Civil Beat’s Nick Grube took a devastating look yesterday at US Representative Kai Kahele’s absence from Washington, where the work of Congress is being done without him (“Has US Rep. Kai Kahele Given Up On Washington?“).
Grube reminds readers of the irony of one of Kahele’s central campaign themes in his successful 2020 run against then Rep. Tulsi Gabbard.
“What Hawaii needs is a full time representative in Congress who will show up and whose sole focus is fighting on behalf of the people of the 2nd Congressional District,” Kahele said. “That’s the message I will be bringing to the people of Hawaii.”
But instead, Kahele quickly turned his back on that pledge.
Kahele’s absence has not gone unnoticed, according to two Washington-based lobbyists who spoke to Civil Beat on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to do so by their firms.
Congress is now in the middle of appropriations season and members are crafting their requests for federal dollars.
The lobbyists said Kahele’s office has been slow to seek these requests for the upcoming year when compared to other members, including Case, who sits on the Appropriations Committee.
There are also concerns that Kahele is not fully engaged with his committees, which oversee transportation and the military, two critical topics for Hawaii, and that his office has done little to pick up the slack for him while he’s been gone.
Both lobbyists used the same word to describe the response coming out of Kahele’s office when it comes to scheduling meetings or discussing major policy initiatives, such as the National Defense Authorization Act that sets the policy agenda for the U.S. military — “Crickets.”
“This is a significant departure from how they operated in the past,” one of the lobbyists said. “The office always had a work ethic, but it’s obvious that they decided not to show up anymore.”
The story was quickly picked up by the NY Post (“Hawaii Democratic rep avoids DC votes to fly commercial planes: report“), Politico (“Kai Kahele is still a pilot on “occasional flights” for Hawaiian Airlines while a member of Congress“), and the Washington Examiner (“Democratic Rep. Kai Kahele of Hawaii has not voted in person since January“). [Sorry for the confusion with the NY Post link…it should be fixed now.]
This is priceless material for opposition researchers in the event Kahele does end up making a gubernatorial bid.
But with the primary just four months away, and three top tier Democratic candidates already in the race, it gets harder and harder to take the “talk” of a “possible” run seriously.
In a Facebook post, a Kahele defender made the opposite case.
Personally, I’d rather have my elected officials home in the district & voting by proxy. This article basically interviews two national defense industry lobbyists who are shaming him for not spending his time chatting with them in DC. They’re not his constituents, he doesn’t owe them anything. “Look at him, spending time with farmers on the big island when he was supposed to be at Biden’s State of The Union” (a largely ceremonial speech that’s recorded and broadcast online so he can watch anytime).”
The problem with this view is that, like it or not, Congressional politics takes place in Congress. Individual members of congress can’t successfully press Hawaii’s interests by holding photo ops here in Hawaii. It takes the work of building relationships there in Congress to move legislation that will benefit Hawaii. This can’t be done solo. This was the job he signed up for and pledged to do for us. And apparently is not doing.
No, Kahele doesn’t “owe” the lobbyists quoted in the story anything. But he’s not just stiffing the “defense industry lobbyists.” There are a lot of public interest lobbyists, including those pressing Hawaii issues at the federal level, who he is also letting down by his absence. His constituents have been essentially left unrepresented.
If he wanted to run for governor this year, he should have followed the example of Neil Abercrombie, who resigned his seat in Congress at the beginning of January 2010 in order to run for governor. He didn’t pretend to be representing Hawaii in Washington while actually campaigning at home.
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People need to smarten up and vote a lot more wisely than we’ve seen in the 2nd in recent years. This is much worse than an embarrassment, but embarrassment it is.
Sadly it’s no surprise that ‘gut & replace’ Kahele is absent from Congress. He was all about representing K?naka but it’s not happening.
Kai Kahele has been exposed as a thoroughly untrustworthy character.
He has broken his promises to Hawaii’s people and has shown his true colors. Kai was insane to think this wouldn’t be exposed sooner or later– all while basically campaigning to run for governor back home?
Terrible, terrible, terrible, and it’s the people of Hawaii who truly lose.
What’s funny is I wouldn’t think he has a snowball’s chance of winning the guv this time around BUT he’s really tanked it for the future as well!
Using federal campaign dollars for a statewide campaign must be a violation.
And instead of doing his job in DC like he was elected to do, Kai is campaigning with tax payer dollars. Ai ya.
Just another crook.
Dang, you had me in agreement until the Abecrombie part (sorry, I’m NOT a fan). Kahele has also shown that he is bought and owned by the Unions. In fact, his PR “stunt” to bring back the “sacred” Makua Valley to the State is just a ploy to get housing built for the Carpenter Union’s interests. Pilau!! The sad part is that People, historically, in Hawaii don’t compare candidates on ideological grounds like other places…we vote on those that pretend to act “humble” along ethnic lines, and play the “local” part.
TERM LIMITS for Congrass and our state legislature. Thats the Big fix we need. I really like Kahale, Especially about Safely shutting down the Red Hill Fuel tanks but when you take a job finsih it. Huge costs to taxpayers from these Job Jumpers.
Finish your term, or Cleanly Resign.
Using public funds for personal gains/profits all while abandoning the people who elected him?! This is the fifth time this week Kahele has been on the news for work ethic violations/complaints and I am just over it. Probably the most disappointing politician I’ve ever seen. Had high hopes for him, but now I know… NEVER voting for him again
It only gets worse. Just found in Ethics violation, Senator Jarrett Keohokalole, has pulled papers for Kahele’s replacement.
Oddly, Sen. Keohokalole, is diametrically opposed to Kahele on the key issue of TMT on Mauna Kea.
We don’t need anyone, we can all vote from home on legislation. The legislature is no longer representative, nor useful!
Glad I don’t live in that congressional district because I sure as heck would NOT vote for Mister “I accidentally mis-deposited public money into my personal account” should he be chosen as the Dem party’s boy to run with.
The whole situation with Kahele is perplexing.
Even before this latest round of bad publicity, he would face a steep uphill battle in the race for governor, especially by jumping in the race so late and after big money has been spread around and key unions have already made endorsements.
But he could function as an effective spoiler by targeting fellow Big Island politico Josh Green, the presumed front-runner, damaging Green and splitting the vote in a way that could push another candidate past Green.
So it begs the question of whether Kahele would willingly play the role of spoiler in exchange for some promised perk from a winner other than Green, owes somebody a big political favor, was made an offer he couldn’t refuse, or is being encouraged to run by folks who need a spoiler and doesn’t realize he’s being manipulated for that purpose.
But even those scenarios seem far-fetched, with Green seeming to be so far out in front and his declared opponents so weak.
This is all just speculation, but one can’t help but wonder what’s going on.
ANYone but Caldwell. ANYONE but Caldwell.
Surprising take you took on this Ian, especially given how deep you typically dive into things. This example of slapstick journalism from Grube & published by Civil Beat is also disappointing.
Should Kahele directly address the issues raised? Absolutely. But the facts as they stand today are that he was actually “present” for more votes than more than half of his House colleagues, including Rep. Case…which doesn’t square with reality or your assertion that “Congressional politics MUST take place in Congress” when there’s no real evidence thus far to substantiate he is not working, beyond specious supposition.
Also, Grube & CB doubling down on dubious allegations of unethical conduct related to his work for HawaiianAir or service in our armed forces, similarly have absolutely (as yet) no basis in fact. Something smells pilau here, and it’s not proxy voting or standard financial disclosures.
Kahele emphasizes his Hawaiian background, but he is a lieutenant colonel in the US military. This also seems true of his closest advisors, who are Hawaiians with high levels of education. They have Hawaiian names and are involved in Hawaiian issues, but they seem like typical ambitious Americans. Politics seems to be the career path they chose because it seemed like a good idea at the time. But this career path of emphasizing one’s Hawaiianness has been shrinking for years. They seem just as talented as the Asian core of the local Democratic Party (in fact, they might be better). But they are outsiders and so they play the Hawaiian card, even though they are really mainstream as individuals.