A commenter yesterday asked about Mayor Peter Carlisle’s top contributors. The mayor actually reported a relatively quiet 6-months, with total contributions received of just $53,222.41. For a bit of perspective, that is 30 percent less than the $76,122.80 raised by City Council Chairman Ernie Martin, who happens to represent the district that includes Kaaawa. Mayor [...]
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The new money figures are in. Governor Abercrombie did quite well for himself, taking in $1.1 million during the latter half of 2011. I originally wrote that as “raking in” rather than “taking in”, but decided it slighted changed the meaning of the sentence in a manner I’m not sure I meant. Language is a [...]
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Gotta love Montana. A column by former Nixon attorney, John Dean, called my attention to the importance of a Monntana Supreme Court decision issued at the end of last year. While the U.S. Supreme Court’s granting of personhood to corporations in the now infamous Citizens United v FEC case continues to reverberate, the Montana Supreme [...]
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I received an email several weeks ago from a reader who described an idea for a do-it-yourself political ad campaign. Here’s how he described it. I want things to change but I don’t want waste my money by making donations to someone’s political campaign. Why should I donate to others when I can do it [...]
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Attorney, community activist, and blogger Margaret Wille is “moving towards” running for a seat on the Hawaii County Council. Wille, a Waimea resident, hopes to fill the District 9 seat being vacated by Councilman Pete Hoffmann, who can’t run again due to the council’s term limits. I”ve been a fan of her blog, MargaretWille.com, for [...]
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I’ve got a problem this morning, and my brain isn’t really up to it on a lazy Sunday morning, even though we’ve already been on our walk and have consumed the first cups of coffee. Here’s the problem. The Campaign Spending Commission agenda this past week reminded me of the ongoing lawsuit challenging Hawaii’s registration [...]
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A comment yesterday regarding the reapportionment issue mentioned the U.S. Supreme Court decision in the case of Burns v. Richardson, decided in 1966. The case goes directly to the question of whether the exclusion of the military population in the reapportionment process can pass constitutional muster. A quick check shows that the Supreme Court opinion, [...]
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I just finished reading the Hawaii Supreme Court’s decision in the challenge to the 2011 Final Reapportionment Plan. It traces the background of the current constitutional language requiring exclusion of the nonresident population when drawing new legislative districts, and then examined how the reapportionment commission ended up adopting a plan that failed to comply. I [...]
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