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Incumbent State Senator Donna Ikeda and Republican challenger Sam Slom meet in a head-to-head debate just weeks before the November 1996 election, with no calls taken. The exchange is combative and wide-ranging. On crime, Slom demands harsher sentencing for repeat juvenile offenders; Ikeda defends the legislature's prison investments and funding for the women's facility and Waiawa expansion. On government integrity, Slom invokes the 1996 session's "do nothing" record and presses Ikeda on High 3 pension privileges for legislators; Ikeda counters she passed a bill to abolish High 3 and won nine Senate votes for a constitutional amendment on same-sex marriage. The sharpest clash comes on taxes: Slom argues Hawaii ranks among the three highest-tax states and proposes cutting the general excise and personal income taxes; Ikeda asks how education and public safety would then be funded. Slom cites a privately-built Kihei elementary school that opened two months early and $2 million under budget as evidence private-sector solutions outperform the status quo. Slom supports term limits and statewide initiative and referendum; Ikeda opposes term limits, arguing accountability comes through elections.
Transcript
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Companion newspaper commentaries
Commentaries by the guests, published in The Honolulu Advertiser around the broadcast.
