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Editor’s note: For Hawaii’s Aug. 8 Primary Election, Civil Beat asked candidates to answer some questions about where they stand on various issues and what their priorities will be if elected.

The following came from David Hamman, Republican candidate for U.S. House District 2, which includes rural Oahu and the neighbor islands. Other Republican candidates include Joe Akana, Karla Gottschalk, Nicholas Love, Raymond Quel, Elise Hatsuko Kaneshiro, Felipe San Nicolas, Steven Bond and Robert Nagamine.

Go to Civil Beat’s Elections Guide for general information, and check out other candidates on the Primary Election Ballot.

1. The entire country, including Hawaii, has been deeply affected by the coronavirus pandemic. What should national leaders be prioritizing to help keep the outbreak under control and repair economic damage done by measures taken to respond to the outbreak? What role can you play as just one of 435 members of the U.S. House to help Hawaii?

2.  What would be your first priority if elected? How would that change if your party is in the majority? The minority?

Hawaii is at the beginning of the greatest economic implosion in history. I will fight to see tourism return through opening up travel and removing obnoxious, irrational emergency orders that have been conflicting, not founded upon sound science, that have violated fundamental unalienable rights, and that have decimated our economy.

I will pursue repeal of the Jones Act to allow the existing shipping industry in Hawaii to capture a much greater percentage of revenues. (Currently Hawaii shipping operations access a tiny fraction of the global market.)

Repealing the Jones Act will explode shipping opportunities in Hawaii by allowing Hawaii to become a hub for shipments from Asia and will provide numerous supply chain opportunities in Hawaii as well as dramatically reduce the cost of goods in Hawaii.

I will also pursue the funding for development of profitable agriculture projects in Hawaii and the federal inspection facilities needed to approve exports.

3. Recent deaths of citizens at the hands of police are igniting protests and calls for reform across the country, primarily aimed at preventing discrimination against people of color. What should Congress do, if anything, to improve policing and police accountability?

Police abuse and brutality has been an issue for many years, and even though some cases relating to Blacks have been magnified recently, such issues are not limited to Blacks. In fact statistics clearly show that unarmed whites are shot and killed by police more often than Blacks.

Since the drug wars, police have been heavily militarized. Unfortunately, the 4th Amendment has been trashed with the umbrella of “probable cause.” Police SWAT teams bust down doors at ungodly hours, enter incorrect premises, shoot and kill innocent individuals based upon false pretenses, and are not held accountable. Thousands of these types of raids happen every year.

This type of authoritarian police operation and attitude of law enforcement war against citizens must end.

We need police trained to know and protect the best interests of their communities, and to promote societal achievement; not viewing them as the enemy.

To be a law enforcement officer of valor requires great self discipline and restraint. It requires the ability to reach out to those in the community who could be vulnerable and to inspire them to become honorable.

4. Whatever happens in the general election, Congress and the country will likely remain deeply divided. What specifically would you do to help bridge the partisan divide in Washington?

To address issues from a truthful objective perspective, taking into consideration the legitimate concerns of all sides, and working toward solutions that appear to be reasonably advantageous for the good of all is the best way to extinguish extremist polarization.

5. What is your view of the role of the U.S. military in the islands, and would you like to see that role increased or decreased?

Due to the logistical and tactical importance geographically of Hawaii to Asia, I think it is important that the United States maintain a strong military presence in the State of Hawaii for the national security of the country and the state.

Military presence in the state also provides benefits of additional resources and job opportunities.

6. Congress has struggled in recent years to reach agreement on budget deficits, the national debt and spending in general. What would be your approach to fiscal matters?

Limiting spending to a prioritization scale and maintaining accountability oversight verification/evaluation to insure cost-effective use of resources is necessary in reining in a healthy fiscal future.

The United States must begin to start printing U.S. Treasury dollars and stop printing Federal Reserve dollars that incur unending unsustainable debt.

The United States needs to begin to pay off debts, bonds and treasury notes with U.S. Treasury dollars while reducing and eliminating Federal Reserve dollars.B y so doing, the U.S. could likely eliminate the national debt within about 10 years.

7. Under what circumstances should America go to war?

I do not believe that we should engage in endless conflicts to change other societies; particularly those that espouse different fundamental values.

We ought not to risk our young men and women in conflicts that do not appear to render results that clearly promote our values as established in the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and that fail to to clearly and definitively enhance our lives as United States citizens.

Yet, I believe that peace comes through strength. There must be the full empowerment of necessary manpower, tools, equipment, systems, strategies, etc., developed and in place to protect our God-given unalienable rights from those who would choose to physically, psychologically, economically, etc., deprive us from such rights.

Our missions ought to be limited to strategic attainable actions that result in advancing the greater interests of United States citizens as a whole.

The premise of any action worldwide should be to protect our God-given unalienable rights and to assist others who pursue the same ideals on a worldwide scale to the extent that such people demonstrate the fortitude, self determination, responsibility and leadership for their own God-given destiny.

8. What should the United States do to control carbon emissions and slow climate change?

I think it is obvious that there are serious changes in solar heat that affect the climate patterns. It is also obvious that these heat temperature increases are a product of solar sun spots (which have been documented and studied for thousands of years) and a variety of other factors (i.e., Earth Axis, orbit, etc.) and not the product of CO2 emissions as purported by some who have attempted to hijack the situation with propaganda to achieve other agendas of control and not address the real concerns at hand.

True concerns relating to climate change should prompt us, particularly in Hawaii, to evaluate our preparedness for natural disasters such as floods and hurricanes.

If I am elected to office, I will attempt to co-ordinate efforts with FEMA and the state to prepare for increased natural disasters related to climate change and seek to obtain funds to improve infrastructure, including constructing adequate shelters for hurricanes, or other scenarios.

9. Is it time to reform Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid? How?

I think we have a certain obligation to maintain Social Security at this point for those who have contributed into the system for so many years.

Yet, we can see that Social Security is financially unsustainable in its present state. There are a larger number of “baby boomers” retiring now than younger generation working class contributing in to the system to sustain a viable program. Therefore, adjustments will need to be made.

We may need to raise the age requirement to receive full retirement benefits.

We can look at creative ways to establish retirement accounts that are secured but that earn accruing interest to subsidize retirees.

As an additional note, I will support legislation that requires all pension funds to be deposited immediately into pension accounts at each payroll period, and that establishes those funds and accounts as “sacred” and not accessible for use or manipulation by any employer, union, etc.

Pension funds need to be managed by qualified financial investors who are being held accountable for their obligations to those whose funds they oversee.

10. What should be done to reform U. S. immigration policies, if anything?

I support a monitored immigration system that limits the granting of work visas and absorption of citizenship based upon the relevant capacity of the United States to provide for its own citizens first.

When unemployment is low and all potential job opportunities have been offered to U.S. citizens first with consideration to wages and benefits based upon U.S. standards, then based upon need, an allowance for a reasonable amount of temporary work visas could be granted to foreigners who comply with our laws and are sponsored by employers who will bear their expenses — not the welfare system.

Even if we wanted to allow everyone who attempts to enter this country to be absorbed into our country, we do not have the resources to provide for the vast financial expense which would include food, housing, medical, welfare, etc.

Such a proposal is a very inconsiderate gesture to hardworking and non-working U.S. citizens who are in need.

I will propose a bill of clarification to the 14th Amendment by the Congress that clarifies that the phrase in Section 1 “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States” clearly does not apply to illegal aliens and foreigners visiting the United States.

11. What specific reforms, if any, would you seek in gun control policies?

The Second Amendment is an unalienable right established in the Constitution for the protection of the people from tyranny and self defense.

The State of Hawaii has dramatically violated Hawaii citizen’s unalienable rights under the Second Amendment and has been rebuffed by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals for its blatant violation in a ruling on July 24, 2018.

Since that time, the state’s leftists liberal policymakers have filed an appeal and have been been scrambling to avert the impending reality that such right is enshrined in our founding documents as a key right in protecting all others.

They even got members of the Hawaii House to pass a resolution requesting Congress to repeal the Second Amendment. It demonstrates how far leftists will go to remove your ability to defend yourself.

Especially after the recent rash of violent riots and unjustified attacks on innocent citizens and their property, we see how very important it is for citizens to have the means to defend themselves, their families, and their neighbors by owning firearms and carrying firearms.

Well-established statistics demonstrate that areas that maintain high gun ownership have less crime than areas that have gun bans.

I will pursue the Department of Justice to uphold the Second Amendment rights of Hawaii citizens.

12. The coronavirus pandemic has exposed numerous flaws in Hawaii’s structure and systems, from outdated technology to economic disparity. If you could take this moment to reinvent Hawaii, to build on what we’ve learned and create a better state, a better way of doing things, what would you do? Please share One Big Idea you have for Hawaii. Be innovative, but be specific.

The emergency powers act within the Hawaii Constitution needs to be changed to clearly specify in detail what legally qualifies as an “emergency” with the requirement of specific legal written justification providing truthful accurate information of actual impacts that are specific to the state; not speculative, and that limits the extent of one man’s authority to override existing laws and that specifically nullifies the governor’s unilateral actions and requires action on behalf of the Legislature within 10 days or sooner if the legislature is capable of responding sooner.

13. What other important issue would you like to discuss here?

Hawaii is in the beginning of the greatest financial/economic implosion in history due to Gov. Ige’s  excessive abuse of power and violation of a myriad of God-given unalienable rights.

Elected politicians in the state Legislature and at federal levels have stood by and have done nothing to intervene to protect the citizens of Hawaii and to prevent the impending astronomical catastrophe that is coming. The devastation will be exponential.