Insights on PBS Hawaiʻi is sponsored by Carl Smith Ball.

Aloha State Daily and the University of Hawaiʻi Cancer Center.

Central Oʻahu residents will be electing a new representative to the state House in November.

The district 39 seat is open, with the incumbent running for a different office.

The district has seen a competitive political shift in recent years following a high profile corruption case four years ago, the seat flipped from Democrat to Republican, and two years ago the race was decided by 11 votes.

Tonight's live broadcast and live stream of Insights on PBS Hawaiʻi.

Start now.

Aloha and welcome to Insights on PBS Hawaiʻi.

I'm Daryl Huff.

Tonight we're hearing from the candidates running for state House district 39, which encompasses Royal Kunia Village Park, Honouliuli, Hoʻopili, and parts of Waipahu.

Four years ago, this seat opened up after then Representative Ty Cullen was convicted of bribery.

Since then, the seat flipped from Democrat to Republican.

But with no incumbent, it could be another tight race in November.

We look forward to your participation in tonight's show.

You can email or call in your questions, and you'll find a live stream of this program at PBS.org and the PBS Hawai'i YouTube page.

Now to our guests.

Republican Danny de Gracia is a program specialist with the state Department of Health and is also the chair of his unit 13 for Scientific and Professional Employees.

He has two doctorates in theology and ministry and a master's degree in political science.

And Democrat Corey Rosenlee was born and raised in Hawaiʻi and is a member of the ‘Ewa Neighborhood Board.

He teaches history and government at Campbell High School, and previously served as president of the Hawaiʻi State Teachers Association.

And let me just start off, first of all, Danny deGracia.

Why?

What made you decide to run for office?

You know, I had shared this before in the primary, but the not so exciting reason was I had discovered in the middle of the pandemic that in our precinct that I live in Royal Kenya, the grass was not being cut.

We just had issues where people were setting fires or arsonists were setting fires in the dry grass nearby my house.

No one was doing anything about that.

The trash was not being collected routinely.

There were holes in the garbage cans and the sidewalks were being overgrown by just grass, and they were starting to get unstable.

And I said, you know, what is the point of having government if the very core services that we have are not being taken care of?

And so I'm the type of person who I like to take initiative.

I'm a very details oriented type of person.

And so I was just really outraged by the condition that infrastructure was in.

And I wanted to do something about it.

You know, it's funny though, it sounds like kind of city jobs were for a councilman, for state legislature.

Well, you know, I think that all government, especially a state representative, needs to pay attention to detail to the things that are affecting residents.

So working at the Department of Health, one of the things that we talk about is what's called social determinants of health.

Those are things that impact people where they live.

And the built environment is a key impact of people's health outcomes.

So it turns out that your zip code can influence your health outcomes more than your genetic code in some cases.

And so whether it's a city issue or whether it's a state issue, I don't think that it's right that we can see our district in a state of decline and disrepair and be silent about it.

And also, just to partially answer that, you know, I've always had a great relationship with our city council members.

I had a great relationship with Ron Minor.

I have a great relationship with Council Member Wire.

So, you know, whoever is in office, certainly I'll be able to work with him, but I just didn't want to remain silent and do nothing.

I understand.

Okay.

Corey Rosenlee, you know, this is your third, third shot at this.

I hope you're not banging your head against the wall.

But you know, what made you decide to run again?

Well, thank you.

You know, I was born and raised in Hawaiʻi.

My mom, she was a special education teacher at Princess Ka’iulani.

My dad, he was a social worker.

He started a program actually called Adult Friends for youth.

They worked with disadvantaged youth in Hawaiʻi.

So from my family, there was this real big core of.

How do we give back?

I've been a teacher now for 30 years, 20 of them at Campbell High School.

I've been teaching history and government, and I'm proud to say that lots of members of our community are my former students.

You know, I've tried to be an activist in our community.

I served with pride.

I was the president of the teachers union for six years.

But I'm running for office because, you know, I want to give our keiki good schools.

I believe that we shouldn't have people that have to live on the streets.

I want to make sure that we take care of our kūpuna.

I believe that if someone works hard, they have a job they should be able to afford living in Hawaiʻi.

So I'm running because I truly believe that we can make Hawaiʻi a better place.

And then let me ask Danny deGracia the next question to ask both of you.

What personal qualities do you have could make you effective as a legislator?

Now you're running as a Republican.

If you're lucky, you might have ten to a dozen other Republicans.

What do you think will make you effective as a legislator?

Well, the great news is, is, is that I previously worked at the Hawaiʻi State Legislature on the House Standing Committee on Human Services and also the Committee on International Affairs in the early 2000.

So I worked.

That's right.

So I was actually responsible for filing the bills with the chief clerk, writing the committee hearing notices.

Sitting right there in the hearings and listening and taking down the information to write the committee reports, routing the bills for signature when they were amended.

And so, you know, I'm already familiar with that process.

And then on top of that, right now at the Department of Health, I work in the Health Resources Administration.

So supporting the legislative operations of the department is something that I've been doing for almost a decade.

So, if we're just talking about capability within the building, it's something that I know forwards and backwards.

But the real reason that I think that I would be a great legislator is, is that I empathize with the fact that people are really burned out right now and they don't want to talk about policy.

They just want to see results, and they want somebody who they can trust and know will lower the temperature and make things more convenient and more understandable for them.

And so as as someone who has suffered many of the things that we're experiencing now with a high cost of living, with problems, with getting access to affordable health care, affordable housing, I really empathize with that.

And so I think that, and I don't want to boast, but I think I'm a very different kind of Republican because I'm much more compassionate and understanding.

And I think that that's what people want.

They want to feel seen and heard.

And at the end of the day, they want to know that somebody is on the job and nothing's going to hurt them tonight.

Corey you're on what what what personally about you do you think will make you effective especially if you come in as a freshman?

Well I think people should judge you not just on what you say but what you've done.

I'll tell you.

When I first got to Campbell went into my classroom and it was hot.

I saw during the day temperatures could rise 90 to 100 degrees, and I saw by the end of the day, my students passing out.

So what do you do?

Do you just complain about it or do you do something?

So I did something.

Organize the teachers, the students, parents, the community.

We went down to the Capitol.

Not once, but multiple times.

And because of the movement that we started, thousands of classrooms now have air conditioning.

You know, I've had to lead the second largest union in Hawaiʻi.

The Hawaiʻi State Teachers Association is made up of 13,500 members and also 6500 retired members.

And during that time, I went in there, and one of the biggest problems facing Hawaiʻi is that we have a shortage of teachers.

Study the problem.

And we created policy that became a national model.

We first of all paid all teachers better, but we looked at specific areas hardest staff areas like Nānākuli and Waiʻanae or the Outer Islands.

Some of them we looked in special education, Hawaiian immersion, and we paid those teachers more.

And it's worked in trying to retain some of those teachers, you know, but also running a large organization like that.

I had a balance of budget.

In fact, when a decision came down reducing union membership, we were able to cut 15% of our budget without cutting services.

And now I serve on the board.

I still fight for things such as buffer zones to deal with wildfires.

We really pushed to deal with illegal fireworks.

Right now, the big concern that we have is e-bikes.

Well, let me move on really quickly because got our first question from a viewer and I want to thank the viewers for, for for participating.

What is the first bill you would introduce if you were elected at office?

I won't go back and forth so much, but what's the first thing you would do if your elected to office?

And this is in line with what do you think the big challenges are in your district as well?

I want us to believe we can do big things again.

There was a national bill, the Build Back Better bill.

It failed because of one vote, and this was an attempt to really improve the lives of people in the entire country.

But this is something I think we could do to improve the lives of people in Hawaiʻi and include things that I deeply care about included paid family leave, universal preschool, childcare, tax credits.

Something I deeply care about was making community college free, and I'd like to see that the legislature do big things that could really make a difference in people's lives and make their lives just a little bit easier and a little bit more affordable.

Danny deGracia, what would you first introduce?

Well, one of the things that I think is important is we need to address the issue of lowering the cost of living.

So general excise tax exemptions, especially in the area of health care, food and other essentials that people need, are things that are going to directly impact people right away.

And I think that we need to focus on putting more money back in the pockets of Hawaii's hard working families, because that gives them the agency to determine how they're going to spend that.

It gives them more opportunity to plan for their families rather than government, always planning all of the outcomes for them.

You know, you know, you listed some things that are pretty expensive.

I would imagine you also would like to see general tax, excise tax exemptions for things like that.

That's a pretty common Democratic policy as well.

How would you afford what you're talking about.

And also cut taxes.

And I'll put that same question to Danny.

So right now if you look at Hawaiʻi, Mark Zuckerberg is building a compound in Kauaʻi.

Jeff Bezos is building a mega mansion.

And Maui Larry Ellison bought the island of Lānaʻi in Hawaiʻi.

Right now, the bottom 20% of income earners actually pay a higher tax rate than the top 1%.

If we just ask our billionaires to pay their fair share, we would have.

I'm not asking them to pay any more, just the fair share.

We would have plenty of money to do all the things I just listed.

What's a fair share and what at what income level do you start raising it?

Right now, the legislature last year passed something called the millionaires tax.

Okay.

But if you look at our system right now, we have aggressive tax system.

Most of our funding comes from the general excise tax.

One thing I firmly believe and you brought this up I believe we should have exemptions from the get for food and medicine.

And so how do we pay for these things?

Okay.

Right now we have a tax system where these billionaires don't have the same tax rate.

They literally have a strategy called by borrow and die.

They get most of their wealth from stock options.

And those are not taxed the same way as income does.

So these people pay a lower tax rate.

And so, you know, if we just ask our billionaires to pay their fair share, we would have enough money.

So I would like to start taxing those higher incomes at rates that make it so that they have an equivalent share of taxation, as the rest of us do.

You want to respond to that?

Well, you know, one of the great things is, is that after I left the legislature in 2010, one of the first things that I did was I worked for Grassroot Institute, and I was actually the first individual to ever independently audit the State of Hawaiʻi special funds since 1991.

And that was something that nobody had done before.

And what people were shocked to discover was that there was actually a lot of money in the state of Hawaiʻi that was in various accounts and funds, many of which that people had forgotten about.

You know, when we fast forward to 2026, for example, before we start moving the levers of taxation, we should look at the balances that we have already.

So, for example, with Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, my understanding is, is, is that Hawaii's balance of Tana funds is significantly higher than many other states of the union, and those monies could immediately be drawn down and put immediately in the hands of those who need it most.

So while it's you need to explain that better when you say a ten of fund, I mean, I thought it was just federal government and state paying paying that.

Right.

So the federal government contributes that to each of the states.

And Hawaiʻi chose to basically start banking its ten funds during the pandemic.

And so we started to spend that down.

But there is a huge amount of money in there.

And so some of that can be used for purposes like putting money directly in the hands of single mothers, for example.

Okay, I understand what you're saying, but do you philosophically, do you disagree with what Mr.

Rosenlee said about taxing a millionaire tax or a tax on the highest income earners?

So what we have to understand is, is that you can have taxation, but while taxation is occurring, monetary policy at the global and the national level is occurring at the same time.

So you have inflation which is an increase in the money supply.

And you could have a situation where literally we're taxing millionaires because right now they're considered high income earners.

But you could have a situation where now middle class people are millionaires on paper, but yet they don't have that purchasing power.

So it's very difficult for taxation to work when you have a moving target of the money supply.

So as a Republican, I think that the first thing that we need to do is look at the money that we already have in our funds and spend those down, and then we can have a discussion with the public, and we can have hearings and we can have town halls.

You know, the United States of America was founded on the principle of no taxation without representation.

That doesn't mean you can't get taxed unless you have a representative.

It means we're not going to do anything without first consulting the people who will be affected.

Let me give response to respond to that.

Sure.

So we don't have to imagine what the Republican agenda is.

We've seen it.

The Republicans passed the one big beautiful bill.

And what did this bill do?

The major beneficiaries of this bill were the wealthy, almost $1 trillion of tax cuts.

It is considered one of the biggest transfers of wealth from the poor to the rich.

I want to say that again, one of the biggest transfers of wealth from poor to the rich, in order to pay for those tax cuts using the reconciliation process.

Very briefly, though, I think most people, many people got tax breaks from that bill.

Not just but that's not accurate.

Okay.

The majority of the tax cuts, 70 to 80% went to the top 10% of income earners.

In fact, the the bottom the middle class and the poor.

When you incorporate the Medicaid cuts, that's not benefits.

They're actually going to come out less.

Well, that's what I meant.

That's what I meant to clarify.

You're saying that the government benefits that were cut in that bill are part of the wealth shift, right?

So when Danny talks about funds that we had to do locally at the legislature this year, they had to increase funding for Medicaid.

They had increased funding for Snap benefits.

We had to make up for those cuts to make sure that, you know, our keiki and our kūpuna didn't go hungry.

If we had just let those cuts go into effect, it's going to deeply impact the people of Hawaiʻi.

Hundreds of people just in our district alone are not going to receive their Snap benefits if it was left up to the Republican agenda.

There are 1000 people in our district that would lose their Medicaid benefits.

And the beneficiary of Medicaid are are the people with disabilities.

Let me let me give you a chance in the health field.

And you work with the people in this condition.

That's part of your job.

Are you concerned about the federal cuts to health benefits for, for in Medicaid and so on?

Well, I want to separate legislating at the local level for the outcomes of individuals that we can control from legislating in Congress.

So obviously I'm not running for Congress.

So the policy does affect you as a local legislator?

It does.

But working at the Department of Health, we have to provide the services that the people are counting on and that they require with what we have.

And so the simple answer to this question is, is, is that we cannot in House district 39, control what the Federal Reserve or what the US Congress is doing, but we can do everything in our power through administrative rules, through legislative action, to make sure that what we have an area of responsibility over will be taken care of.

And so I don't want to speculate about what the Congress is going to do or whatever.

All we know is what we have right now.

And I will tell you, as a program specialist at the Department of Health, that we don't get to complain.

We just have to work with what we have.

And I think that the people in House district 39 are saying to themselves, I understand that things are rough for everyone, but they're rough for us, too.

And so they're waiting for someone to come in and say, what are you going to do about me?

How are you going to take care of my family?

Because everybody has children that they have to feed and put through school over there.

Well, no, I mean, here's the thing.

I mean, if I didn't believe if I didn't believe in, in, in people having Medicare or Medicaid, I wouldn't be working at the Department of Health.

I'm there.

Back to my original question.

Are you concerned about the cuts at the federal level to those programs?

Well, obviously it's going to impact the program, but what I'm more concerned is making things so untenable at the local level that we're reacting in a way that it puts more hurt in people's pocketbooks and people's future plans.

That's what I'm more concerned about.

You want to respond to that?

This is going to be our job for the next couple of years.

You know, these cuts are going to impact people.

You know, I've been a teacher for 30 years.

I can tell you, I've seen kids come into my classroom, didn't have enough food to eat.

I think one of the deepest things that we owe our community is the empathy to take care of our keiki, take care of our kukūpuna.

I have made one of my strongest goals in life to make sure that we feed all of our keiki.

I've been on the First Lady Dawn breakfast program.

I want to see free meals at our schools, and when the Congress cuts things such as Nat benefits cuts Medicaid, 10% of Medicaid recipients are kūpuna 70% of the Snap benefits, I said, are disability, kūpuna, and archaic.

This is what we're going to do over the next few years.

The legislature is going to have to fund programs to make sure that we take care of our community.

Okay.

Moving on a little bit.

Another question that came from viewers and this kind of in line.

You guys had a lot of turnover in your guys district from time calling on.

And there was this question about, you know, whether what he did and Senator English did, you know, and now we've got this other scandal, you know, comes to the trust in government.

And so the question from Eric and Kailua, would either of you support term limits for state legislators?

All county council members, statewide half term limits of the governor?

Why not state legislators?

Would you support that?

I mean, here you are trying to walk into legislature.

Would you be willing to have a limit on how long you've served?

Absolutely.

I think that term limits is critical to making sure that government does not become stagnant, to the point where incumbents are now legislative barons, and they're literally living and dying in office.

And I think Benjamin Franklin said it best.

He said, if you anoint a villain, he'll stab you in the back.

And what that means is, is, is that sometimes we can get the wrong person in office, either by accident or by chance.

And once they're entrenched, it's very difficult to remove them.

I think over 90% of incumbents will be automatically reelected simply because of incumbency advantage.

And so I think that as a check on corruption and also as a means to build in new ideas and fresh blood, that we need to have term limits.

And you know what?

I'm not running for office because I want to become a career legislator.

I'm running because I'm very disturbed by the direction that our state is going.

I feel like we're in decline, and I feel that the people of our district need somebody who can make them feel seen.

So I want to do the job and get out.

And so if we don't pass term limits, I will term limit myself and allow people to rise up.

But I'm just there to get the job done.

Cory Rosenlee, your answer to that question when it comes to term limits, I think the frustration that people have is they do not want career politicians, but we have to look at the root cause of that and the advantages that incumbents have over challengers.

And the real root of the problem is not term limits.

It's the huge discrepancy between the amount that incumbents have in funding and what challengers have in funding.

And that means that incumbents, time after time can win their election.

I think that if we want to get to the point where it's a fair election for everyone, that anyone has a chance of winning is that we have publicly funded elections.

What I want to see is, doesn't matter if your challenger, doesn't matter if you're incumbent.

Everyone starts off with the same amount.

And I really applaud the legislature.

This year they took action to do the Citizens United case to make sure that we take money out of politics as well.

And I'd like to see us.

We've taken steps to do publicly funded elections.

But one of the things, interesting things about the race that Danny and I are running for the House of Representatives is that they have about a 20% turnover every single year.

If you actually get out to like eight years where the term is, you're getting to 70, 80% of the House of Representatives have already turned over.

And I think it's sometimes pretty good to have some people that have experience in the building and new ideas to, okay, let me give Danny a chance to respond, first of all.

But also, I wanted to point out that that's right.

On point of the question I was about to read, and I don't like reading them.

This one's kind of long, but Tony says what the Willie's candidates support changes to campaign spending laws and other suggestions to bring integrity back to government.

And I'd like to have any day of respond.

What do you support in that respect?

The publicly funded elections is what your opponent suggested.

Well, I think that we need to be very careful because we don't want to build a system which works today but doesn't work tomorrow.

And the American system works because we have a free market of ideas.

And I want to be very cautious about giving government additional powers to pick and choose winners and losers.

And even if we started out where we said, okay, with publicly funded elections, everybody starts out from the same position.

What happens if the only candidate that's running in a particular district is more.

Reprehensible to the people that are there?

You could have that situation, and I think I would feel very bad about being taxed to pay for someone who supported things that I didn't want, right.

And so, at least with private contributions, you have to work for it.

With regards to campaign finance reform, I think that it's important that we not use rules to become another form of institutional gatekeeping.

So, you know, both of us have to file a report due by tomorrow.

There's a lot of work that that went into that.

And, you know, if you if you just make even like the slightest mistake, you know, it's like, oh, you bad boy, you know, now you're corrupt and you're a criminal.

And many times it's just a common mistake.

And the system is not neutral.

A lot of times incumbents make it that way because they have the ability to pay the compliance costs and start up candidates like Korean myself.

You know, we really have to work for it.

And we can't afford to have CPAs, you know, keeping us in compliance on everything.

So I just want to say that as a matter of doctrine, I think that we should approach everything carefully and thoughtfully before just jumping into it.

Let me just go to the core of the question, though.

So what would you do?

What would you change to increase the public's trust?

That that people are not corrupt.

So, you know, my my father was a colonel in the United States Air Force, and him and many other veterans and police officers were raised on a slogan that says, I will not lie, cheat or steal or tolerate those among us who do.

You can change laws and you can change governments.

But what needs to be changed is people's hearts and their minds.

And there is no way that you can have corrupt people follow the law, because they will always find a loophole or a way around that.

So my answer to that as a Republican and as a conservative is if you want to make Hawaiʻi a better place, you first have to start with making the hearts and the minds of those who run for office better.

You want to respond at all?

Sure.

And I'm going to I want to invite both of you guys.

I feel like you want to say somebody here, you're both being very polite.

I feel like I'm, you know, go ahead and jump right in if you want to follow up with somebody, but go ahead.

Unfortunately, you look at what's happened locally.

You look at what's happened recently with corruption.

You look at our own district with Ty Cullen, and you look at what's happening nationally.

I mean, we've normalized corruption.

You know, I would tell you, I'm just so frustrated on a daily basis seeing the corruption happen at the presidential level.

We've seen Donald Trump, you know, taken billions of dollars through crypto coins, meme coins, a $400 million Katari jet, 3500 stock trades, a $1.8 billion slush fund, and the IRS can never audit him again.

One of my favorites is, you know, Trump had tariffs on the diamond industry from Europe until they gave him a big diamond.

Then all of a sudden the tariffs were lifted.

You know, whether it's nationally or locally, you know when you take money out of politics, you make sure that the people's voices.

I'm going to answer Danny's concern.

There are places where in order to get the funding, you have to show viability.

You have to get people to donate $5.

You know, whatever about public financing, funded elections.

You know, I've when you run, one of the first lessons I learned when I first ran for office is when you go ask people and you get $20, it's $20.

That's a big deal.

But it takes a lot of those $20 donors to equal that one $2,000 donor.

Right.

And I think that when you have 100 people giving you $20, that says something.

So I think if we make it fair, everyone gives a little bit of social viability.

That's how we do publicly funded elections.

I want to give you a chance as a Republican to respond to what he said about corruption at Washington.

Is that a concern for you, the the the behavior of the president?

Well, I don't want to comment on things that are outside of my lane.

The reason why I let you get away with that, I mean, please, because it is elected official.

It's in your lane, right?

I understand that, but I am not going to cast aspersions on President Trump.

The people of House district 39 voted for their choice for president, and that is between them and their ballot.

So I am not running to litigate what goes on at the national level.

I'm running for office because I am concerned about the personal outcomes of the people who have to live in Hawaiʻi every single day.

You know, President Trump has been in office for, you know, less than eight years.

But the Democratic Party has been in control of Hawaiʻi for almost 80 years.

So I think before we start saying, how come Trump got a jet, I think we need to start asking questions about how come the Democrats have been in charge for almost 80 years and things just keep getting worse?

Because let me tell you something, there is no shortage of Democrats who come out and they say like, I want to, you know, give people a better cost of living.

I want to give people fair wages.

And then what happens is then they get into the big square building, and then they just become the unit party.

So I don't think that we should be attacking President Trump.

I think we need to look at the situation that we have right here, and we need to stop trying to to focus on things that are so massive that we're ignoring the single mother who can't afford to pay her bills, or the guy who's having to work three jobs just so he can start a family.

So I want to focus things on house to 39, and I know that people in our district support President Trump.

If I can respond and Danny brings up, what have the Democrats done?

And again, let's put this side by side.

Governor green cut taxes for the middle class and the poor.

The Republicans nationally cut taxes for the wealthy and the 10% and the billionaires in Hawaiʻi, the Democrats have raised the minimum wage.

Republicans nationally have refused to do that.

Nationally, the Republicans cut Medicaid.

They cut snap benefits.

He talks about the single mom.

I agree, but you don't cut her food and then say you support her, right?

We need to make sure that we funded those programs.

What the Democrats do in Hawaiʻi, they funded this programs.

Have they done enough?

No they haven't.

That's why I'm running for office.

I do believe Democrats in Hawaiʻi need to do more.

Trump wasn't wrong when he said that affordability is an issue, but the way he handled affordability was to cut taxes on the wealthy.

I think the first question you asked me, Darrell, is what do we need to do?

And I think there are big programs that we can do in Hawaiʻi that will make a difference.

And that is why I am running for office.

Do I respond?

You know, like I said, we have a big mess and we have just got to start working on it however we can.

But we have to accept the fact that our first responsibility is right here in Hawaiʻi.

And as somebody who actually does procurement for the state, as someone who actually develops budgets and spends things, I do not get to work in a world where I get to say, like, I wish that I had this, I have to work with what I have.

And Mr.

and Mrs.

Hawaiʻi, they have a budget and they have to work with what they have.

They are not going to support us increasing taxes and saying, you have to fund this and you have to do this and you have to just tighten your belt while the government determines what we should be spending more.

So I think before we get into any of this, we need to spend what we already have.

We need to clean up our existing funds and our government, and we can have these discussions, but people are expecting us to work with what we have.

Government should not be a system where it's not working, so let's just throw more money after bad.

Okay, I'm going to read a question from Wanda, since part of this discussion is about money and how the state gets its money, what about legalized gambling or allowing a recreational marijuana industry?

Why do we have to be slaves to tourism?

Danny deGracia, what did you start with?

Those to you, gambling or marijuana and or what do you think?

Well, the problem is it's not just collecting revenue.

If we promote a specific industry, we're going to now create a new type of political complex associated with that.

And a lot of people are concerned that there are moral hazards to monetizing gambling, and especially with seniors and then with cannabis.

I'm worried that Big Tobacco can potentially jump in on that, and then that's something that allows them to further deteriorate the situation that we have here in Hawaiʻi.

So I think that that's a very complex issue.

It's not just a matter of, oh, why aren't we going to spend that?

We need to look at that.

You're talking about cannabis now, are you talking?

I know that well, both cannabis, both the cannabis and gambling have moral and political hazards.

And so we need to be very careful about that.

If we think that we're having problems now with the types of industries that are influencing elections now, I think we would be in a real world of hurt if we just jumped to now monetizing gambling, casinos and cannabis.

And so I think the people of House district 39 want to approach things very cautiously, and they want to be discerning about these things.

And we don't just wave a magic wand and say, like, let's create this and start taxing that marijuana and cannabis.

So those are both the one big issue.

We're going to tackle two big issues in both cannabis and gambling at the same time.

Choose one and then go ahead.

Let's try do both.

Let's try to do both because they're big issues.

You know, for legalization, first of all, we already do have legalization for medicinal marijuana.

I don't want anyone using marijuana, but there are consequences.

Being a teacher make you feel more like that.

Yes, but I don't want to.

I don't I mean, it's not something that you want to encourage for anything, but at the same time, when we make it illegal, those have consequences too.

I mean, I don't want to see people in our jails, in our prisons for using marijuana.

I don't want to see families separated because of marijuana.

I don't want our police department having to spend their limited resources going after people using marijuana.

You know, it takes up our judiciary.

It's when you make something illegal, it has those consequences.

And if our true goal is to stop people from using marijuana together, I don't think it's going to be a revenue source.

We can tax it.

But I want to use those revenues to actually help people get off of it.

Can we ask about gambling?

Gambling?

Okay.

People are using sports gambling now, whether or not we've made it legal or illegal.

Again, I don't see it as a revenue source.

I don't have a problem with legalized gambling, but I want to do it in a way that does not become a tax on the poor.

Other states, what they've done is they created a cap, and it's a basic cap so that people can't spend more than they can afford.

Other states that have tried to legalize gambling as a revenue source actually spend more money trying to help people that have gotten addicted to it.

So by capping it, it reduces that problem.

It allows people to enjoy the entertainment of it without becoming a big problem.

And just to say, we have illegal gambling in Hawaiʻi now already.

And so I'm hoping that we can get rid of some of that problem.

You know, this talk about money coming in.

It struck me as this might be a good way of asking a question about what your priority would be.

If all of a sudden someone said, and this is completely ridiculous hypothetical, but it's just a way of asking this question.

If someone said you could have all the money you want, but you can only spend it on one thing, what would it be for you?

I'm sorry we're talking about private or doesn't matter.

Just magic money.

Just all of a sudden something like.

Like a settlement of a huge drug thing, like.

And suddenly you said, okay, you got $1 billion, but you can only spend it on one thing.

What would that be?

Well, we got that with the example of the tobacco master settlement.

And so we use that to fund chronic disease.

But that was that was required.

I'm asking you if you could choose anything to do with that big pile of money, what would you spend money on?

For me, it would be public health.

And I think that we should be reaching underserved and vulnerable populations, because one thing that the pandemic revealed is, is that we are only as strong as our weakest link.

And so if I had the opportunity to have unlimited funds, I would most certainly direct that to increasing the health outcomes of our most disadvantaged and our most vulnerable.

Okay, billion dollars, what do you give me?

The candy store and I get to pick one lollipop.

Only one pop.

Okay, I'll pick one.

Okay.

You make it a cupcake in just two subjects.

Right now, it would cost about $270 million right now to reduce the general excise tax on food and medicine.

Not only that would help people with affordability in Hawaiʻi, it would reduce grocery prices.

It would help people low income.

It's something that the legislature, if you've been on the show, Daryl, I mean, if you've asked this question, you've heard this from probably numerous amount.

Actually, I never asked that question before.

Okay, good.

So okay, so but I'm saying that this the idea of cutting the general item food and medicine.

This is something that's long been desired in Hawaiʻi.

I mean, if we're one if not the only state that does tax medicine, it just seems wrong.

So if I get to pick one cupcake out of the store, let's try that one.

Okay.

Getting more questions than I thought.

Where do the candidates stand on social issues?

Do they support the LGBTQ community?

By Leon Corey.

Rosalie, you want to start with that?

I mean, what how do you feel about supporting the gay community, particularly when die and all those things are under fire across the country?

I do.

I'm.

I'm proud of Hawaiʻi.

I think Hawaiʻi has always been a place of acceptance.

I feel that making our LGBTQ community feel our aloha is one of the special things about Hawaiʻi.

You know, back in the day when I was in college, which is really back in the day now, I remember when we had the ballot question about same sex marriage in Hawaiʻi.

And as a young college student, I fought for things like that.

For a few years.

My family and I, we moved to Virginia, and we were in a conservative part of Virginia.

And when we were there, I worked with students.

Students came up to me and said, can we start a gay straight Alliance club?

And I wanted to support them, and I did.

I almost lost my job because of it.

It's nice to see that at this point that the majority of our public supports things like same sex marriage.

But I want to see us broaden out to support our entire LGBTQ community.

You know, so right now, the issue of trans rights is, is a front and center.

I mean, what where's your position there?

For the trans right issue?

I think this is a huge dog whistle.

You know, if the biggest one we've been hearing over and over again, Trump spent hundreds of millions of dollars dealing with the issue of transports.

And I would ask anyone, how many trans girls play in air sports?

And the answer is one, you know, the Republicans have made this focus.

Look at this one person over here.

As we cut taxes for billionaires, we cut all this stuff.

But if we can just focus your attention over here, the whole village doesn't have to come out for this one person.

I mean, I believe that we need to support our transgender community.

I feel like the aloha we have in Hawaiʻi is something that I don't want to see anyone discriminated against.

I don't want anyone to be bullied.

I want to feel people in Hawaiʻi feel supported.

And I do support our transgender community, our gay community, all of them.

I think they need to fill out Aloha, give you a chance to respond to that.

I mean, the bottom line question was, do you support the LGBTQ community?

And right now, trans rights is a big issue.

Where do you stand on that?

My answer to this is simple.

The American people and the Hawaiian people are the most compassionate individuals in the world, and they believe in equal protection under the law.

I am not running for office to take anything away that people want.

I am running for office because I am more concerned about what goes on in the committee room than in someone's bedroom.

So someone's personal choices is their agency.

We live in a free country, and you are free to do whatever you want to do as a private individual.

But my concern is the committee room, not the bedroom.

Okay.

Next question.

What do you do to reduce our dependance on imported food?

How do we make it easier to grow our own food?

I was just looking into it as Bethany, you folks have got a whole bunch of ag all next to your district, you know, growing quite quickly while you've got a lot of houses going into.

Is there a balance there that we've lost track of?

So just what do you do to reduce our dependance on imported food?

Well, I'm so glad that you asked this question, and I'm so glad that Corey is here with me, because this is the topic that I've been wanting to talk about for a long time.

The Hawaiʻi Department of Education is one of the largest purchasers of food in the state of Hawaiʻi.

And so.

Right.

Well, not just local food, but food in general.

And so we're trying to get them so that they can get a minimum of 30%, but a 30% food that's purchased in source locally.

But we haven't been able to reach that.

And it's a complicated issue because food service coordination has been very slow.

So if we can get those numbers up, if we can get the Department of Education to start putting locally sourced food through a combination of things, one of which is getting food service coordinators for them, getting farm to school coordinators hired in both the Department of Education and the Department of Health, helping people with school gardening, and a plethora of other issues.

I hope that we can bring up those numbers.

So that's that's a part of that equation.

But it is certainly one of the most immediate places that that we can start on about sustainability.

We agree.

I actually when I was at HST, we supported the farm school program.

In fact, one of the things that I agree is if we have one of the things I feel strongly about is expanding the free breakfast and free lunch program.

I like to see what they've done in other states making that universal.

And if we can get more products from our local farmers, we can have a guaranteed revenue source if they're selling it to the Doe.

So if we can increase the amount of food that our keiki are eating, we can support our local farmers.

This is a win win situation for everyone.

You know, it occurs to me, though, when we talk about AG and your district, there's a lot of pressure to turn that ag land into housing, right?

And housing is a big issue.

Cory Rosenlee, how would you balance that, the land use so that you have enough room for houses and then you have enough infrastructure for housing versus ag land getting cut up?

We need to do both.

It is a game like that.

It's a thin line of trying to manage the agricultural land.

So part of the problem we have in Hawai'i is some of our agriculture land is being used by national corporations that use our land to test out their seeds.

Because we have year round good weather, they can just rotate that.

Are the land in Hawaiʻi should be used for agriculture?

Are you saying, are you saying that instead of growing seeds for farmers in Iowa, we should be growing our own food?

It's not even just seeds for people in Iowa.

They're testing out new types of seeds.

These sort of like monster seeds, what we've called them.

Sometimes those agricultural products require more pesticides.

Yeah.

So this causes, you know, health problems.

One of the things I was proud of when I was at HST, a, is that we fought to create a buffer zone around schools, and we need to do this for housing too.

So if we need to fully utilize our land, well, but there's a lot of land in Hawaiʻi that's not being used well for housing.

I'll give this example.

Right next to our district is this is owned by the federal government.

The federal government turned over this land to the state.

Right now, most of it is empty.

It's not being used for anything.

This would be a great place for us to start building affordable housing.

We have state land that is, you know, empty right now.

The military sits on land not using it for anything.

There is land right next to our district in Eva that's just completely barren.

And this would be a great place to affordable housing since we're now talking about affordable housing, which is a huge issue.

What do you see is the way of getting more affordable housing into the market?

Well, we have artificial scarcity either by accident or design here in Hawaiʻi and especially on Oʻahu.

Only a very small percentage of the land is actually zoned for housing.

So I think we need to look at number one, reforming a lot of the regulations so that we're not just reflective, reflexively saying like, oh, you can't build homes here.

This has to be Aggie land, or this has to be this type of land or whatever.

So because everybody is competing for a very small slice of, of the available land for housing, that's one of the things that makes houses so expensive.

So I think we need to look at that.

We also need to look at cutting a lot of the regulations, as much as 25% of the cost of the home is from unnecessary regulations.

So we kind of need to look at these things and say, like, are we creating mal investment and market disruptions from the policies that we have?

So I don't think that there's just one thing that we can do that's a silver bullet.

We have to be very discerning about this, but certainly I think we do need to evaluate whether land is appropriately zoned and if there's anything that's worse than the ag crisis, it's the housing crisis.

So I want to make sure that there is more land to build, more housing.

And the other thing that bothers me is, is that our government is not doing its job, what they're supposed to do.

The basic thing of paving the roads, giving you the sewers and the infrastructure, and instead they're saying like, oh no, the developers need to do that.

Well, they do that and they pass the cost on to the people who are trying to buy homes.

And that doesn't work when we start having government that actually does what it's supposed to do, using the money that it has for the streets and the roads and the sewer and the infrastructure and the, the, the, the built environment, then we're going to have housing that's more available and more affordable.

So solving our housing problem is not just one thing.

Let's try to tackle some of these.

Number one, we still have nearly 30,000 Native Hawaiians waiting for when homelands.

We need to say what they what are the questions did come over here.

Do you support more Hawaiian homelands?

Absolutely.

Okay, I'll get you a chance to respond to about 15 to 20% of housing sales in Hawaiʻi is actually the military.

The military has lots of property and space.

It'd be nice if we actually had the federal government build more military housing, which they do in other areas.

Not only this would increase the housing supply, but it would allow less traffic because people don't have to commute on the roads.

I'd like to see, you know, when we have Airbnbs, properties, you know, we still have that problem.

So much of one third of all of our property sales in Hawaiʻi are bought by people that do not live here.

And in the last couple of years, we've seen new movement where you can actually start preventing form buyers of housing.

And I think that's something that we should look at to.

So it's it's a big problem.

But there are solutions that would make it affordable for people.

Listen, I'm a father.

My son goes to Mānoa.

I would love to see that.

He could afford living here in Hawaiʻi.

And I think that's what I hear from a lot of our community.

It's real sad when I talk to these parents as they're aging, that a lot of their kids have to move to Vegas, they have to move to the mainland.

They can't afford to live here.

So when we talk about housing, it's not just trying to help our keiki, but it's also making sure we help our.

And I think that if we have fordable housing, it's one of the biggest issues that I hear when I canvass our district.

You know, we let you follow that one.

There was a question about how much support you have for Hawaiian homelands and their development of housing.

But also, you know, if you have an open more of an open field, less regulation and so on.

How do you guarantee that, as he's saying, as you say, that it's just not rich people from out of state coming in and buying it and really making it unaffordable for the how do you make it affordable for local people?

Well, as a Republican, one of the things that we believe is that the free market allows people to vote with their money.

Okay, so if you parachute government in, you are now giving government the power to pick winners and losers.

And so, circling back to our discussion about corruption and about moral hazard, the more power that you give government, the more power that you give it to have inequitable outcomes and structural violence.

Now, speaking specifically to the issue of Native Hawaiians, the United States of America has a sacred honor to take care of the Native Hawaiians and to make sure that they are housed.

I think that it is a disgrace that there are so many Hawaiians that are waiting so long that they're dying before even getting a place to live.

I understand that it is important to put them on the Hawaiian homelands, but as somebody who works at the Department of Health, I see it as rather than having them wait and tough it out.

Why don't we just provide housing for them wherever we can right now?

So why can't the government, for example, give them the money that they need to live in a house anywhere else on the island?

In the meantime, while they're waiting for a property on on a on a homestead, I think that we need to stabilize people right now.

And so this is a big issue.

It's something that's complex.

It's something that we as legislators won't be able to solve ourselves.

But I do think that it's important to acknowledge that the Hawaiian people have been left behind.

It is a disgrace.

And something else.

One minute left.

Okay.

Each of you 30s to make your last pitch.

Start with you.

Corey.

30s.

Look, we've seen just in our area alone how important every vote is.

You know, we need people to get involved with the process.

And this is a process that can truly make lives better.

I think there are choices that we're giving people.

I applaud the audience for watching tonight, and I think that I'm just my big message that I always say to my students is every vote counts and please get out and vote.

This election certainly proved that.

30s for you.

Danny deGracia.

Well, I just want to say to the residents of House district 39 that I see you, I hear you.

And help is on the way.

And so we are going to make this work.

I'm not going to do anything without asking your permission.

We're going to work together.

And I just want to pray for everyone and say, May the Lord bless you.

May the Lord make his face shine upon you.

May he be gracious to you and give you peace.

God bless.

Oh, that was sweet.

Sweet.

Thank you.

And one caller did say thanks to PBS for hosting these informative forums, and this has been a very good one.

Thank you.

Yes.

And mahalo to you for joining us tonight.

And we thank our guests, the candidates for state House district 39, Republican Danny deGracia and Democrat Corey Rosenlee.

Next week on insights the race for Maui County Mayor incumbent Richard Bissen came out on top in the August primary but is looking to close the gap before November.

The candidates have had sharply different visions for Maui's future, with housing, wildfire recovery and the cost of living among the key issues.

Please join us then.

I'm Daryl Huff for insights on PBS Hawaiʻi.

Aloha.

Insights on PBS Hawai'i is by Carl Smith Ball.

Aloha State Daily and the University of Hawai'i Cancer Center.