by Andrew Walden

Hawaii Republicans meeting in convention Saturday were treated to a surprise when former Big Island Senator, Democrat David Matsuura, stepped up to the microphone to endorse Lt Governor Duke Aiona for Governor.

Matsuura invited hundreds of convention delegates and guests to “close your eyes and just imagine” as he read lyrics from Angela Morales’ song “For the sake of the children”: 

In my life I’ve seen destruction.

I’ve seen cultures suffer and die.

I’ve seen mothers and fathers work to the bone just to live to get them by.

I’ve seen our future trapped in an unloved box full of hate and despair.

I see our children wanting more in life but no one seems to care.

Matsuura said Aiona stood for “Integrity—not politics or special interests.”

The Democratic Gubernatorial Primary features a confrontation between Neil Abercrombie and Mufi Hannemann.  Whether one sees this as a replay of Democrats’ 1986 Abercrombie vs. Hannemann demolition derby or as an echo of the current Case vs. Hanabusa CD1 cage fight, it is not difficult to see what Matsuura might mean by “politics or special interests.”

But what about the song?  “For the sake of the children” is a cry which has been used to justify many things.  Why might it now mean “Aiona for Governor”? 

As Senator, David Matsuura won praise from the Hawaii Family Forum for his role standing up against a “doctor-assisted-suicide” bill being promoted in the 2002 Legislative session by then-Governor Ben Cayetano.  As chair of the Senate Health Committee, Matsuura refused to hear the bill, which had already passed the House 30-20.  Matsuura told the Star-Bulletin:

"Absolutely, I will not hear assisted suicide.  This dumb bill wasn't even on our radar screen. I haven't even looked at the measure or studied this measure yet. I can't figure out what assisted suicide is.

"The fact that you're going to send somebody 50 barbiturates, there's no dignity of that death. You've got to take it alone, or are you going to let your family watch you take that, and if you're able to orally take 50 barbiturates, that death ain't going to be pretty."

The bill was pulled out of Matsuura’s committee and a floor vote was forced.  After three Senators changed their position, the bill was defeated 14-11.  Kelly Rosati, executive director of the Hawaii Family Forum told the Star-Bulletin:

"It is an amazing victory for Hawaii's families. Capitol observers thought the bill's passage was a virtual certainty after the earlier vote, but the community really got involved." 

Christianity Today reported:

Rosati said the Hawaii bill's failure will influence the national debate. "Hopefully, we put a halt to a potential juggernaut," she said. "I think the momentum of a victory in Hawaii would have propelled their movement forward across the mainland."

(Roland) Halpern (executive director of Compassion in Dying of Hawaii) agreed that Hawaii's bill will affect other states: "The national ramifications are that other states may now decide to sit back and wait before considering similar laws."

David was not the only Senator Matsuura to challenge a sitting governor.  David’s father, Sen Richard Matsuura (D-Hilo), in 1993 challenged procurement practices under the Waihee administration.  After his death in 1997 from pancreatic cancer, the elder Matsuura’s obituary described the challenge:   

His probe into how then-Gov. John Waihee's administration purchased goods and services did not lead to any criminal indictments. But it did cause the resignation of then-Budget Director Yukio Takemoto, who insisted he did nothing wrong.

The investigation also tightened the state procurement procedure. But legislators and even the state's current governor, Ben Cayetano, have concluded that the changes also made the procurement process more cumbersome and less efficient.

However, the political impact of the probe was significant. Although Waihee's then-attorney general, Robert Marks, declined to follow through on the panel's recommendations, which included a call for a criminal investigation, Waihee ended his final term in office with his image tarnished by a fellow Democrat.

Matsuura was able to persuade his Senate colleagues to give him the reins to a special investigative committee because he suspected that politically connected people were benefiting from government nonbid contracts and investments made by the state pension fund.

"He had very well-defined ideas about right and wrong," said former Senate Republican leader Mary George, who served on Matsuura's investigative committee.

"He wasn't an old boy. You couldn't define him as belonging to a network. He was his own person. It was his own standard that governed his conduct—not a particular network."

Whereas many ‘progressives’ and ‘environmentalists’ today attack GMOs and fish farms, Richard Matsuura took a different approach:  

Matsuura saw how technology and telecommunications were changing the world, and he wanted Hawaii to be a part of that. He also sought to find ways to divert water from the wet part of the Big Island to its dry region. He dreamt of finding a way to raise enough mahimahi to feed the world…. 

A defining time in Matsuura's life was the decade, beginning in 1961, that he spent in India as an agricultural missionary for the Methodist church. Preaching the "green revolution," he taught farmers how to grow nutrient-rich soybeans….

A tax and regulatory stranglehold is slowly killing off Hawaii agriculture and has destroyed almost all of Hawaii’s manufacturing while shake down artists circle like sharks around those in Hawaii who today dream of “finding a way to raise enough mahimahi to feed the world” or continue the Green Revolution with GMO research and production.  These are economic issues, but they have a social dimension which can be measured in Hawaii’s continuing exodus to the mainland, homelessness, unemployment, and the hopelessness which comes with it.

Both Hannemann and Abercrombie focus their campaign fundraising on pay for play contracting and their campaign rhetoric on trashing each other.  In Angela Morales’ Waianae, the schools are failing and the beaches play host to homeless families who have nothing to show for all the contracts being given out at fancy downtown fundraisers.  In the 2008 session the Legislature stepped up to address the problem—by stopping the Governor from using emergency powers to build more homeless shelters. 

Meanwhile the State Legislature is working to undermine the family structure by gradually inventing gay marriage.  Duke Aiona calls for a veto of HB444 -- gay civil unions.  Abercrombie is pledged to sign it.  And Hannemann has three times refused to come out against HB444.     

And the DoE?  For the last year the HSTA and BoE/DoE have waged a “Furlough Fridays” political strike/lockout to squeeze more money out of the legislature—but even more important, trying to create an issue for Neil Abercrombie to ride into Washington Place.         

No wonder concern about “politics and special interests” and a demand for “integrity” leads to a vote for Duke Aiona “for the sake of the children.”

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Christianity Today: Physician-Assisted Suicide Bill Dies in Hawaii Senate

SB: A Senate leader says he will not hear the death-with-dignity bill

SB: Ex-state Sen. Matsuura dies of cancer at 64

HFP: Furloughs vs Layoffs: The union no-solution strategy

HFP: Gay Civil Unions: Mufi still refuses to oppose HB444