Rep. Tulsi Gabbard’s (D-Hawaii) new chief of staff — a business owner with no government experience — is raising eyebrows in the state.
Gabbard’s announcement on Tuesday that she had named Kainoa Ramananda Penaroza, 30, to the influential job “baffles political insiders” because of Penaroza’s thin political resume, wrote local political news site Honolulu Civil Beat.
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“The way to really be an important member of Congress is grinding out the details and the stuff that Sen. [Dan] Inouye used to do,” Colin Moore, a University of Hawaii political science professor, told Hawaii News Now. “And to do that, you need a staff member who really has a lot of experience at working in this institution.”
Penaroza is the third person to hold the position of chief of staff in the two years Gabbard has represented Hawaii’s 2nd Congressional District. Jessica Vanden Berg, Penaroza’s predecessor, left shortly before the 2014 election.
