclusive messaging to demographically diverse voters as a chief cause for national losses and made recommendations for reform similar to what we were working on in Hawaii.
In retrospect, I can see clearly that my reasons for inclusivity were different than others in the Republican Party who looked like they were fighting for the same thing.
But, it wasn’t until 2016 that I realized that Republican leaders were unprepared to continue the mission of inclusion if it polled poorly or threatened short-term electoral success.
The goal was simply to win, and if the party could win without building a diverse coalition, they would take that path. But for me, a biracial American raised in one of the country’s multicultural states, my lived experience shows that greater inclusion and diversity builds stronger and fairer societies.
It felt like the version of the party I imagined was worth fighting for. Our two-party system demands that both parties act as rational counterparts that embody the communities they claim to serve.
So, I held on as long as I thought I could make a difference and tried to work against the version of the Republican party that we see today. But, within months of President Trump’s inauguration, I knew I couldn’t win. It was time to walk away. For more on that topic, see my resignation letter and my announcement on changing parties.