I write today to tell you I am leaving. At the end of March, I am departing paradise and returning to my home state of Texas. There, I will serve as president of the Citizen Leader Alliance, another liberty-loving group that is utilizing privatized political infrastructure to bring innovation, energy and financial resources to the public arena in Texas and across the country. Though I am sad to leave, I feel it is time for me to return home.

The Grassroot Institute's outstanding board of directors, led by Dick Rowland, the man who started GRIH and allowed me to serve all these years, already has begun an extensive search for my successor. I trust they will find someone capable of carrying on this vital work, and I know you will welcome the new person with the same warmth, thirst for liberty and readiness to help that you have extended to me.

It goes without saying I will miss you. We fought side by side to bring liberty and accountable government to Hawaii. We have not (yet) overthrown the liberal oligarchy that rules our state, but we have brought true transparency to its operations.

We put together the Hawaii Pork Report to point out the most egregious waste every year. We started the Hawaii Legislative Scorecard to identify which lawmakers are serious about promoting liberty. We began HawaiiVotes.org to shed light on the legislative actions of our overreaching, underperforming government.

We did this and so much more. We listened at special Grassroot Institute events as conservative heroes such as Ted Cruz and Michele Bachmann described the future to which we aspire. We worked together on Tea Party rallies and exposed the lack of accountability in the state pension system and the lack of common sense regarding the Akaka Bill.

We worked for better education and lower taxes, more accountability and less spending. We reveled in the success of HawaiiSunshine.org, our new website that reveals every expenditure made by state (and soon local) government.

We did all this together because we share a belief in liberty, in freedom and in accountability. We cling to the belief that we own our government, that it is accountable to us, that it owes us a full explanation of what it does with our money.

I can't thank you enough for the ways you've blessed me these last few years. I've learned far more from you than you ever could've learned from me. I will miss this wonderful place - who wouldn't? - but more than that, I will miss you, my fellow liberty-minded islanders.

Thank you for your support of the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii and for standing by us through the many battles we've fought and will continue to fight. I am sad to leave but will eagerly follow the work and programs of the Institute from Texas. And I will certainly be back to visit! My sister and her husband, a Captain in the U.S. Marine Corps, will be here at least a couple more years. If you ever find yourself in Texas, don't hesitate to look me up.

Thank you again, from the bottom of my heart.

Aloha 'Oe,

Jamie Story
President