Hawaii GOP Platform Changes Scuttled

A grassroots effort to revise and update the Hawaii Republican Party's 2008 platform was scuttled by local GOP leaders at an emotionally charged meeting this past Saturday morning April 12.

This is what happened. Over the course of the past 3 weeks, district appointed delegates to the platform committee vigorously worked on drafting new proposals to the platform that moved the document toward a fiscal and social conservative view. Current Hawaii GOP leadership who are loyal followers and appointees of Governor Linda Lingle apparently did not like the direction that the platform was taking. They summoned their loyal minions and stacked the Saturday meeting by first proposing to do away with rules of procedure and then proposing to adopt the 2006 platform as the new document going into the May 2008 State Convention. After an hour of debate, a vote was taken and the outcome was a 26 to 19 in favor of keeping the "status quo".

Needless to say many Hawaii GOP members are now upset over the choreographed effort made by leadership to shut the process down. Leadership was apparently upset over the changes to the "Hawaiian Plank" where proposals to not support the controversial Akaka Bill mandate, revising the Hawaiian Homes mission and allowing native Hawaiians to become more self reliant were floated.

Hawaiian plank co-chair and longtime Republican member Eric Ryan published this article at HawaiiReporter.com that it is "all about the Akaka Bill".

"It's all about the Akaka Bill, that's why they're shutting down our committee," were the words on the lips of delegates and alternates to the platform committee. "Lingle doesn't want us to express the will of Republican voters statewide."

Read Mr. Ryan's article. It is eye opening and outline's the day's proceedings in detail.

An audio file of the meeting is also circulating and can be found and downloaded from this link:

http://www.mediafire.com/?mlfg4ylntmy

Go to the above link quickly before the file goes away. If so I will try to provide another link if there is one to be posted later.

I'll disclose this. I am a member of the Hawaii GOP and am on the Platform Committee from my district. I am disappointed that the work of the platform committee was scuttled by the top-down leadership and the Lingle loyalists who want to continue perpetuating a "Democrat Lite" platform (new taxes, Akaka Bill support, etc).

Several party members loyal to the process of crafting a more conservative platform vow to push ahead with the work and present a new document at the May convention.



Governor Lingle is hugely responsible for the increase to the Hawaii general excise tax to fund Honolulu's $6.4 billion rail project. In the photo above, she was surrounded by Democrat supporters of the rail project and more taxes at this press conference held on July 11, 2005 in which she announced that the GE tax increase bill would pass without her signature. It is this kind of action that conservative Republicans are against and why changes to the platform need to be made. The Governor has been a disappointment to conservatives ever since. Photo by Mel.