Hawaii's Congressional Delegation
Price of Paradise · Hawaii Public Radio · aired 1994-01-02
Guests: Peter Rosegg (editorial writer, reporter and reviewer for the Honolulu Advertiser; 1992-93 APSA Congressional Fellow)
Duration: 00:34:37

[00:00:00] Randall Roth: Host of the Pride of Paradise radio show. My guest this week is Peter Rorsig, longtime editorial writer and reporter for the Honolulu Advertiser. Peter, I know you were a congressional fellow last year. Would you tell us a little bit about the organization that sponsored you?

[00:00:14] Peter Rosegg: Sure, Randy. The American Political Science Association is I guess what you'd call a trade association of political science professors, and they set up this congressional fellowship program, and they're kind enough to extend a certain number of those fellowships to journalists, and I was lucky enough to get one, one of about 10 people in in the country. And it involves you get about a year in Washington, they pay you a little stipend, give you an orientation period, and then send you out on Capitol Hill to find a job for yourself where you can work in any congressional office. You work for free, and but it's pretty much up to the individual to find a place.

[00:00:49] Randall Roth: Do do the people there in Washington D.C. know that you're a journalist hiding out?

[00:00:54] Peter Rosegg: Well, when you get down to the actual job interview, of course, you tell them you're a journalist and there's some discussion. You make an agreement with the American Political Science Association that you will not practice as a journalist while you're on taking their stipend and of course you work out an agreement with the place that you work about what you will and will not do.

[00:01:10] Randall Roth: So so they're not too worried that you'll take notes and then write a book about how things were being done.

[00:01:16] Peter Rosegg: I think they're worried, but I think they overcome their worry for a a year's worth of free labor from somebody.

[00:01:23] Randall Roth: I see. You wrote a chapter for the Price of Paradise volume two where you answered the question how well are we being represented in Washington D.C.? Can you sum up your thoughts?

[00:01:32] Peter Rosegg: Well, I I guess I take a fairly heretical point of view and I think that, in fact, Hawaii has a pretty good congressional delegation, generally fairly fairly effective um taking care of Hawaii's needs. Um considering our size and our location, it's probably has a little more clout in Washington than you might expect um by Washington standards, which of course are very different I think from everyday standards. But um the one problem I see which we might want to talk to is that our clout is on the way down and it's going to continue on going down I think over the the next few years and that should be a matter of some concern for people, I think.

[00:02:09] Randall Roth: Now when you say they're doing a pretty good job, um they have a reputation for being fairly liberal from a political standpoint. Uh is that one of the things that you factor into your determination?

[00:02:19] Peter Rosegg: Well, that's certainly part of it. I I'm I'm looking more at the question of are they effective in representing Hawaii's views, Hawaii's interests, Hawaii's needs, considering what a small blip on the the radar screen of national affairs Hawaii is and how much of a challenge that can be, I think they do a pretty good job in that respect. When you're in in Washington, in the midst of these the uh the give and take of daily politics there, people are understood to be liberal, to be conservative, to to act in certain ways for various political reasons. But the the fact that they're very liberal or if they were turned out to be very conservative is probably not as important to people in Washington as it might be to people uh who elect them.

[00:02:58] Randall Roth: Is there a sense uh that they're in touch with the people back in Hawaii?

[00:03:02] Peter Rosegg: I think uh I think well, I think all of all the members of Congress are out of touch with the people they represent. Uh members of Congress represent almost a half million people each. Uh sometimes more in some cases, the senators represent huge numbers of people. Everybody in Washington is out of touch with the reality that's beyond the beltway. Uh clear example of that is is is the whole House banking scandal, in which so many of the congressmen couldn't understand why anybody would be upset about what they did. Uh it's it's not a big thing. If you only if only you understood, well, I think most people had a pretty gut feeling about what was going on and a lot of people in Congress couldn't understand it. So I don't think they're any more out of touch, I should say, than anybody else on Capitol Hill.

[00:04:05] Randall Roth: Uh in your chapter you quote a political science professor as saying, overall, my impression and he's talking about the uh Hawaii congressional delegation, overall my impression is that they're a poor bunch. Is that representative of the way they're viewed in in D.C.?

[00:04:10] Peter Rosegg: I think that's that's one one fairly typical answer you might receive. I think you uh you'd have a few people that that would say they're uh, you know, they're they're no worse than a lot of others. I don't think uh the delegation uh is a particularly standout delegation in in terms of uh creating the kind of leadership in the Congress for example that other that other states have created. Uh it's not you don't very often hear a bill that's called uh with the name, you know, the the Abercrombie this bill or the Inouye that bill. If you do hear about some other senators, they're not you know connected to to major causes, not involved in reform of Congress particularly. So they don't standout on a national scene very much. Um and so I think that would be, you know, you'd get that kind of answer, you'd say well, they're okay. That's sort of it'd be a very kind of narrow range on the on one side or the other, neither wonderful nor horrible, but somewhere in between.

[00:05:33] Randall Roth: Our senior senator, Senator Inouye uh has been called by one local journalist as the Prince of Pork. Is that a compliment or uh or not a compliment?

[00:06:02] Peter Rosegg: Well, in in Washington it might be seen as a compliment actually. I think it was uh it's a slight it's slightly a um a misnomer for for Senator Inouye. I mean he is uh it arises over a couple of instances, uh three or four instances in which he's uh been involved with trying to get appropriations for specific causes that are important to him or that he sees as being important. Uh the generally what pork usually means, money that you divert to your district to uh uh help you get reelected. And uh it me it's it's something. In other words, something you'd vote for. Money you'd you'd vote for the government to spend in your district that you wouldn't want to see spend anywhere else. And these cases with Inouye was money that he didn't divert to Hawaii, which uh but rather he was trying to get uh money for a school in France, he was trying to get money for George Washington University hospital, in the District of Columbia, which has no senators or congressmen of its own to to fight its battles. And um so it's not like he was diverting money to uh to build some boondoggle in Honolulu that was going to enhance his electability. So it wasn't classical pork in that way. But I think part of the reason he got a bad reaction for doing that is people said, well, Inouye has all this clout in Washington, how come he's wasting it on uh other places? Why isn't he bringing the bacon home here?

[00:08:18] Randall Roth: How come? Why I is it is the the 50 million to George Washington University Hospital, is that simply because he's uh an alumnus of that institution?

[00:08:27] Peter Rosegg: Well, I think he's more keenly aware perhaps of the of the needs of George Washington University University Hospital because he is an alumnus, he is a member of the, has been a member of the Board of Trustees there. Uh he would say there's some very real needs there. It serves Washington D.C., a lot of tourists, it serves the community that's quite important to the nation. It doesn't have a congressman or senator of its own with voting power. Uh well, the the delegate now has some voting power, but they don't have they're not in a position to fight for their own battles. And he said if any any hospital in Honolulu was in bad as badly in need of of of aid for various reasons, which are a long story, uh he would have fought for them, but that wasn't the case. So, you know, you can make an argument, but it's probably not a very very convincing one for most people in Honolulu.

[00:09:47] Randall Roth: What about the $8 million for the religious schools for North American Jews living in France? And I'm quoting from your chapter right now.

[00:10:21] Peter Rosegg: Well, again, uh when you're when you've been a senior senator for a long time and you your views range around the world and you you see things that that that are uh of interest and concern to you, Senator Inouye's has been interested in Israel and Judaism for a long time. I understand he once considered converting to Judaism and uh it it was a a cause that he saw and a need that he saw and he felt, you know, it's strange to say, $8 million isn't a lot of money in in Washington these days, and that uh he he felt, I I would imagine he would say, he felt that that was a worthwhile need. Again, it blew up and it created a great furor and he and he backed down from it. But in in the range of Washington scandals and diversions of funds and pork barreling for that matter, this is really not even small peanuts, not even shells. So uh it's you know, I think it is an indication of how you can get out of touch after a long, long time in Washington in a way about how people will react to something that you yourself feel is a very reasonable worthwhile thing, but other people say, what? What's going on here?

[00:12:27] Randall Roth: You mentioned that he once considered conversion to Judaism. Is that uh what what would have prompted that?

[00:12:33] Peter Rosegg: I don't know. You better get him on the show and ask him.

[00:12:36] Randall Roth: We'll do that. Uh what about sovereignty? Uh does he have a real clear-cut position on that?

[00:12:43] Peter Rosegg: Well, uh he wrote a piece for the advertiser actually a few while back, a few months ago, uh and uh he his the the the the thrust of it was that he's sort of uh he was sympathetic but there were many, many things to be worked out and he wasn't uh sort of sure one line. I remember that he didn't know that there'd be anything in his lifetime, which I'm sure must be kind of distressing for a lot of Hawaiians. I think he's been active on in in in getting uh money for Hawaiian causes that make sense to him and frankly, probably make sense to a lot of other people, Hawaiian education, Hawaiian health. Um he certainly is is aware, more aware probably than most of us of the position of of the native Hawaiian population in this society, at the bottom, a disgraceful situation. But his idea of how you solve that in the short term is getting money in the federal programs that exist from Native Americans and otherwise. I I don't know that he feels any uh that he's any more secure about what sovereignty might mean than most of us who are pretty much in the dark.

[00:14:43] Randall Roth: You're listening to the Price of Paradise radio show. I'm Randy Roth and my guest is Peter Rorsig of the Honolulu Advertiser. Peter, we're talking about Senator Inouye, and in your chapter, you say that he's regarded with respect and even in awe, in some quarters that borders on dread. And then later, you say he's a very private man, reserved and aloof to the point of seeming arrogant. Mhm. Uh is that pretty much the perception?

[00:15:09] Peter Rosegg: Well, I think people that deal with him uh on on standard matters in Congress who have to negotiate across the table with him on the defense appropriations bill on on foreign affairs, rather things, have a great deal of respect for him as a very serious and knowledgeable legislator who knows his stuff and who has his feelings, strong feelings about how things should be and is uh is is a difficult man to negotiate with. Uh he's he's been there a long time, he has a lot of seniority and power, he knows people, people owe him things, uh and uh if if he doesn't always get what he wants by any means, he promised to to bring the big Mo to Honolulu to to be home ported here, and of course that never happened. He can't he's not all powerful, he can't do everything he wants, but uh when he's determined to get something, uh he knows how it's done in Washington, he has the patience and he has the power and that creates in other people a feeling that, ooh, I'd rather not go up and fight that.

[00:16:06] Randall Roth: Did the allegations in 92 uh of sexual harassment involving his long-time hairdresser uh did those allegations hurt him at all in Washington?

[00:16:17] Peter Rosegg: I think they certainly hurt him. I know they hurt him personally. He didn't seem to be himself, a lot of people told me, I didn't see him all that often, but a lot of people told him those had a very severe kind of personal effect on him. Coming at the same time as the Packwood uh scandal, which continues, uh every time there was a newspaper story about Packwood, they would say, and by the way, Senator Inouye has been accused of this and such in the last election. Uh and I think people waited around for the other shoe to drop or for further bombs to go off and um it's a very sensitive subject to uh and one that not everybody is very comfortable with. Younger people, staff people up there were kind of uh very critical of him, I think, and senior senators probably were a little more indulgent. Uh I think it's pretty much blown over as far as Inouye is concerned and uh I don't think he ever lost any real clout, but I think it it certainly cast a shadow over him, um that people sort of waited to see whether it would clear or whether there would be a thunderstorm.

[00:18:15] Randall Roth: During the last week or two, some organization released the statistics that evidently uh he was second to last this last year in the number of votes that he was present to cast in the Senate. Is that something to be concerned about or not?

[00:18:29] Peter Rosegg: I don't think it's something to be concerned about in this specific case, as you probably know, he had a what I think and most people in Honolulu would say was a pretty damn good excuse for missing those votes. He was here uh in Honolulu attending the uh 50th anniversary of the 442nd regimental combat team, which is basically where he got his political start and people who home to whom he owes his life probably from World War II and certainly and his political life ever since. And he missed a lot of votes during that that that that particular week and there were some inconsequential ones and some important ones, but think figures like that usually mean less than meets the eye. There are a lot of votes in Congress that don't mean a a thing except that uh you were present and you agree that whatever happened yesterday probably happened yesterday. Things like that. So I wouldn't take it too seriously.

[00:19:00] Randall Roth: This is in Oakland. So, uh, it's uh, it's always a balancing act. You're listening to the Price of Paradise radio show. I'm Randy Roth and my guest this week is Peter Rossig of the Honolulu Advertiser. Peter is fresh back from Washington, D.C., a year as a congressional fellow. Um, Peter, what about Patsy Mink? Tell us a little bit about uh how she's perceived in Washington, D.C., whether she's doing a good job for Hawaii or not.

[00:19:26] Peter Rosegg: Patsy is is different, obviously different than Neil in a lot of respects. She's not a schmoozer. She's not a, you know, a glad hander in any respect. She's a very hardworking, very serious, no nonsense kind of person. As I say in the book, she's a hard taskmaster with her staff. She works very long hours herself and she expects the people around her to work very hard whereas Neil's staff will come in and tell them what four fairly frequently. I don't think many people on Patsy's staff do that. She focuses whereas Neil has focused on fairly parochial matters like parks and and armed services spending.

[00:20:04] Peter Rosegg: She focuses on national issues of education and labor, which also are important in Hawaii but sometimes they're a little harder to to to to make those connections. She's very well respected in that area. The the Women's Caucus, which which she's a strong member, put her up for the fourth highest position in the leadership a few years ago and pushed her very hard for that.

[00:20:17] Randall Roth: What's his level of influence on local politics? Does he head up the so-called machine? Is he a kingmaker or is he really not part of the local political scene anymore?

[00:20:22] Peter Rosegg: She didn't get it for various reasons, but she's she's well-respected, not not a popular person, maybe on a personal level, not somebody everybody wants to go sit around with and put their feet up on the table and have a beer with.

[00:20:27] Peter Rosegg: That's that's a hard one. I think he was uh very influential in uh backing John Waihee for the governorship, eight years, 10 years ago when John when the governor started to to run. I don't know that he uh has that kind of influence anymore because the whole political situation here is changing. Uh but he's still a very uh he's a he's a potent force, obviously. He's uh still, he's the only he's the only elected politician who's been in office here since statehood. And uh he is respected and well, and you know, well thought of by Democrats certainly. So he has a certain amount of say, whether he can uh influence who's going to run for what office uh at this stage of things, I I don't know.

[00:20:37] Peter Rosegg: But she's she's considered a serious, serious policy person in the areas that she pursues, I think.

[00:20:44] Randall Roth: You have a concluding paragraph and part of it says, only ambition for a higher office, retirement or death has ever removed a Hawaii legislator. And then to underline that you say, no member of Congress from Hawaii has ever been voted out of office by the people. Is that because we do such a great job of electing them in the first place or is there some explanation for that?

[00:21:08] Peter Rosegg: Well, I think Hawaii voters in general, like like others, but maybe a little more so are very very slow to turn people that they've once picked out of office, unless they do something very, very terrible. In practical terms, in terms of of I don't know why people vote that way. There are a lot of reasons why obviously there are a lot of reasons why incumbents are hard to beat and get harder to beat the longer they're incumbents. They have the ability to collect to raise a lot of money, they have the ability to use the to get their their point of view out and be in the media and so forth.

[00:21:39] Randall Roth: What about uh our junior senator, uh Senator Dan Akaka? I read something that you wrote where you said that he was considered by some somewhat of a cipher, and I I must confess, I wasn't sure what that meant, so I looked it up in the dictionary. And um among other possible definitions, it says a mathematical symbol denoting the absence of uh quality, uh a zero, one that is uh without influence or value. Is that what you meant, or is there another meaning?

[00:21:41] Peter Rosegg: But I got to say that the the result of that is not bad because what counts in Washington more than anything else is seniority, is longevity. So if we were changing senators every six years, if we were changing Congress people every two or four years, Hawaii's position in Congress in Washington would be very, very poor. As I say, one of the problems in the long term is that in a few years, in some number of years, the Senator Inouye, who's the fourth highest fourth ranking Democrat in the Senate is going to retire.

[00:22:12] Peter Rosegg: And a new person will come into that slot and they will be the 40 the 51st or 52nd or 53rd ranking Democrat and they're not going to have a lot of power at all. Picking pretty good people, unless they're awful, keeping them there in Washington, representing us, learning the ropes, getting to know the people and the institutions is about the best protection for Hawaii's interests in Washington you can get.

[00:22:38] Peter Rosegg: Well, no, that's that's uh what the I understood the word to mean, too. He's not uh considered a heavyweight. He wasn't considered a heavyweight when he was in the House, although he was in position to eventually get a subcommittee chair on the appropriations committee, which is pretty influential. I don't I don't think I think Dan Akaka's a lot smarter than he lets on, to be very frank, but he definitely uh is not thought of as an intellectual heavyweight. He's a very junior senator in the Senate now. Uh he's not a mover and a shaker. He's a very hard worker for Hawaii's interest and he's very, as his predecessor Spark uh Matsunaga was, he's a very hard worker for constituent services and um he's very different from Spark in in his intellectual depth and and what he his esoteric uh Spark had many esoteric interests which Akaka doesn't have. Dan Akaka is very very far from any kind of a heavyweight in Washington, but he's very well thought of on a personal level as anybody who's any had had any contact with him can understand. He's a warm man and a charming man and uh that has a certain uh that's a certain coin too that has value.

[00:22:38] Randall Roth: Now you just spent a year in Washington, D.C. and you've been watching all of this very, very closely. As you come back to Hawaii and you look around, um, do the rest of us know what's going on in Washington, D.C.? Do you think we've got a pretty good sense for what's happening or are we in the dark?

[00:22:53] Peter Rosegg: Well, we're in the dark I think, but then a lot of people in Washington are in the dark as well. It's a very difficult and I think purposely created as a difficult institution to follow and to observe. Uh, it's it is hard to understand always what's going on if you're right on the floor of of the House or the Senate. Uh so at this great distance it's very difficult for those of us who are here to to judge certainly on a day by day or you know situation by situation basis why they voted that way, why that why this particular event or that particular event happened.

[00:23:27] Peter Rosegg: And very often we don't get good explanations for it, which I think is regrettable. Um at the same time if you're always explaining why you're doing things it kind of may take some of the edge off your your your maneuverability or your the influence you have if you if you explain away every every every voter every move. So I think I wish our our members of Congress were more forthcoming about what they're doing and why they've why they went that way or this way. I think it's almost impossible at 4,000 miles to keep a very close track of what 535 people basically do behind closed doors.

[00:24:01] Randall Roth: Not long ago, we seemingly lost uh close to a billion dollars of federal funding that evidently was available for mass transit here on Oahu. So those people who think of him as a a cipher, you think that's probably a bum rap? Is that money simply gone forever or is the Washington game such that that's more or less sitting on a shelf and we've got those chits and we're going to be able to get that kind of funding for something down the road?

[00:24:10] Peter Rosegg: Well, not a bum rap if you're talking about his political umph and his political power and uh and his ability to get things done. Uh it's a bum rap if you think he's he's not a very hard worker um not very dedicated to Hawaii's interests, not uh you know, he he's one of those kinds of of representatives who puts his constituency first and doesn't care what he looks like on the national level, uh doesn't want to ever be on McNeale Layer and doesn't, you know, perfectly happy if he never shows up on the national news, but wants to take care of the folks from Hawaii when they're in Washington and take care of their needs. So, in that respect, I think he's uh he does what he sets out to do pretty well.

[00:24:21] Peter Rosegg: Well, I think that particular money for that particular transit is gone forever. Getting and we're not going into a you know, we're in an era of of constraints, there's not a lot of money being spent. I think recapturing that money or any other money involves the expenditure of a lot of of political capital. So not to say there won't be more federal money coming here, but we lost a big chunk that could have been could have been brought home to Hawaii.

[00:24:49] Randall Roth: Any final words in terms of of how we as as a community here in Hawaii can do an even better job than perhaps we've been doing in terms of sending good people to Washington and making sure they're doing a good job while they're there.

[00:25:04] Peter Rosegg: Well, I think as voters, you have to pay attention especially at times when there are open seats or when there are changes, as happens periodically, uh to to who you send. The the first the first re-election after a person's elected is usually the only time they're even considered very vulnerable, which is perhaps unfortunate in some respects. I think we've got to continue paying attention to who to who we send and to to the job they're doing and telling them what we think.

[00:25:28] Peter Rosegg: I think it's more important uh what once they're there, to tell them what what our concerns are, uh than necessarily to worry about whether or there might be somebody else out there who might might do a better job.

[00:25:29] Randall Roth: I see. What about Neil Abercrombie? Uh you're calling him flashy, uh easygoing with his staff, uh who's certainly well known for driving the Checker cab. Uh I read in the newspaper not long ago that the owner of the Washington Redskins football team is upset at him for some reason. Uh is Neil making waves and if so, are they good waves or bad waves?

[00:25:40] Peter Rosegg: They are responsive to what what their constituents want and want and and their constituents' needs and interests and that's their job there and we should hold them to that.

[00:25:48] Randall Roth: Thank you, Peter. My guest this week was Peter Rossig, long-time editorial writer, reporter, and reviewer for the Honolulu Advertiser, a 1992-93 American Political Science Association Congressional Fellow. This week's show was produced by Jill Center with technical assistance from Mark Wagner. You've been listening to the Price of Paradise Radio Show. I'm Randy Roth, Aloha.

[00:26:48] Peter Rosegg: Well, Neil cuts uh a very unusual figure in Washington and uh for Hawaii, which needs to uh get some visibility, that that's a pretty good thing. I think people that know Neil from around and Honolulu would probably be surprised at to see him in Washington. He's a much mellower creature there than I think he used to be around here. He really is working very hard at getting along with other uh representatives, uh smoozing with them, understanding what their needs are and trying to look after Hawaii's interests as well. But he's perfectly capable of standing up on the floor of the uh of the house. At one point there was a discussion about cutting back the uh the retirement benefits, so to speak, or the office benefits of retired speakers of the house of whom I think they're four now. There's several hundred thousand dollars being spent on this by the federal government and and Neil's very very close to Tip O'Neill who when Neil went to Congress in '86 for that very short term, Neil took him um Tip O'Neill took Neil under his wing and let him be be temporary chair of the of the house. At any rate, Neil got down on the floor when this was discussed and he was shouting and waving his fingers and saying, there's there are few people in this House of Representatives who are fit to shine Tip O'Neill's shoes. And uh so he does, he's perfectly capable of making waves.

[00:28:01] Randall Roth: What about uh his position with respect to the military in Hawaii? I know he's suggested that maybe uh bellows should um be given back to the state. Uh how do you think that's that's being perceived around the country?

[00:28:14] Peter Rosegg: Oh, around the country I wouldn't want to guess. I don't think it's making a lot of people in uh in the defense department very happy. Uh he's he's been carrying on a long battle with the uh with the Department of Defense about the return of Bellows. Uh and uh he's uh he has uh he's part he's not the kind of uh person philosophically or politically who wants to sort of write the Pentagon a blank check, and um but he has also, you know, worked hard for things that he thinks are important like more housing for military people here and so forth. He's a lot like Ron Delums who's now chairman of the House House Armed Services Committee, long, long time critic of of military spending who now finds himself in a position of of wishing that they weren't closing all the ba