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Dr. Green goes to Washington: Hawaiʻi Gov. Josh Green has become the leading voice — at least for the moment — opposing the nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.

Our very own Dr. Gov. Green was all over Washington, D.C., this week, lobbying senators and telling anyone who would listen about the time in 2019 when he led a medical mission to Samoa to fight a raging measles outbreak only to find Kennedy and his anti-vax campaign had gotten there first.

The country had experienced a drop in vaccination rates before the outbreak, driven in part by fear after the death of two infants in 2018 who had received a measles, mumps and rubella vaccine that had been improperly prepared.

But Kennedy has also been blamed for exacerbating the problem.

In 2019, just months before an emergency was declared, he traveled to Samoa and met with prominent anti-vaccination activists on the island. And then during the height of the outbreak, when children were dying, he sent a letter to the prime minister questioning whether it was the MMR vaccine itself that had caused the public health crisis.

By the time the outbreak had run its course, thousands of people were sickened and 83 died, many of them children.

Thank you, , , , , , Rep. Herb Conaway, for standing up for the importance of vaccines in protecting public health in light of RFK Jr's nomination to lead HHS.

— Protect Our Care (@ProtectOurCare)

Green, who is passionate and articulate about the problems that come when people refuse to get vaccinated, had an op-ed published in The New York Times this week and was featured in a Washington Post story and on cable media including CNN and Fox News. And he was trending on social sites.

“I have no personal animus toward Mr. Kennedy on a lot of his policies,” Green told Civil Beat’s Washington correspondent Nick Grube, who caught him as he was sitting on a plane waiting to take off back to Hawaiʻi. “I just have an absolute objection to having the secretary of Health and Human Services be against vaccines, and he is. He can say what he wants to try to mitigate the damage, but everyone knows about his vaccine skepticism.”

Green met with nearly a dozen senators from both sides of the aisle, including Democrats Dick Durbin of Illinois and Ron Wyden of Oregon. He was reluctant to name anyone else, he told Grube, because they were worried about political fallout.

And besides, Green told Grube, he was really there on official state business like checking on federal cash that could and should be headed our way and other things of interest to Hawai‘i.

While in town he worked with two different advocacy groups, 3.14 Action and Protect Our Care, to push his message and coordinate meetings with lawmakers. Already 3.14 Action has featured the governor in one of its advertisements opposing Kennedy.

Green, who The Blog has heard would really like to be the country’s health secretary himself one day, told Grube he anticipates returning to D.C. in the future to crusade against Kennedy, including testifying before Congress if the opportunity allows. He’ll even talk to Donald Trump.

Check, please: Wednesday is Opening Day of the 2025 Hawaiʻi Legislature, so that can only mean one thing: state legislators will rush to hold campaign fundraisers before the opening gavel falls because they’re prohibited by state law from holding organized fundraisers during session.

The Blog is referring specifically to Sens. and , who asked for donations at Capitol Modern Tuesday night. It’s conveniently located right across Richards Street from the Hawaiʻi State Capitol.

On Wednesday night Sens. , , and passed their hats at Bishop Museum.

Aquino, DeCoite and Keohokalole are planning ahead — they’re not up for reelection until 2028.

House bills proposing of all campaign contributions during legislative sessions (not just at organized fundraisers) passed that chamber unanimously in the 2023 session but were not heard by the Senate.

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The mysterious making of the rules: The rulebook dictating how Hawaiʻi lawmakers conduct the public’s business is a big deal. The Blog has long contended that many of the most urgently needed legislative reforms could be accomplished with simple rule changes.

With the start of a new biennium Wednesday, new rules must be adopted. Actually there are two rulebooks, one for and another for . And how they approach the task says a lot about the differences between the two chambers.

The House formed a four-member Advisory Committee on Rules and Procedures that has been reaching out to representatives for their suggestions regarding the rules.

The Senate, meh, not so much. Here’s how Senate Judiciary Chair Karl Rhoads puts it: 

“I think the Senate tends to be a little more, what’s the word I’m looking for? You’re a senator. If you have a problem with something, you need to raise it. We’re not necessarily going to go look for you to solicit your concerns.”

Rhoads says he’s heard nothing about possible new Senate rules in the lead-up to the new session.

Which, come to think of it, is not so different from what the House is doing. Its advisory committee is meeting in private, much to the consternation of reform advocates like Gary Hooser.

The former senator that current House rule No. 20 requires that the committee’s meetings be conducted openly:

“Every meeting of a committee of the House … held for the purpose of making decisions on matters referred to the committee shall be open to the public.”

But House Judiciary Chair David Tarnas points out that this House advisory committee is just that — advisory.

“They’re not making decisions,” Tarnas says. “They’re recommending and they’re advisory. The decision-making itself is when we vote on it.”

That will presumably occur soon after the Legislature convenes. That’s when we’ll know if either chamber is serious about limiting the power of conference chairs, preventing the money committees from controlling non-fiscal matters, eliminating anonymous bill introductions and so forth.

Hope springs eternal: And speaking of being serious about reform, a hui of good governance groups gathered at the Capitol Thursday to launch what they called “Good Government Lobby Day.” The goal of the Hawai‘i Alliance for Progressive Action, Our Hawai‘i, Common Cause and Clean Elections Coalition is to advocate for government reforms that will strengthen transparency, accountability and fairness in the legislative process.

“Welcome to your House of Representatives,” Rep. Della Au Belatti said as she welcomed some two dozen folks to Conference Room 325. She said she had not seen such a level of reform activity in her 20 years in the Legislature, adding that a revived Good Government Caucus at the Legislature is already working on bills.

Rep. Kim Coco Iwamoto said the new energy for reform began in 2022 when two lawmakers were arrested for and later convicted on bribery charges. There had been a culture, she said, that allowed Ty Cullen and J. Kalani English to get away with corruption. But there’s a lot of new blood in the Leg today.

The groups, which spent half of the day meeting with other lawmakers, are pushing for a range of reforms including making public testimony on bills available early, doing away with anonymous bill introductions, taking non-financial bills out of money committees, enacting term limits and establishing full public financing of campaigns.

Women of the house: One-third (or 32.43%) of the total number of state legislators in the 50 states and territories in 2025 are women, a slight increase from just a few years ago.

The National Conference of State Legislatures Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada are at or above the 50% mark of women state legislators, the highest representation nationwide.

How does Hawaiʻi do? Compared to many other states and territories, pretty good at 40.8%. Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee and West Virginia, for example, each have legislatures with less than 20% women members.

The Hawaiʻi House of Representatives now has its first-ever female speaker, Nadine Nakamura. Two women have led the state Senate, Colleen Hanabusa and Donna Kim.