It takes Hawaiʻi state lawmakers 60 days to complete a legislative session, but high school students go through the entire process in one week.
For the first time in more than 20 years, the Office of Hawaiian Affairs’ ʻAha ʻŌpio program let 38 Native Hawaiian teenagers from Hawai‘i and the continental U.S. play lawmakers last week at the state Capitol.
Participants drafted bills, discussed them in committee, then gathered in the House chamber to debate and vote on measures.
There were robust conversations on military leases, invasive species, incarceration and voting, and one controversial mock bill even caused a heated debate among student delegates.
It was a proposal that would lower the legal age to buy vapes from 21 to 18 and put a 0% wholesale tax.
Although its introducers fought to keep it alive, the bill met with dissent in the mock House chamber.
“There's this thing called addiction,” one student lawmaker said in opposition.
Another student, who was serving as committee chair, critiqued the bill’s language.
“We noticed multiple grammar mistakes and not concise information in your bill,” they said.
“Do we want to be supporting vape shops?” another added.
This is the type of civic engagement that the ʻAha ʻŌpio o OHA program was designed to encourage, according to program consultant Kamele Kapaona. She is also an ʻAha ʻŌpio alumna and the niece of Rona Rodenhurst, who championed the program in 1988. Rodenhurst worked as OHA's education division director and saw the need for Native Hawaiian participation in politics.
Kapaona said she was inspired to see that the students were talking passionately about land and water rights, as well as incarceration. Kapaona said her aunt was intentional about ensuring that Native Hawaiians had a voice on those issues in the Legislature.
“Do I have hope for them? One hundred percent,” she said.
After its creation in 1988, ʻAha ʻŌpio drew hundreds of Native Hawaiian students from across Hawai‘i and the continent. But OHA phased out the program in 2004, partly due to budget changes.
The program has been credited with jumpstarting political careers. Last year, OHA Board Chair Kai Kahele, who is an alumnus of ʻAha ʻŌpio, and OHA trustee Kalei Akaka, the granddaughter of the late U.S. Sen. Daniel Akaka, pushed for reviving the program.
OHA approved $200,000 to cover travel expenses for students from neighboring islands. In addition, that money compensates 20 staffers who run the program.
This year, there were 60 applicants for the program. Only 42 were accepted and 38 actually participated. While the largest share of delegates came from Oʻahu, neighbor island students had a strong presence: Four came from Hilo, four from Kona, two from Maui, and one each from Molokaʻi and Kauaʻi. Other student delegates came from Texas, Washington state and Oregon.
“ʻAha ʻŌpio is not simply a mock Legislature,” Kahele said during a Thursday OHA board meeting. “It is a culturally grounded leadership experience. It invites our young people to see civic engagement as an expression of kuleana, a way to serve lāhui, protect 'āina, honor kūpuna, and contribute to the future well-being of Native Hawaiians.”
Going through the process
In previous years, there were enough students to create Senate and House chambers. However, this year there were only enough participants to fill the House of Representatives, so ʻAha ʻŌpio officials limited the program to one chamber.
The program simulates how measures move through the House. Bills go through multiple rounds of committee hearings and floor votes in front of the whole assembly.
Students also got hands-on experience with how drastically a bill can change during that process.
Kahi‘ilani Zoller, one of the student delegates from Kapolei on O‘ahu, said the girls in the program wanted to have some fun and create political drama similar to what’s reported in the news. That quickly escalated to a lesson that committee chairs can have influence on bills and how passionate her fellow delegates can be in defending their measures.
“It’s so crazy that that’s literally what you can do with a bill,” Zoller said. “That you can literally amend it, and there was a possibility it could have passed, even as a joke.”
Zoller had to make tough decisions on whether to pass or kill a bill and questioned other student representatives on the intent of their proposals.
One bill that didn’t pass the mock Legislature would allow incarcerated youth going through the juvenile justice process to do 'āina-based community service.
“I had to keep on asking the author of the bill, ‘What do you mean by that? No, it can't just be up to the discretion of people. No, you have to be specific,’” she said. “Because when you're not specific with your bills, then it can just be interpreted anyway.”
She smiled as she looked at her fellow student representative while apologizing for voting to kill his mock bill to streamline military and local cooperation during an emergency.
Zoller said the program helped her consider whether to go into politics. She recently graduated from Kamehameha Schools and will attend Chapman University in California later this year.
“I realized how emotional the environment can become, because obviously everybody in there that proposed their bills have worked so hard trying to advocate for the issues,” she said. “But it is really just a matter of how everybody else interprets it.”
Makoa Womble is a student delegate from Texas. He said the program taught him about hearing various perspectives since he traveled from a Republican state to a Democratic state.
He said he’s considered getting into politics, but he’s now leaning away from it.
“I’m not big into the nitty gritty of politics because it can get really dirty at times, and that’s not how I want to play the game.”
It’s a small world, after all
Some of the participants this year are relatives of current and former Hawai‘i politicians. One is the granddaughter of the late Honolulu Mayor Frank Fasi and another is the daughter of Rep. Ikaika Hussey.
Wehena Hussey-Townsend, who is from Kalihi and was the vice speaker of the mock legislative session, said she drew inspiration from her dad.
“He represents a community that is usually underrepresented, especially in large bodies of government,” she said.
House Speaker Rilynn Perez is from Wai‘anae and is also the grandniece of one of the founders of ʻAha ʻŌpio.
Perez and Hussey-Townsend said they found out during the program that they’re also related. Their genealogies trace back to Kohala on Hawai‘i Island.
They both said they felt the weight of representing where they come from and their communities in the Legislature.
Out of 51 lawmakers in the Hawai‘i House of Representatives, only 11 members identify as Native Hawaiian.
“As Native Hawaiians, I feel like we are very underlooked, but we’re at the point of time where we’re able to be out there sharing our opinions, voice what we feel and carry that knowledge of our kūpuna,” Perez said.
‘Don’t ever give up, if it’s a great idea’
On the last day of the mock legislative session, family and friends gathered to watch how the delegates pushed for bills to become laws. Their methods were occasionally unconventional — some delegates settled their disputes through a dance battle.
House Speaker Nadine Nakamura gave a speech to the student delegation with words of encouragement: “Don’t ever give up, if it's a great idea.”
She said many bills took years to become law. For example, it took the compassionate care bill for people to die with dignity 20 years to pass, and the medical marijuana bill took 10 years to pass.
“We tell our members, many of them will come and cry to me at the end of session when their bills have been killed by the Senate, … don’t give up,” Nakamura said. “Find out from that senator who killed your bill what was the problem with that, and I think that it's a message we all learn to live with in our lives.”
When Kapaona went through the program, she introduced a bill on sovereignty that died. She said it was tough back then, because the delegation didn’t have the internet to help them research. This delegation has access to information on demand.
She said her aunt would be proud and would hope that the program continues for years to come.
“I don't know of a program like this. I really don't, especially with all Native Hawaiian students,” Kapaona said.
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