HONOLULU — The state of Hawaii’s 76-member Legislature has eight Republican lawmakers, yet one of them in a certain respect has been a minority of one.
State Sen. Brenton Awa, a first-term lawmaker representing most of rural O‘ahu, has more than occasionally been the lone dissenter on bills passed by the Senate and House of Representatives during the past two legislative sessions.
Over the past two years, Awa has cast the sole “no” vote on 42 bills sent to Gov. Josh Green. That equates to a little under 10 percent of all bills passed and appears unparalleled in recent history.
“I’m alone down there,” said Awa in an interview in his second-floor office at the state Capitol, referring to the basement Senate chamber where final votes take place. “Let’s not get that wrong.”
In a word, you could perhaps best describe Awa as unconventional among all his Republican and Democrat colleagues.
Along with the nonconformist voting streak, Awa doesn’t hold an outside job like most other lawmakers, and he said he doesn’t plan to campaign as part of his bid to be reelected in November.
Awa, 38, is a graduate of Kahuku High School and a former TV journalist, who got elected in 2022 to represent a district that geographically is the biggest on O‘ahu, stretching from a piece of Kaneohe in Windward O‘ahu to Mokuleia on the North Shore plus parts of Wahiawa and Kunia in Central O‘ahu.
During his first term over the past two years, Awa said, he was surprised to see other lawmakers backing legislation, sometimes signing on as co-introducers of bills and at other times voting for bills, without knowing specifics about the proposed new laws.
“One of the first (things) that I learned was no issue in the Senate — and I can’t speak for the House — is decided upon solely the issue,” he said. “There are so many other factors, including leverage … and the benefit of (individual lawmakers) themselves.”
Awa said his own principle for casting votes on bills introduced by others is to examine the legislation with staff but also to start from a viewpoint of not voting for a bill unless good arguments are made to do so.
“We look at it with the mentality of it’s a ‘no’ until you tell me why it should be a ‘yes,’” he said. “Tell me why you should get my vote.”
No, no, no
The first bill signed into law this year as Act 1, House Bill 129, adjusted an automatic trigger for recounting election results. Awa, who cast the only final “no” vote, said he agrees with the trigger adjustment, but objects to a provision extending the time for completing a recount to five business days from 72 hours after polls close.
“Why should it take five days?” he said. “It shouldn’t take that long.”
Another bill Awa was alone in opposing on final reading was HB 2058, which establishes a new criminal offense of negligent failure to control a dangerous dog. Awa said he voted against this bill partly because it could result in a person being imprisoned if their dog injures another animal.
Awa also voted alone against a bill to designate Nov. 22 of each year as “Kimchi Day.” This dissenting vote, Awa said, was rooted in his view that too much weighty work was pending, especially given the needs of Maui after the Aug. 8, 2023, wildfire disaster.
“We’re looking to make the lives and our place better for people to be able to live,” he said. “Kimchi Day is one of those bills that represent what’s wrong with the Legislature.”
Some political observers could not recall another Hawaii lawmaker in recent years being the only dissenter on a similar number of bills sent to a governor to become law. The late Sam Slom did nearly a decade ago, but not on such a variety of measures.
In Slom’s second-to-last year in the Senate, 2015, when he was one of seven Republicans in the Legislature, Slom cast the sole vote against 26 bills that passed. One was the budget bill, seven were appropriations for public-worker collective bargaining pay raises, and several others dealt with special funds or taxes. In 2016, Slom was the lone “no” vote on six bills.
Awa has largely dissented on popular bills in low-profile fashion. He doesn’t typically rise on the Senate floor to speak of his reasons for voting against bills that otherwise would have passed unanimously, at least in part because he said it would be a waste of time. Instead, such votes are usually recognized by his raising a lonely hand in the chamber surrounded by 24 other senators.
University of Hawai‘i professor and political analyst Colin Moore said Awa has demonstrated, fairly quietly, that he has strong opinions that often aren’t politically ideological and that he isn’t going to follow a commonplace practice of voting in unison on noncontroversial bills.
“I think he’s a bit of a maverick,” Moore said. “There’s a lot of logrolling in the Legislature. It’s a way to make friends … to support other people’s bills. Legislatures are kind of an economy of favors.”
Local political analyst Neal Milner sees Awa similarly. “He’s not an out-and-out conservative, for sure,” Milner said. “He’s a different kind of guy.”
‘Small party’
Because Awa is in a Legislature heavily dominated by Democrats, there is little chance for bills he introduces to become law. In this respect he is not apart from his one Republican colleague in the Senate and six in the House.
A bill Awa introduced as his top priority aimed to prohibit non-U.S. citizens from buying Hawai‘i real estate. The measure, Senate Bill 2617, was co-introduced by two Senate Democrats and unanimously passed the full Senate after being amended to instead only study similar laws in other states. The bill never received a hearing in the House.
Awa has in some instances ignored the defeat of bills he authored but worked to implement at least some aspect administratively. For instance, he introduced SB 666 in 2023 in an effort to require the state to use fruit trees for landscaping when practicable instead of non-fruit trees. The bill was deferred after one hearing.
So Awa negotiated with the state Department of Transportation, and in December worked with community members to plant 70 breadfruit and mountain apple trees along Kahekili Highway in Kahaluu.
“Republicans (in Hawai‘i’s Legislature) don’t get things done by legislation,” he said. “We knew this. So I don’t come in thinking: victim, oh pity me, I’m in the small party, and I got to fight and yell and do all these things (at the Capitol). I know I’m not going to pass legislation.”
In addition to the fruit tree initiative, Awa coordinated with DOT and the Army in 2023 to fix major water leaks that were ongoing at Dillingham Airfield for a decade or longer, and pressed another state agency to protect longtime leasehold home and farm owners in Waiahole Valley from extraordinary land rent increases on their state-owned parcels.
Awa said actions like these are better representations of his effectiveness as a lawmaker in the minority party.
Reelection challenge
In November, Awa faces a new challenge from Democrats in the general election, as two candidates in the opposing party aim to unseat him. One contender is Clayton Hee, a veteran Hawai‘i lawmaker who has been defeated before running for the same seat.
Hee, who first became a lawmaker in the House representing West Maui, Molokai and Lanai in 1982, spent 30 years in the Senate from 1984 to 2014. He left the Senate in 2014 in an unsuccessful attempt to become lieutenant governor.
Four years later in 2018, Hee campaigned for governor against former Senate colleague Colleen Hanabusa and incumbent David Ige, but withdrew to instead try to reclaim his former Senate seat from then-Sen. Gil Riviere. Hee lost that race as well.
Riviere had won a seat in the House as a Republican in 2010, but became a Democrat in 2013 after losing in the 2012 primary election and then got elected to the Senate in 2014. In 2022, Riviere lost to Awa.
In the upcoming election, Hee will face off in the primary against Ben Shafer, a local film union official who, like Awa and Hee, is Native Hawaiian.
Awa said he plans to take an unusual approach to retain his spot in the Senate by letting residents of his district judge him by actions he has taken, which he does post on social media, instead of campaigning.
“I don’t plan on campaigning,” he said. “Not a sign, not a shirt, not a sign waving, not a door knock.”
