Hawaii People’s Congress 2016

The 2016 Hawaii People’s Congress debuted as a series of “island forums” across the state to gather input on urgent community challenges and possible solutions.  It satisfied the need for activists working on separate islands and in separate issues to work intersectionally, together. Participants could collaborate on cross-issue campaigns from a multi-directional approach, addressing root causes of inequity.

Preparation for People’s Congress began with a series of Island Forums across the state. These forums gathered community input about local and statewide concerns. During the 2016 People’s Congress, over 300 people attended five Island Forums, which then fed into a statewide two-day People’s Congress on O`ahu. An additional 300 people attended the event. 

Examples of People’s Congress panels:

“Toward Solidarity” (a cross-issue panel with leaders from community Alliance on Prisons, Hawaii Teachers for Change, UNITE HERE! Local 5, Immigrant rights, Native Hawaiian Environmental Alliance, the Aloha Aina Project, and Sierra Club Hawaii.)

Youth-led Activism

Affordable Housing Panel

Advocacy and Criminal Justice Reform

“Facing Trump from Margin to Center”

“Inside/Outside”: Strategizing Around Government Politics and Organizing Beyond its Limits

Food Futures

Preferred Futures in Public Education

“The Connecting Thread”: Money in Politics

Economic Justice: Living Wages and Tax Policy

Tactical Organizing Workshop

HAPA engaged over 800 people across the islands to prioritize top policy ideas that emerged from these events. These ideas formed the “People’s Agenda” -- a multi-issue organizing campaign for the 2017/2018 legislative sessions.

Because partners supported each other’s campaigns, People’s Congress Partners saw a dramatic increase in community engagement at the 2017/2018 legislative session, which resulted in many Bills moving forward further than they ever have (i.e. Automatic Voter Registration, Pesticide Disclosure and Buffer Zone Bills, Tax Fairness legislation).

People’s Congress Participants also reported back that their participation led them to testify at the legislature and engage at the County level for the first time. This increased civic engagement led to greater scrutiny on the legislative process, calls for transparency, newspaper articles about secrecy and “backroom dealings”, and public outcry when many progressive bills did not pass.

Unexpected benefits of the project include: The successful “Hawaii Tax Fairness” coalition of HAPA and Appleseed Center for Law and Economic Justice, which was born at the People’s Congress statewide event. This initiative led to passage of a successful Tax Fairness Bill which will put a total $12.7M back into the hands of low-income working families in Hawaii in the form of a state earned income tax credit. Another unexpected benefit was the formation of the “Rally for Common Ground”, which a Kona based HPC participant was inspired to start after her participation with People’s Congress. The organization has begun organizing environmental justice events such as the Kona People’s Climate March and partnering with the Democratic Party of Hawaii Island for a forum event similar to the HPC.