Hawaii Lawmakers Are Usually a Cautious Bunch, But The New Governor Wants Action 0 Gov. Josh Green is expected to push hard for his agenda, and may make an appeal to the public if his proposals stall at the Legislature. But lawmakers have their own plans.

A new session of the Legislature will convene on Wednesday with an entirely new dynamic between lawmakers and the state’s chief executive, and it could be quite a show.

Emboldened lawmakers who are accustomed to the unassuming style of former Gov. David Ige are about to mix it up with a new governor known for making his pitches directly to the public. Gov. Josh Green is no Ige, and he appears to be already advancing his political agenda without worrying too much about what the other players think.

And state lawmakers have already begun to push back.

In the run-up to the 2022 gubernatorial campaign, then-Lt. Gov. Green made himself famous with his regular briefings on the pandemic. Those updates were reassuring to a worried public, but sometimes annoyed insiders when Green openly disagreed with administration policy, or happily released information that Ige and the county mayors weren’t quite ready to announce.

It was a wildly successful tactic for Green, who is a physician, and it attracted gobs of media attention. The briefings proved to be a major boost for his successful campaign for governor, and also illustrated Green’s penchant for throwing elbows in the political realm.

Hawaii Lawmakers Are Usually A Cautious Bunch, But The New Governor Wants Action