ThinkTech Hawaii

Ben Treviño was recently appointed as president and CEO of the Hawaii Institute for Public Affairs, or HIPA, an independent research and educational nonprofit organization.  He discusses his background, motivation and vision for where it will go.

We will visit and catch up on energy with Eric Gleason of NextEra Energy.  We'll discuss the Hawaii Performance Based Regulation (PBR) initiative; NextEra in Hawaii; and Energy under a Biden Administration.

In 1991, in a lawsuit Baehr v. Lewin, the Hawaii Supreme Court held that denying access to marriage to same-sex couples amounted to sex discrimination under the Hawaii Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause, and that at trial, the Director of the Health would have the burden of demonstrating that the state had a compelling interest in the otherwise prohibited sex discrimination. This ruling created an enormous shift in the cultural landscape, setting off a series of events that culminated in the US Supreme Court’s 2012 Windsor and 2015 Obergefell decisions recognizing marriage equality nationwide, and has had impacts worldwide in the LGBTQ+ rights movement. We will look towards the future of marriage equality and other LGBTQ+ cases before the Supreme Court today, especially those arguing for “religious freedom” to discriminate at the forefront of challenges to LGBTQ+ equality in Hawaii and elsewhere.