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After years of facing little serious opposition, state Rep. Scott Saiki faces an election rematch against an articulate, Democratic primary opponent with some skill in successfully espousing controversial issues.
Politics comes easy to Saiki. No one ran against him in either the primary or general in both 2016 and 2018.
Elections this year are expected to become a lot rougher for the 57-year-old private attorney.
Saiki, who has been speaker of the House since 2017, is up against former two-term Hawaii school board member Kim Coco Iwamoto. In 2018, Iwamoto, a transgendered civil rights lawyer and former member of the Hawaii civil rights commission, ran unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor. Although she had won two terms to the state Board of Education, she failed to beat Saiki in the 2020 state House race for the urban Honolulu- Kakaako district.
Saiki has been in the state House since 1994. For much of his time in office, he opposed House Speaker Calvin Say, who served as state House leader for a record- setting 14 years.
When Saiki and Rep. Sylvia Luke, chairwoman of the powerful House Finance Committee, put together a coalition of Democrats to take control of the House, the result was Saiki becoming speaker. Meanwhile Say switched fields, winning election to the Honolulu City Council, and now, Luke is running for lieutenant governor.
Iwamoto, who lost to Saiki by just 167 votes in the last election, is back with a focused attack on Saiki and his leadership of the state House. Much of her campaign has been to attack Saiki’s incumbency.
In campaign reports in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, Iwamoto is charging that the Legislature “killed meaningful ethics and anti-corruption reform following the federal political corruption guilty pleas” by former lawmakers Kalani English and Ty J.K. Cullen.
A booming state surplus, after years of worry over making the budget, has paid off in political benefit for the Democrats who control the state Legislature. Colin Moore, director of the University of Hawaii’s Public Policy Center, predicts 2022 to be an upset-free political year because there is just so much extra money.
“I don’t see any evidence of a major backlash against incumbents this year,” Moore said in an interview.
“The Legislature passed several popular bills this session (minimum wage, money for Hawaiian Homelands, a refundable earned income tax credit), so legislative leaders like Saiki have a strong record to run on.”
The challenge for Saiki may actually be to sell his own political brand.
“Kim Coco Iwamoto runs an excellent campaign and has the resources to make this a competitive race. Plus, that Kakaako district is full of recent arrivals, so Saiki probably has to work harder for name recognition than someone running in a district like Manoa with lots of long-time residents,” said Moore.
Two years ago Iwamoto came surprisingly close to toppling Saiki, and Moore sees a warning for Saiki.
“This time he’s geared up for a tough race. So, yes, on balance I think he’s far less vulnerable this year than in 2020,” Moore said.
Being speaker of the House comes with its own set of unique powers, and after a decade of watching Calvin Say use them, it is to be expected that Saiki will be more than able to find precisely how to use those levers of power to win this year.
Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays. Reach him at 808onpolitics@gmail.com.
