I was happy to see Richard Borreca’s Starbulletin December 6, 2009 article on Senator Nadao “Najo” Yoshinaga, a hero and mentor to me. His influence on Hawaii is seen all around us in the laws, buildings, and his many proteges active in business, politics, and community organizations. I may be the last and youngest of his long line of proteges, which spans three generations. Whenever I see him, I am honored to receive his advice.
In his twenty years in politics, he played a key role in creating the Hawaii Prepaid Health program, Commission on the Status of Women, equal rights and workers’ rights laws, and numerous capital improvement projects to name a few. His advice to me in the last seven plus years is mainly in economic development. He tells me that we must strengthen Hawaii’s technology and science industries and ensure Hawaii grows its own food and develops its own energy. He even brought Enterprise Honolulu’s CEO to my office a year ago to bounce ideas between the three of us. The beat of our drums on these important issues are in sync, and I even dedicated bill to Senator Yoshinaga and mentioned him in one of my speeches on the floor of the House of Representatives in 2006.
Also, Senator Yoshinaga fills a void in my life since I have lost all my grandparents, the last was grandma Bessie Karamatsu in 2006 who’s husband, my grandpa Maurice Karamatsu was a friend to him.
Senator Yoshinaga tells me, “I can’t do much now. Oh boy, my eyes are bad. I have a hard time hearing. I have some pain in my joints. But I pray for you.” His words of advice and his energy is all that I need to motivate me to work hard like how he did when he was in politics. Someday when I am in my senior years, I hope to be like him and guide a young leader hungry to make a difference in the world. I will tell this young person my experiences in politics, and all the stories of the leaders before me, especially how I got to be friends with Senator “Najo” Yoshinaga.
I’d like to close with a statement Senator Yoshinaga often tells me, “Make Hawaii the best place in the world!”
– Rep. Jon Riki Karamatsu –
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WHATEVER HAPPENED TO
Political mastermind Yoshinaga cheers Obama’s health care plan
By Richard Borreca
POSTED: 01:30 a.m. HST, Dec 06, 2009
QUESTION: With all the talk about national health care, whatever happened to Nadao Yoshinaga? Wasn’t he the one who pushed Hawaii’s health care plans through the state Legislature?
ANSWER: Called a “cultural icon” and one of the state Legislature’s “most skilled backroom operators,” former Sen. Nadao “Najo” Yoshinaga steered health care and environmental protection legislation into law during his 20 years as a legislator.
He still visits the state Capitol once a week, although he retired from the Senate in 1974.
Yoshinaga is best known for the work done in 1967 to push a series of studies on temporary disability insurance and a universal employer-based health care system. The studies formed the basis for the 1974 Prepaid Health Care.
“The act was largely the product of Nadao Yoshinaga, a powerful state senator from Oahu and a primary spokesperson for a Hawaiian style of social welfare liberalism,” said University of Hawaii political scientist Deane Neubauer in a study of Hawaii health care.
Today, Yoshinaga is cheering the efforts by President Barack Obama to push legislation for a national health care plan.
“Now is the time that we have come the closest to convincing the American people we should have a stronger plan,” Yoshinaga says.
Yoshinaga, who helped bring labor, especially the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, to support former Gov. John Waihee in his first gubernatorial election, had been an ally of Hawaii’s first Democratic governor, John Burns.
Burns, Yoshinaga says, still rates as Hawaii’s best governor.
“We should continue the idea that no matter how small a state or how poor or far away, we can still be the greatest place to work and live and retire and visit,” Yoshinaga says.
Yoshinaga’s daughter, Susan, says her father, who celebrated his 90th birthday in August, is “doing quite well.”
“He keeps a full schedule, exercises daily and goes to the Capitol. He will always be very interested in politics,” she said.
Harold Masumoto, who worked for Yoshinaga while the former labor lawyer was in the Legislature, says Yoshinaga was one of Hawaii’s liberal leaders.
“He was a thinker and visionary. He never got full credit because he was the guy behind the scenes, but he was the one who pushed the new Hawaii,” Masumoto said.
JON RIKI KARAMATSU 