Kaulukui had the misfortune of being nominated in the aftermath of the ideological bloodletting that marked the hearings on Robert Bork’s nomination to the US Supreme Court. Flush with the “smoking gun” of a piddly monetary sanction imposed by the notoriously cantankerous federal judge Martin Pence that Kaulukukui had failed to disclose on his application, Hee hauled him for a private tonguelashing. Hee emerged from the “meeting” satisfied by Kaukukukui’s explanation and supportive of the nomination, intoning that Kaulukukui “broke himself down, made himself a man.”

Oh, puh-leeze. Hee is no Joe Biden, then chair of the US Senate Committee on Judiciary who won praise for conduct of the Bork’s confirmation hearings, and certainly not a Tommy Kaulukukui, son of a Hawaiian Renaissance icon and a veritable war hero.

Unfortunately, the Senate’s loss was OHA’s greater loss as Hee went on to years of tormenting that institution’s already dysfunctional board with his sophomoric and bullying student council antics. All of this came rushing back when Hanabusa made him Senate Judiciary Chair two years ago. One had to wonder, does no one remember the bombastic excesses of this man’s earlier stint in the position? Apparently not, but he quickly reminded us and, after only one session, was replaced by the steady, stable, and even-tempered Brian Taniguchi.

On a more substantive level, while there were a few notable decisions, as mentioned in the obits, much of his time as CJ was marked by the generation of slews of useless memorandum opinions filled with “ipse dixit” pronouncements, no doubt written by Frank “I say it, therefore it is” Padgett, that provided no guidance to the bench or bar.

The obits also fail to mention that, to the extent CJ Lum was throwing “Fat Boy” Okuda under the bus, he may have been trying to deflect attention from his own confusion of the boundaries between work and personal business. There was the matter of certain State-paid improvements to his home, at least a carpet job, that were justified as being necessary to hold receptions in his capacity as CJ. There was also the matter of him failing to recuse himself in matters implicating friends and business assocaites, notably Sherman Hee and the Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center. Whatever else you may want to say about the man, these kinds of things showed him to be every bit the product of the “old boy machine.”

One thing for which I will alwys remember the late CJ is his impeccably classy and gracious bailiff, Herman Luke. He always made counsel feel welcome, listened closely, and unfailingly offered support and encouragement. He was the face of the Supreme Court that CJ Lum never displayed.