Council’s 5-4 majority-minority split reflects ‘deeply divided electorate’

Just three meetings into the new year, the Maui County Council’s five-member majority has shown its upper hand, with minority members chafing at being on the losing end of 5-4 votes in contested issues on the Council floor.

The majority’s dominance is evident from its members taking plum leadership positions, led by veteran Council Member Alice Lee as chair and Yuki Lei Sugimura as vice chair and chair of the Budget, Finance and Economic Development Committee. Majority Council Members Tasha Kama, Nohelani Uʻu-Hodgins and Tom Cook also chair influential committees, and stick together with Lee and Sugimura to steer the Council’s policy-making, at least so far.

However, the narrow winning margins for many majority members during the Nov. 5 General Election point to a conflicted electorate. The four-member “progressive” minority collectively performed better at the polls, with three out of four pulling more than 50% of ballots. Only majority member Sugimura managed to hit 50%, with the other four taking between 41% and 45% of votes cast in their respective races.

According to the General Election results from the Hawaiʻi Office of Elections, the four minority members — Tamara Paltin, Shane Sinenci, Gabe Johnson and Keani Rawlins-Fernandez — had an average margin of victory of 23 percentage points, more than 13 points higher than the 9.68 percentage point average for the majority members. Notably, Paltin won by 31 percentage points, while Cook eked out a razor-thin, 97-vote victory, just 0.2 percentage point more than former Council Member Kelly King, a progressive.

Political analyst Colin Moore, an author and associate professor in the University of Hawaiʻi School of Communication and Information, noted that the slim margins are indicative of a divided electorate, not a political mandate.

“These results point to a contested political landscape rather than a strong endorsement of any single vision for Maui County’s future,” Moore said.

“While a win is a win, margins like these don’t constitute a clear mandate,” he said. “Instead, they indicate a deeply divided electorate that shows significant support for both progressives and the pro-business majority. Given the long-standing polarization in Maui politics, it’s not surprising that several of the races were so close.”

Moore suggested that “the governing majority should tread carefully if they want to stay a majority. Governing with an eye toward inclusivity and compromise, rather than dominance, will probably be essential for the majority to maintain credibility and stability over the next two years.”

Lee acknowledged a changing national political landscape, and, “on that level, the progressives have lost their dominance.” She added that she thinks Maui County voters will follow.

“On the local level, we tend to be a couple of years behind national trends,” she said. “I think it would be helpful if people would just lean more to the middle when deciding on an issue because then they would have a better vantage point to see both sides.”

“In Maui County, the five in the majority would be considered moderate Democrats, and the other four liberal Democrats,” Lee said. She said Council members have more in common ideologically than not.

“Basically, we are all Democrats,” she said. “Remember, I was elected Chair unanimously, except when Kelly King was ‘overthrown’ by her own people, the vote was 7-2 in my favor. Subsequently, my colleagues voted for me not because they agree with me on all issues; they voted for me because they knew they could trust that I would be fair and objective with the oversight of the operations of the Legislative Branch.”

Meanwhile, Paltin chairs the Disaster Recovery, International Affairs and Planning Committee, which was given more purview with oversight of the wildfire recovery, increasing affordable housing availability and General Plan processing during the Council’s Jan. 2 organizational meeting.

When asked to comment on Moore’s observations, Paltin said she agrees.

“I think we really need to focus on what is in the best interests of our residents, not corporations or foreign investors,” she said. “I do realize that what each member truly believes is in the best interest of our residents may not be the same; there is a lot to be gained by taking the time to hear each other out and making compromise.”

She added: “I admit it’s not always something I’m good at doing, but in the interest of better serving my community I am willing to try harder, although there are certain ethical issues that cannot be compromised.”

Rawlins-Fernandez said: “Describing the Council majority as ‘pro-business’ would mislead one to believe that the division is between informed voters who are pro-business and progressive, when really, the division is between working-class voters and multibillion-dollar corporations, equity firms and other investors.”

She said that, while she agrees with Moore’s political analysis, “the glaringly neglected pieces are the class analysis and the millions of dollars flooded to influence our elections and council members’ votes.” 

Rawlins-Fernandez said the Council is off to a poor start in terms of setting a tone of trust and collaboration among all Council members that would help with the efficiency and quality of the their legislative work.

“We were off to a rocky term on day one, as the majority exercised a show of solidarity against fair proposals that would have signaled camaraderie and equity in division of responsibility for important legislative work for critical issues such as housing, land use, water and fiscal policy,” she said.

“Many of the Council Rules that maximized transparency, inclusion and fairness were removed,” Rawlins-Fernandez said, and she expressed concern about the Council’s ability, as a legislative body under majority control, to address issues that have historically divided our community, “such as luxury development, extractive tourism practices, protecting water as public trust resource and pesticide use on County land.”

“Four votes is not enough to protect the public’s interest,” she said. “We must call on the public to help us for the next two years.”

Sugimura said Council members need to work together to find solutions for Maui County. “Housing, water, houseless, jobs, culture, and economic development all meet the diverse discussion,” she said.

Lee said all nine Council members have nearly the same values, but they have different ways of seeking goals and objectives.

“For instance, I have always been a pragmatist, a realist,” she said. “No matter how much criticism and mistruths are thrown at me, I will not cave when I know that whatever I am being pressured to do is not good for the County.”

Lee said the County’s budget is finite and its resources inadequate.

“The demands placed on the County far outweigh what we can reasonably address or accomplish,” she said. “We need to prioritize our tasks and have the discipline, tenacity and courage to complete what we set out to do in a timely manner. It’s better to succeed with 10 tasks than to flounder on 100.”

Looking ahead two years to the next General Election, Moore said the Council majority has “some breathing room” for a while, but “Maui progressives are organized and engaged.”

Also, the next election will be a midterm, a non-presidential election, and that could mean that incumbents who earned narrow victories in 2024 might be even more vulnerable to well-organized opposition in 2026, Moore said.