While House Speaker Scott Saiki and his leadership faction will claim the credit, this group has actually been the greatest impediment to increasing the minimum wage and denying workers a pay increase over the past four years.

While they publicly have professed support, Saiki and his team have effectively blocked all increases that have been proposed and supported by the Senate, year after year.

This year is different because each and every legislator is up for reelection. With few exceptions, each and every legislator wants to keep their job. It’s a natural impulse, and not inherently a bad thing.

Speaker Saiki came within 167 votes of losing his 2020 reelection to Kim Coco Iwamoto, who is challenging him again this year. Iwamoto made Saiki’s failure to increase the minimum wage and his lack of support for working people a primary pillar of her campaign.

We need change-makers, not just placeholders. We shouldn’t have to bludgeon our lawmakers with daily onslaughts of email and phone calls just to get them to move off the dime and do the right thing.