Grassroot Institute of Hawai’i / Jamie Story hasn’t been in Honolulu very long–she moved here from Texas six months ago to take the helm at the Grassroot Institute of Hawai’i–but she’s already making plenty of waves. The right-leaning organization has been filling newsroom fax machines and in-boxes with a flurry of reports on the con-con, taxes, the Akaka bill and other policy questions. A report on the economic status of Hawaiians caught our eye, and we recently caught up with Story via telephone.

How are you liking Hawai’i so far? Any first impressions?

I love it. It hasn’t been too huge of an adjustment for me, actually. Texans are known for our Southern hospitality, and people here have been– with a couple of political exceptions, but for the most part–very welcoming. They hug you when meeting you for the first time, and that’s kind of what I’m used to. People at the restaurant or the grocery store say hello or aloha or whatever it may be.

Tell us about the Grassroot Institute. Is it a policy organization or a political advocacy group?

We’re strictly policy. We’re a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, so we have to be very careful about lobbying. Our focus is getting good research and information out there so that citizens and policymakers can decide for themselves. We’re trying to grow our staff and work on issues beyond the ones people most associate us with, which are the Akaka Bill and rail–into things like taxes and spending, government transparency in general. Eventually we’d like to move into environmental issues, health care…I have a long list. Our core principles are limited government, individual liberty and free markets.

You’ve released a report on the cost of the proposed constitutional convention, to the effect that it costs less than a legislative session…what’s the significance of that?

What we learned, through our government transparency initative, is that the Hawai’i State Legislature is the only one in the country that does not use fiscal notes when looking at legislation. All other legislatures as well as the U.S. Congress use them–they’re not called fiscal notes everywhere, but it’s the same idea–to inform legislators about what the bill’s fiscal impact will be on taxpayers. Lawmakers are then able to make an educated decision about how much money they’re spending. Here, they’re voting on bills without knowing how much they’ll cost. So now they’ve commissioned a study on the cost of the con-con. When it comes to a con-con that will give more power to the citizens, suddenly they care how much it costs!

And it turns out that what the Legislature spends every session is almost equal to the highest estimate of what the con-con will cost.

You recently released a report on Native Hawaiians. It seems to say that once we remove all the reasons why Hawaiians aren’t doing as well as everyone else–education, wages, health, etc.,–then they are doing as well as everyone else. It’s hard to understand the significance of that observation.

Forget wages. Just looking at the ages of native Hawaiians. Ignoring education, if you look at age and how Hawaiians of a given age are doing economically compared to everyone else, they’re doing as well. At actual income levels, that is when we looked at education, a college graduate who is native Hawaiian is making the same as a college graduate of any race. Of course, education levels are lower, so we need to raise educational achievement levels for everyone…

It seems like we should focus on how to raise them for Hawaiians, since that’s the issue at hand in the report.

I would guess that if we looked at natives and the schools they’re in, there’s more of a correleation between types of schools than just their race. We don’t need to just say let’s have native Hawaiians go to better schools… let’s have everyone go to better schools.

Do you think there’s any value in talking specifically about Hawaiians as a people or a culture?

I think there is value in it. I think, to be more accurate, we need to define Native Hawaiians the same way we define other ethnic groups. If someone is 95 percent something else and 5 percent native Hawaiian, they don’t need to be lumped into native Hawaiian groups.

If we did that, we might find that the more racially Hawaiian you are, the more likely you are to face economic hardship.

That’s possible, but we don’t know that.

If, as your group says, Hawaiians are doing as well economically as anyone else, where does the perception come from that they aren’t?

I think that’s kind of OHA’s [Office of Hawaiian Affairs] message. OHA would not be in operation if that weren’t the perception. We’ll be coming out with a paper on positive alternatives to the Akaka bill and to the way OHA is run right now. The way the bill is written is vague, it doesn’t actually say how it would help Native Hawaiians or anyone else. We’re going to put forward positive solutions… some of them have to do with property rights–don’t stick people on land they don’t own. Give them some land. That’s the fundamental requirement of capitalism and the American way.

Also, we have one of the highest proportions of private school attendance in the country. Who gets to go to them? Rich people. And it’s worse in Hawai’i, because on the mainland you can switch school districts and here you can’t. It just shocks me that people who claim to be interested in social justice and equal rights somehow let kids languish in poor-performing public schools. That’s the biggest social injustice in America and the biggest driver of income disparity.

OK, but public schools are also one of the fundamental institutions that took a nation of immigrants and turned them into Americans.

That’s what we’re led to believe. But when people settled this country, there were not government schools…

No, but they became very important in the late 19th century in creating a common democratic language.

But it’s not as old of an institution as you would think. I think part of the problem is that schools have gotten worse, and the people who are making decisions can’t identify with how bad they now are.

I know that some people have an emotional attachment to public schools, but I see that across the country the dropout rate is 50 percent in urban areas. What is there to be attached to? That’s actually one of our goals–not to beat up on the teachers, principals, kids or parents. Those people are well-intentioned and are trying to do the right thing. The problem is the system, and we want to help provide solutions.

As a recent transplant, do you ever wonder whether you have enough of an understanding of Hawai’i? You’re jumping in on some fundamental questions and issues here.

I’ve tried to come in with a humble, open attitude. I’ve been doing a lot of listening. Economics, education, fiscal issues, taxation and spending…I think those issues are simple to grasp, and I feel confident in writing and speaking about them. I’m not as articulate on native Hawaiian issues. Our board members and donors feels a certain way about native Hawaiian issues, and I’m trying to read and learn, because it’s not straightforward, these are not black and white issues. For now, I defer to experts, I go in and visit with different legislators, asking them what they think and hearing what they have to say. I’m really excited about government transparency… it’s so nonpartisan. Lawmakers may not really want things to be more transparent, but everybody else wants to know how their money is being spent.