Candidate Q&A: State House District 42 – Anthony Makana Paris

Editor’s note: For Hawaii’s Nov. 5 General Election, Civil Beat asked candidates to answer some questions about where they stand on various issues and what their priorities will be if elected.

The following came from Anthony Makana ParisDemocratic candidate for state House District 42, which covers portions of Varona Village and Ewa, and Kapolei and Fernandez Village. His opponent is Republican Diamond Garcia.

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

1. What is the biggest issue facing your district, and what would you do about it?

Aloha. I’m Anthony Makana Paris. I grew up fishing and farming in West Oahu, attended Nanakuli Elementary and Kamehameha, and was raised in the faith community of St. Rita’s on Hawaiian homelands. I was also houseless for a time, and I know the struggles of living paycheck-to-paycheck.

My mother is a retired janitor and my father is a retired ironworker. Through hard work and community support, I have an MIT engineering degree, a Santa Clara philosophy/theology degree and a JD from UH Richardson School of Law. Our communities raised me and prepared me, and now is my time to serve.

We should leave Hawaii better than we found it. Hawaii is at a crisis point in our history with a high cost of living, lack of affordable housing, record-high condominium insurance fees, grueling traffic and long commutes, rising crime, a shortage of good jobs, food insecurity, aging and insufficient infrastructure , increased frequency and intensity of natural disasters, rising sea levels and a public educational system desperately in need of improvement. The foundation for solutions to all of these problems is adequate, affordable housing for Hawaii’s families.

2. How do you feel about the massive income tax cut just approved by the Legislature and the governor? Do you have any concerns that it will force reductions in state services in the years to come?

The tax cuts for the poor and middle classes were a step in the right direction. However, the tax cuts disproportionately benefited the rich and the state has less to support needed social services and capital improvements and longstanding deferred maintenance projects.

I believe in comprehensive tax reform and using taxpayer dollars wisely. I support a fairer tax code and would explore the following: raising income taxes on the rich, phasing out low tax rates for the rich, raising corporate taxes, making global corporations pay taxes in Hawaii, making real estate investment trusts pay their fair share, having visitors pay their fair share, charging an “empty-homes” surcharge on vacant properties, collecting taxes on responsible adult-use marijuana and suspending any General Excise Tax exemptions that have served their purpose.

I support a tax reform task force to look at a comprehensive tax reform to address taxes and fees at the state and county levels to make Hawaii’s tax code more progressive and worker-friendly to make sure our local families can thrive here in the islands. Part of the tax reform could look at how we can eliminate income tax on the first $100,000 earned (or income tax completely).

3. Hawaii continues to struggle with pay-to-play politics and corruption in government. What meaningful reforms do you think would change state government for the better?

Some changes we should to consider for Hawaii are making legislators a full-time position, extending the legislative session, increasing the partial public financing for campaigns, ranked-choice voting and increasing civic education and civic participation throughout our educational system.

4. Candidates often say they will support reform proposals in the Legislature. And yet major reform proposals don’t pass. Will you back good-government proposals even if it means going against leadership? If you are an incumbent, can you point to an example of a reform that you supported?

Yes.

5. Do you support comprehensive public financing of elections for candidates who choose to participate? Why or why not?

I’m open to exploring comprehensive public financing of elections and believe a good place to start is to increase the partial public financing for campaigns.

6. Hawaii is the only Western state without a statewide citizens initiative process. Do you support such a process? Why or why not?

Since the US Supreme Court has defined money as free speech, I do not believe that a citizens initiative process in today’s day and age would be truly democratic because of unfettered corporate and out-of-state funding. We have seen this play out in California, where millions of dollars are dished out in initiative campaigns.

Unless we can guarantee the equitable distribution of initiative information to our fellow citizens, the wealthy and powerful will always have an advantage in getting their message across and will interfere with local democracy.

If we move forward with a citizens initiative process, I would support the creation of a citizens initiative review commission.

We can model after best practices from other states, including Oregon, where the commission is made up of a random sampling of fellow citizens, similar to a jury, and listens to panels of experts on the pros and cons of the initiative, working in a nonpartisan manner to help voters understand the initiative by crafting an informational brief in plain language for voters.

7. Thanks to their campaign war chests and name familiarity, incumbents are almost always reelected in Hawaii legislative races. Should there be term limits for state legislators, as there are for the governor’s office and county councils? Why or why not?

Yeah. I can understand why people are calling for term limits given government corruption, lack of legislative transparency and the mounting problems our island home faces. To address these concerns, I would support anti-corruption measures including banning donations during legislative sessions, championing initiatives to foster a more educated and engaged citizenry, expanding public financing for candidates and limiting carryover funds between elections.

While I am open to exploring term limits on the higher end as recommended by the Commission to Improve Standards of Conduct, chaired by retired Judge Foley, I would rather focus efforts on better solutions that incentivize legislators to do a better job for the common good and increase civic engagement by the electorate.

According to Professor Anthony Fowler at the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago (Democracy Reform Primer Series):

“Term limits would remove from office high-quality elected officials who the voters like.

“Term limits would reduce the incentives of elected officials to work hard and please the voters.

“Most incumbent success is attributable to the popularity of the candidates, not the institutional advantages of incumbency.

“Empirically, term limits appear to reduce economic growth and increase ideological polarization.”

8. What will you do to ensure accountability at the Legislature? Do you support ideas such as requiring the Sunshine Law to apply to the Legislature or banning campaign contributions during session?

I believe that legislators should work full-time instead of part-time to reduce conflicts of interest and focus on the job of governing while being more available to their constituents. Everyone across the state should have a living wage — including lawmakers.

One job should be enough to live in Hawaii. Constituents should be able to expect their legislators to focus on the public good and not be held to any special interest group because of their need to survive the high cost of living and campaigning in Hawaii.

This would allow regular working people the opportunity to serve as a legislator without expecting them to have to make undue personal and financial sacrifices to be a public servant. An informed electorate will be able to “term limit” any legislator at the polls every election.

9. How would you make the Legislature more transparent and accessible to the public? Opening conference committees to the public? Stricter disclosure requirements on lobbying and lobbyists? How could the Legislature change its own internal rules to be more open?

I support legislative procedures that allow the public to hold legislators accountable and increase legislative transparency. I would expand the Supreme Court’s ban on “gut and replace,” limit the use of conference committee hearings and increase the length of the legislative session.

I also support stricter disclosure requirements on lobbying. Especially with the relatively low amount of money spent on political races in Hawai’i compared to other states, it is important to know exactly where the money for any particular candidate is coming from.

Many times only a few donations can constitute a significant part of a candidate’s war chest, and these donations provide clear impetus for legislators to feel beholden to their supporting interests. The more clearly those interests are disclosed, the more voters can hold their candidates accountable for the money they receive and the votes they make.

10. Many people have talked about diversifying the local economy for many years now, and yet Hawaii is still heavily reliant on tourism. What, if anything, should be done differently about tourism and the economy?

If we invest in our aina and our people first, everything else will follow.

Economically, we must improve Hawaii by investing in history’s greatest economic drivers — home construction, agriculture, education and company renewable energy. And support creativity and innovation.

Our communities have ancestral wisdom and are skilled with formal education and street smarts, ingenuity, and know-how. I can see innovative policies that address food security by supporting vertical farming to maximize growing crops in vertically stacked layers that conserve water on our scarce land base as a part of that solution and a potential export of specialty crops using the empty freight hulls of our airplanes .

We need to look at other industries as well that move Hawaii in a positive direction. For example, we need direct and focused investment in industries that build resilient communities while also building economic opportunities. Following our experience during the pandemic, where I was humbled to work with groups feeding our youth and their families, it is clear that we need significant investment in agriculture and to move away from importing over 80% of our food. We also need to leverage the federal infrastructure funds to build green jobs for our local people.

11. An estimated 60% of Hawaii residents are struggling to get by, a problem that reaches far beyond low-income and into the middle class, which is disappearing. What ideas do you have to help the middle class and working families who are finding it hard to continue to live here?

The Legislature should look at establishing a true living wage and paid family leave; truly universal health care; tax reform to balance the burden for those most at risk, and proactively improving our public resource management to make the state more efficient.

The state has a strong foundation of programs and laws supporting families, but in the current economic environment in Hawaii, the Hawaii Temporary Disability Insurance Law, Hawaii Family Leave Law, Hawaii Prepaid Healthcare Act, and Hawaii Kupuna Caregivers Act are not enough. We must find new policy solutions that work well for our island home.

We need increased revenue, and that means increasing taxes and developing more efficient systems by which we deploy taxpayer dollars. I support tax reform where local families’ taxes are decreased, and taxes are increased on the wealthy and tourists to ensure that they pay their fair share.

Further, efficient public resource management starts with a more modern, transparent procurement process that is integrated across the various state jurisdictions (like the Department of Education and the university system), as well as the counties.