WAILUKU — Hawaii U.S. Rep. Jill Tokuda felt both “frustration” and “magic” in those first few days on the House floor in Washington D.C.

The freshman Democratic representative, whose 2nd Congressional District includes Maui County, came face-to-face with the struggle representatives will endure to get legislation passed in a bitterly divided House, as Republicans, who are splintered themselves, enjoy a slim majority over the Democrats but still struggled to elect a speaker.

“There was a point after the first couple of votes of just frustration. It was very frustrating, more so for myself, we couldn’t move officially on anything,” Tokuda said last week in an interview on Maui, where she visited after attending the opening of the state Legislature.

After four days and a marathon 15 votes, after which Republican Rep. Kevin McCarthy was elected speaker, “the leis weren’t fresh” and Tokuda’s husband and two sons, along with other family and friends who’d come for her swearing-in, had left D.C.

Her loved ones “tried to wait, but couldn’t,” she said, noting this also was the case for other representatives.

“That was hard and frustrating, but more so, too, is the realization that is this what every vote is going to be like, that contentious?” Tokuda said.

But, “even though it was crazy, there was magic in going down to the floor with your card and being able to vote, literally you put your card in and you press it to say you are present,” she recalled of the speaker voting process.

Tokuda, a former longtime state senator from Kaneohe, Oahu, was elected last fall to the House seat that covers rural Oahu and the Neighbor Islands. The seat was vacated by Kai Kahele, who left to run unsuccessfully for Hawaii governor.

Tokuda has also previously served as executive director of the Nisei Veterans Memorial Center on Maui.

In speaking to constituents, Tokuda said that Maui residents overall say, “we want a shot.”

This means having housing they can afford and not just living paycheck to paycheck.

Tokuda said community concerns she wants to work on include water access, wastewater, the axis deer problem and erosion due to climate change.

On Thursday, Tokuda announced she had been appointed to the House Committee on Agriculture, a panel she had wanted to sit on as there are opportunities to help smaller communities like Maui through the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s rural development programs.

Prior to being appointed, Tokuda told The Maui News she wanted to work on the reauthorization of the Farm Bill, which happens every five years. She said this is one of the bills with which “we can create opportunities to do write-ins for Hawaii.”

She said that these “big bills” come up regularly. While portions of the bills remain the same, they allow opportunities for subsidies, such as for farmers, along with costs for housing and transportation.

In her announcement, Tokuda said she looks to “ensure that we are both well-represented” and we will “get our fair share” when it comes to various programs and funding.

She said this includes rural housing programs, support for renewable energy systems, defending and protecting food nutrition programs, helping producers combat drastic changes in weather patterns and climate along with addressing the impacts of invasive species and also supporting specialty crops such as macadamia nut, coffee, cacao and tropical flowers.

“The decisions made in the 2023 Farm Bill will impact Hawaii’s agriculture producers, workers, and families for years to come,” Tokuda said in a news release.

On Friday, Tokuda announced she had also been appointed to the Armed Services Committee.

Besides sitting on committees and introducing legislation, Tokuda said there are many ways to get things done in Congress.

“There are more ways that you can accomplish what you want than just introducing a bill,” she said. “That is just one pathway. There are so many others.”

She also plans to sit down with federal agencies and discuss how they both can find solutions or come to agreements on issues affecting Hawaii.

Since representatives were sworn in later than usual due to the House speaker vote, Tokuda said she could not immediately set up meetings with cabinet members or agencies, nor could she query them for information during her first week.

Tokuda, who was finally sworn in Jan. 7, said she will also reach out to Republicans to get initiatives across.

“We are not going to get anything done unless we cross the aisle and work tougher. I mean, there’s not enough of a solid number on either side that agrees, quite frankly. So a lot of crossing the aisle and working together has to happen if we are going to serve our people,” she said.

When it comes to bipartisanship, Tokuda added that her and her team’s approach is: “For the things we want to do for the people of Maui and for our constituents across the state, where do we find like-minded partners across the aisle, that need to do the same thing for their community?”

“And we think of everything from child care to preschool,” she said. “We are not the only small community that struggles with the fact that only 50 percent of our kids go to preschool, and more and more across the aisle they are seeing the impacts on workplace and the need for child care and preschool and supporting that workforce. So how do we reach across the aisle and partner together on bipartisan bills?”

Even the issues that hit Hawaii the hardest will likely have some common ground with others.

“Housing, while I feel like we are on the extreme end (in Hawaii), housing people can afford is not just an issue for Hawaii,” she said. “Can we find, again, like-minded partners? We need to look for solutions across the aisle and partner with them.”

While Tokuda was already signing on to bills from fellow Democrats, she said she was also looking to find others outside her party.

“I think the best shot we have to do stuff is if we find a partner on the other side that shares these concerns, sees this as an opportunity and be willing to work with me,” she added.

While watching the House speaker vote was difficult for Tokuda to see the “eroding” of rules “to the point any one person can challenge the speakership,” she said, “at the end of the day what I want is a functional government that is going to serve the people of Hawaii and our country.”

If there is any “silver lining” to what happened in the first few days of the House, Tokuda said: “It was a wake-up call. We need to pay attention and quite frankly we deserve better.”

* Melissa Tanji can be reached at mtanji@mauinews.com.