An Open House Seat In Hawaii-- Beware The Fake Progressive

Lobbyist Doug Chin

Whether she wins or loses, the biggest wave from Colleen Hanabusa's decision to primary Governor David Ige is that her plum Honolulu-based House seat (PVI is D+17-- won last year by Clinton 63.1% to 30.5%) came up for grabs. Last year Bernie swept the Democratic caucuses in Hawaii, beating Hillary 23,530 to 10,125 (and out-polling Trump's limp 5,677). It would make sense for the Democrats to run a progressive and not some corporate shill. But... well, you know the Democratic Party.

They have an anti-Trump candidate and they hope they can confuse voters into thinking anti-Trump= progressive. It doesn't. The establishment pick, Attorney General Douglas Chin challenged the Trump travel ban-- a good thing to do-- and got tons of press for it, but Chin was appointed to the job by the governor and he's never run for office before. A not very sterling former lobbyist, if he runs, you can count on lots of heretofore hidden baggage emerging. He was a lobbyist for Wasserman Schultz's favorite private prison racket, Corrections Corporation of America and he worked under Honolulu's throw-away-the-key Republican Mayor Peter Carlisle for years as deputy prosecutor, where he opposed criminal justice reform and added to Hawaii's overcrowded prisons, eventually authorizing a deal to send Hawaii prisoners to a Corrections Corporation of America prison in Arizona. Cozy! As a corporate lawyer for Carlsmith Ball, Chin worked for Wall Street banksters against the legitimate interests of Hawaii's working families, reason enough to oppose his attempt to get into Congress.

This week Karen from Maui wrote at Daily Kos that Chin has "been defending business interests who have violated the law and quite rightly the courts have smacked him down. Don't let his one good act (suing over the Muslim Ban) mislead you into thinking he is not the ultimate corporate tool. He is no progressive. Not even close."

While other states and cities have stood up to ICE, Chin has been more than compliant. in fact, under Chin Hawaii's per capita deportation rate has been the highest in the nation. Meanwhile, he has a well-earned reputation for approving lots and lots of pay-to play sweetheart deals with millionaire developers and contractors.

Doug Chin isn't a progressive, just an anti-Trump Democrat. There will likely be several actual progressives who do run, one of which-- we're hoping-- will be Hawaii's most progressive state legislator, Kaniela Ing. We'll let you know if he decides to jump into the race. One extremely right-wing fake Democrat who is almost certainly running for the seat is the wretched state Sen. Donna Mercado Kim. Two other state senators, Karl Rhoads and Stanley Chang, are also considering the race.