Chad Blair: It’s Easy To Get On A Hawaii Ballot — Maybe Too Easy
The parties have their rules and the right to challenge candidates, but the threshold to run as a Democrat or Republican is pretty low.
In June I went to the headquarters of the Hawaii Republican Party on Kapiolani Boulevard at the invitation of Pat Saiki.
The former congresswoman wanted me to meet Shirlene Ostrov, whom Saiki is backing for the 1st Congressional District.
At the Ostrov press conference I also met Angela Aulani Kaaihue, who introduced herself and encouraged me to interview her about her own race for Congress this year. (Something I ended up doing weeks later.)
By now, a whole lot of people have heard about Kaaihue, the GOP nominee for the 2nd Congressional District. She’s the one who has conjectured that
Far fewer people have heard of Ostrov, a retired U.S. Air Force colonel, recipient of a Bronze Star and a Legion of Merit award, holder of two master’s degrees and former employee at the State Department, the Pentagon and Capitol Hill.
Neither Ostrov nor Kaaihue is likely to win in November.
Ostrov faces former Democratic congresswoman Colleen Hanabusa while Kaaihue is squaring off against incumbent Gabbard, also a Democrat. Hawaii is a very blue state, and we don’t often send Republicans to Congress.
(The exceptions are Saiki, the late Hiram Fong and former Congressman Charles Djou.)
But the Ostrov-Kaaihue contrast reveals just how relatively easy it is to run for office in Hawaii, and how it can sometimes cause the two major parties major headaches.
GOP Chair Fritz Rohlfing has strongly condemned Kaaihue for her “vulgar” remarks. Democrats have their own intraparty embarrassments: The only incumbent legislator to lose in the Aug. 13 primary, Jo Jordan, was outpolled by a challenger who may not actually be qualified to run as a Democrat.
Meantime, on Friday the  said it intends to file a legal objection to stop Kaaihue from running as a Democrat in the special election to fill out the remainder of the current CD1 term of Congressman Mark Takai, who died last month.
And on Sunday Rohlfing released a statement saying that the GOP terminated Kaaihue’s membershipÌý“based on her public statements on social media that she is ‘not a Republican.'” Rohlfing noted as well that Kaaihue has filed as a Democrat in the special election.
Join The Party
All this fuss has me wondering just how easy it is to run for office as a Democrat or Republican. Pretty easy, it turns out.
I checked with Rohlfing and Tim Vandeveer, his counterpart with the Democrats, to learn more about the parties’ vetting (or lack of vetting) of potential candidates. The parties share some things in common.
For example, neither party has to approve of candidates running under its banner. When someone files to run as a “D” or an “R” with the county clerk or state Office of Elections, no party certification is required.
However, a party (as well as registered voters and the chief elections officer) can challenge a candidate once he or she has filed. But it’s a lot of work to check out every single candidate, as a primary election can draw hundreds running in partisan races.
Both parties also require members to sign a declaration that they will adhere to party principles.
In the case of the GOP, the principles come in the form of a platform that is rather . Example: “Government is responsible to balance the budget by eliminating waste and reducing spending before raising taxes.”
There is also a longer list of party resolutions, which are updated at party conventions. Example: “HRP believes human life begins at fertilization and ends at natural death, and that throughout this timespan he or she has rights including the right to life.”
For Democrats, candidates have to sign a statement that they will uphold the party’s . Both are long and detailed.
The party’s bylaws, meanwhile, can come off sounding excessive. Example: “Smoking shall be prohibited at all Democratic Party events except in designated areas.”
Democrats also regularly update their rules and resolutions.
At the party’s state convention in late May, for example, a resolution was approved recommending that the superdelegates (who favored Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders for president) vote as their district voted in caucuses and primaries, and to suggest to the Democratic National Committee that it abolish superdelegates altogether. Sanders creamed Clinton in the state Democrats’ presidential preference poll in late March.
The GOP platform and resolutions don’t say anything about kicking someone out of the tent. But the Democrats’ bylaws explain the grounds for expulsion, reprimand or censure if someone fails to abide by the platform.Â
Do the parties recruit candidates?
“No, not currently,” said Vandeveer.Ìý“Our Campaign Committee has worked to recruit, educate and train candidates at different points in the past, however, and ideally would do so again in the future.”
“Yes, we do recruit,” said Rohlfing.Ìý“One of our five vice chairs has a specific responsibility for candidate recruitment, and that person is former state Rep. Barbara Marumoto.”
How To File
Assuming a candidate has signed up with a party (Democrats used to require that they be in “good standing” for six months prior to a filing deadline, but that was struck from the bylaws at this year’s convention), the filing process itself is more onerous than registering with a party.
Candidates must swear a “self-subscribing oath” that:
- they are a member of the party they list on the nomination paper;
- that they will “qualify under the law” for the office they are seeking;
- that they have determined all of the information on their nomination paper, “except for the information provided by registered voters who signed the nomination paper, are true and correct”; and
- that they are not a felon.
Candidates to uphold the U.S. and Hawaii constitutions and laws, obtain a certain of registered voters for nomination papers (it varies depending on the office), (it varies) and fill out the nomination  (for example, the name, signature, date of birth, last four digits of the Social Security number and the residence address of each registered voter signing the form).
After that, and assuming there is no challenge, all candidates need to do is to get more votes than their opponents. Campaign contributions can help.
Angela Aulani Kaaihue picked up 7,449 votes in the primary, Shirlene Ostrove received 10,060, Tulsi Gabbard garnered 80,026 and Colleen Hanabusa got 74,022. Hanabusa and especially Gabbard have far outraised their opponents in terms of donations.
Just two of these women will be representing Hawaii in Congress come 2017.
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