KALAPAKI – Gov. Linda Lingle, Mayor Bryan Baptiste and other top Hawaii Republican Party leaders yesterday launched the party’s 2006 election campaign, urging the party faithful to ramp up efforts to wrest Hawai’i’s political power away from the Democratic Party.
KALAPAKI – Gov. Linda Lingle, Mayor Bryan Baptiste and other top Hawaii Republican Party leaders yesterday launched the party’s 2006 election campaign, urging the party faithful to ramp up efforts to wrest Hawai’i’s political power away from the Democratic Party.
They made their pitch to some 300 Republican Party delegates on the second day of the Hawaii Republican Party Convention held at the Kauai Marriott Resort. The three-day event ends today.
Lingle said the Republican Party has already made sizable gains in her 30 months in office, through her appointments of judges and through the installation of cabinet members who can lead Hawai’i toward a brighter future.
Lingle, a former mayor of Maui County and former member of the Maui County Council, recently announced her reelection bid for a second, four-year term as governor.
She said yesterday that she is optimistic about being re-elected and helping the Hawaii Republican Party, through the election of young, new and enthusiastic Republican candidates in the 2006 election, thus helping to gain power in the currently Democrat-controlled Legislature.
Baptiste expressed the same optimism about that happening, emphasizing that “a good two-party system is essential to good government.”
The convention is a good start in that direction, he said.
“I think today is like the beginning of the election cycle for 2006,” Baptiste said. “I think people are excited, people are motivated. People are going to start to hit the street.”
Carol Furtado, who was among 90 or so Kaua’i delegates of the 300 delegates at the convention, said the gathering was a way for the party to build strength and to develop strategies for next year’s political battles.
The event held special meeting to Furtado.
A resolution was passed recognizing the late-Abel Medeiros, Furtado’s father and a lifelong Republican. Medeiros was member of the First State Legislature following statehood in 1959 and passed away recently.
Kaua’i convention delegate, Suzanne Woodruff, said a two-party political system in Hawai’i will result in less corruption in government.
Lingle said the Hawaii Democratic Party has dominated the state’s political landscape for 40 years. But Lingle said the Republican Party has successfully chipped away at that power base in her 30 months in office.
That has happened with party members rising to positions of prominence nationally and locally. Among those in that group, Lingle noted:
- Richard Clifton, a former attorney for the Republican Party, is now a federal judge in the 9th Circuit Court;
- Mark Bennett, an attorney for the party, is now the state Attorney General;
- Micah Kane, who was the chairman of the Hawai’i Republican Party, is now board chairman of the state Department of Hawaiian Home Lands, the largest developer of housing in the state;
- Ron Agor, the Kaua’i County chair of the Republican Party and an architect, is Kaua’i’s representative on the Board of the Land and Natural Resources.
Senate Minority Leader Fred Hemmings and State Sen. Sam Slom said they hope more Republicans win seats in the state Legislature.
“There is a great battle going on for the future of Hawai’i,” Hemmings said. “On one side are the forces of the status quo, and on the other side are the forces for change. We cannot continue business as usual.”
Lingle said the Republican Party has helped change the makeup of the state’s court system. Changes have come due to new judgeships being created, through retirement of judges and decisions not to retain judges “as they used to be automatically,” she said.
“In 30 months, I have appointed more than 25 percent of the entire state judiciary,” Lingle said.
She has appointed a new member to the five-member Hawaii Supreme Court and has appointed eight circuit judges in a system that has 32 circuit court judges. One circuit court judgeship appointment involved Kathleen Watanabe, a former Kaua’i County Attorney.
- Lester Chang, staff writer, 245-3681 (ext. 225) or lchang@pulitzer.net.
