Republicans Give Josh Green Opportunity to Appoint his Former Office Manager as State Rep
by Andrew Walden
Sometimes you just have to laugh at Hawaii’s hapless Republicans.
During COVID, some of them chanted anti-Semitic slogans outside Josh Green’s downtown condo. They got pelted with eggs.
In the 2022 Primary, 24% of Republicans voted for conspiracy theorist and MMA fighter JD Penn as their 2022 gubernatorial candidate. Another 10% voted for anti-vaxxer Gary Cordery. Penn came in second to Duke Aiona's 45%.
Now, Republican Party leaders are giving Josh Green a chance to appoint his own former House Office Manager, Alexander “Alika” Malabey, to replace the late Gene Ward as Representative for HD18 Hawaii Kai. In addition to working for Green, Malabey has record as a Democratic Legislative staffer going back two decades.
When a Legislator leaves office, his political party is responsible to present three nominees to the Governor. The Governor has 60 days from the original vacancy to pick one to serve out the term of office. The Republican Selection Committee reportedly consisted of Party Chair Tamara McKay, and Reps Lauren Matsumoto and Diamond Garcia.
Logically, Republicans would want to provide three nominees who are ready, willing and able to serve the district and have the stuff to run a winning campaign for ‘re’-election in 2026.
But most Hawaii Republican candidates are just a name on the ballot. They make no real effort. It idea of finding three Republican winners in a district is incomprehensible. If the Republicans found one winner then Green would have a choice between serving his partisan interest as a Democrat—saddling the Republicans with one of the two losers—or serving the public interest by picking the obvious winner.
In addition to Malabey, Republicans nominated Tara Malia Gregory the newly-elected East Honolulu Republican vice chair and Michel ‘Joe’ Gedeon, producer of Duke Aiona’s talk radio program.
It has been many years since Hawaii Republicans had to nominate a legislative replacement. Hawaii Democrats do this almost every year, sometimes multiple times a year. In recent years, Democrats began following an open process for accepting applicants and selecting nominees. Republicans made no public announcements. Hawai’i Free Press, March 17, 2025, gave the only public explanation of the process when Rep Ward resigned his seat shortly before his passing. The first notice of their selection came from Hawaii News Now Friday, April 18, 2025.
The evolution of Malabey’s biography in successive media accounts is interesting:
HNN April 18 does not mention who Malabey worked for:
“As a former office manager at the Hawaii State Capitol, he worked across the aisle to influence key legislation on civil unions, tort reform, and pro-life issues.”
The akamai reader will immediately remember that Green favored gay civil unions, which were a key step towards legalizing gay marriage. ‘Across the aisle’ logically means reaching out to Republicans as a Democrat staffer in an effort to accommodate Republicans to Democrat policies on life issues and the gay agenda.
The Star-Advertiser, April 22 mentions Green, but not gay civil unions:
“(Malabey) has held staff positions at the Legislature that included office manager for Green when Green was in the House.”
Green served in the House from 2004 to 2008 after flipping Kona HD6 from R to D.
Malabey’s online biography for the Kokua Project has more details than either media outlet provides:
“Within his political career, he served the Legislature as Chief of Staff under Josh Green and Karen Awana. His experience in political campaigning goes back to 2004, working for candidates such former vice speaker John Mizuno.”
Awana campaigned for HD44 Waianae as a Republican in 2002 and 2004 before finally winning in 2006. She then immediately switched to Democrat and then hired Malabey as her Office Manager aka ‘Chief of Staff’.
It is not clear what low-budget legislative shenanigans caused Republicans to give Green the chance to replace Gene Ward with Green's own former Office Manager. Would Malabey quickly switch parties, leading some East Oahu Republicans to recognize that they had been played for fools? Clearly Malabey's expertise is in gulling Hawaii Republicans.
During the 2024 Democratic Primaries, Green resisted making an appointment for the open Waianae SD22 seat. After Democrats sent him the names of the two Senate Primary candidates and a Dem candidate for HD 44, Green initially resisted making an appointment saying:
"I do not believe that the Legislature intended to require the Governor to select a senator within a specified time frame when doing so would place the full weight of the Governor’s office on the scales in favor of one candidate over the others.”
Given the choices, will Green ‘tip the scales’ to favor Democrats’ partisan interest and pick Malabey or will he act to preserve the integrity of the two-party system and pick Gregory or Gedeon?
Green’s deadline is May 30.
---30---
BACKGROUND: Rep Gene Ward Retires from House--Republicans Must Nominate Successor
RELATED: Representative Gene Ward's Celebration of Life May 15 2025