The Sunshine Blog: Campaigning For A Candidate In A Senate Office Is A No-No

Short takes, outtakes, our takes and other stuff you should know about public information, government accountability and ethical leadership in Hawaii.

Capitol offense: With the election victory this week of Republican Samantha DeCorte over Democrat Cedric Gates for the Senate District 22 seat (Waianae, Makaha), the number of GOP state senators in Hawaii grows from two to three. And that means Sen. Brenton Awa is likely the minority leader.

You might recall that Awa and GOP Sen. Kurt Fevella could never agree on who would lead the caucus of two over the past two years. But there’s a new wrinkle in DeCorte’s elevation: Awa says he is being accused of violating state ethics law because he appears to have used state office time, equipment and facilities to publicly advocate for her candidacy.

At issue is the fact that Awa posted on his Instagram account last week his farewell to one of his Senate staffers — DeCorte herself, who was Awa’s office manager. The video shows him greeting her in their Capitol office and saying that she’ll make a great senator.

“This Tuesday, Election Day, Kapolei Hale,” says DeCorte.

 “You guys know what to do,” says Awa, looking into his smartphone camera. “Aloha.”

You can view the post by clicking on that little blue button below, but you’ll need to have an Instagram account.

Word soon spread that there might be complaints filed with the Hawaii State Ethics Commission. The agency does not comment on such matters until they have been settled, but on Monday — the day before the election — Awa himself confirmed the complaints.

“Let me show you guys what your taxpayer dollars are going towards — this video,” he says in a new Instagram post where he points the smartphone camera to his office computer playing the farewell video in question. “Thank you to my former chief of staff, Samantha DeCorte, who left the office to go run to become Waianae’s senator.”

The Blog doesn’t quite get what the senator means by “taxpayer dollars.” The use of office equipment, maybe? Or the ethics commission’s possible investigation?

“We’re told this morning that there were several people that complained about this video,” Awa concludes in his post. “They wanted me to take it down. The ethics department asked me to take it down. Instead, they’ll be investigating. We told them, no, we don’t tolerate bullying.”

After two years in the Senate, Awa has no doubt learned a little something about bullying

Still counting votes: Speaking of Tuesday’s election, when The Blog did not learn the results until early Wednesday, it was still not clear as of Thursday whether all of the ballots had actually been counted. That’s made some candidates and their supporters very anxious, as at least one House race seems headed to a mandatory recount.

There still could be other recounts, too, given how close several other races appear. And even if we do get full election results by the time you read this edition of The Sunshine Blog, the final vote could change yet again next week.

That’s because final election results won’t be released until between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. Wednesday. That report is expected to include voted ballots that required additional verification by the County Elections Division — specifically, issues with signatures on return ballots resolved through what’s known as curing.

Curing entails notifying voters that there is a problem with a signature, like it’s missing or it doesn’t match what’s on file. Two-thirds of states including Hawaii require election officials to notify voters about discrepancies and give them a chance to fix it.

In fact, at least one candidate in a very close race has messaged supporters asking them to go online and check to make sure their ballot was accepted. If it wasn’t, the candidate says, get ahold of the elections office and have your ballot “cured.”

Voters have until 4:30 p.m. Wednesday to contact election officials to cure any signature issues. Let’s hope there’s not a long line.

Proud papa: Speaking of senators and social media, Sen. Mike Gabbard had a little post of his own this week. Readers of The Blog will not require context.

Another one bites the dust: The Honolulu Star-Advertiser has been laying off reporters, photographers and other employees in the latest round of budget cuts. Now, one of the newspaper’s execs is fleeing on his own.

Aaron Kotarek, senior vice president for audience and operations at Oahu Publications (the S-A’s parent company), is leaving the islands after nearly 10 years to take a job as general manager of Spokane’s Spokesman-Review newspaper in Washington state.

The news comes in a press release from the Spokesman-Review. Kotarek also dropped an aloha message on his LinkedIn page.