The Sunshine Blog: We're Officially Hitting The Campaign Trail

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

By The Sunshine Editorial Board

May 10, 2024 · 5 min read

Check, please: Incumbent legislators and their challengers are wasting no time hitting the fundraising circuit now that the Legislature is pau.

House members who have scheduled events this month include Natalia Hussey-Burdick, Trish La Chica, Rachele Lamosao, Nicole Lowen, Justin Woodson, May Mizuno, Dee Morikawa, Nadine Nakamura, Sean Quinlan, Chris Todd, Daniel Holt and Gregg Takayama. Six of them are teaming up for a money-raising gathering Friday night at the Hawaii Theatre in downtown Honolulu.

Rep. Cedric Gates is also hosting a fundraiser but he is running for the state Senate.

Sen. Donna Kim also is wasting no time hitting up people for campaign cash and has an event scheduled Monday.

Challengers also are trying to interest financial supporters. Those include Democrats Ian Ross who looks to be making a run for the House District 23 seat being vacated by Scott Nishimoto, Tina Grandinetti running for House District 20 which will have an open seat when Bert Kobayashi retires this year and Mark Clemente in House District 46 where he would be challenging Amy Perruso in the primary.

Teri Savaiinaea, a Republican candidate for the Senate District 22 seat, also has a fundraiser on the books this month.

A couple years ago, the Legislature agreed to ban organized fundraisers during legislative sessions, saying it diminished the public trust. But efforts to prohibit accepting any donations during session have been a tougher sell.

Name dropping: Something new to watch for this year as you’re researching who to vote for — a candidate’s name. Last year lawmakers passed House Bill 1294 requiring that there be an official spot where a candidate’s legal name was listed. It just wouldn’t necessarily be on the ballot.

Yes, that does seem weird. But lawmakers worried that voters wouldn’t recognize someone’s legal name (the example they used was Mike Gabbard, whose legal name is Gerald Michael Gabbard) when they were marking a ballot.

The real problem they were trying to fix stemmed from a House candidate who ran on a name that wasn’t even close. And he had kind of a notorious history. And he lost.

Now, both the Hawaii Campaign Spending Commission and the State Elections Office are making it fairly easy to find the candidate’s legal name and their ballot name, for lack of a better term.

The spending commission is simply providing a list with a prominent link from the homepage called “Legal Names Of Candidates.” From the looks of it, the legal names and the ballot names are pretty much the same, give or take a few extra initials here and there.

(Screenshot/2024)

The Elections Office is also listing the ballot name and the legal name side by side on the 2024 Candidate report, where you can look up who is running for what office and if they have officially filed yet. (Deadline June 4)

(Screenshot/2024)

It’s not a perfect system, of course. But at least there are a couple of places where voters will be able to figure out if someone is trying to dodge scrutiny and slip onto the ballot using a different name.

The Sunshine Blog will be keeping an eye out!

Don’t read all about it: The April issue of Ke Kalahea, the student-run news publication of the University of Hawaii Hilo, reported recent concerns brought forward by students concerning housing — specifically, “black mold and/or mildew growing in the dorm bathrooms, rusted pipes and kitchen appliances, power outages, gender equality issues concerning the rights of LGBTQ+ students, flooding in the dorms from sinks or toilets, and broken laundry units.”

(Screenshot/2024)

The report was apparently too much for the school’s director of admissions, Kati McGinnis, who ordered the removal of copies of Ke Kalahea from a rack at an April 20 event welcoming prospective students and their parents.

Editor-in-Chief Pualani Ovono called the action “a form of censorship,” the Hawaii Tribune-Herald reported Sunday.

McGinnis described the article as a “one-sided” feature but she also apologized and acknowledged the independence and rights of Ke Kahalea (it means “the herald” in Hawaiian).

And Chris Holland, the school’s vice chancellor of student affairs, said the article failed to present “a balanced perspective” while also conceding that there are challenges with dorm maintenance.

But Michael Phillips, president of the Big Island Press Club, said the flap represents a clear First Amendment issue: “The courts have held that student-run newspapers on college campuses cannot be censored by university administration.”

Holy guacamole: Speaking of the Big Island Press Club, Civil Beat’s Kevin Dayton and Chad Blair helped honor the club’s 2024 scholarship foundation winners Thursday at Luquin’s Mexican Restaurant in Hilo. Also on hand was Civil Beat editor-at-large Naka Nathaniel.

The club has been an important institution for five decades, serving as a watchdog for openness and credibility. It’s perhaps best known for its annual Torch of Light Award and Lava Tube dishonor.

Winners of the award include Brian Black of the Civil Beat Law Center (2017), now called the Public First Law Center, while the dishonored include the Hawaii Office of Information Practices (also 2017), formerly headed by Cheryl Kakazu Park.