Services for Duke Bainum are being held today, and state flags will be at half-staff in his honor.
DUKE MARK EDMUND BAINUM
56, of Honolulu, died June 9, 2009. Born in Takoma Park, Md. A physician and Honolulu city councilman. Survived by wife, Jennifer; sons, Z and Kona; stepson, Johnny Lesseos; stepdaughter, Jennifer “Leona” Lesseos; a stepgrandchild; mother, Evea; brother, Timothy. Visitation noon to 2 p.m. Friday at Hosoi Garden Mortuary; service 2 p.m. Inurnment 10:30 a.m. Saturday at Diamond Head Memorial Park. No flowers. Aloha attire. Donations to the Duke and Jennifer Bainum Foundation, P.O. Box 11120, Honolulu, HI 96828.
Meanwhile, the filing period for the special election to fill the District V seat on the City Council closed yesterday. A total of 16 candidates filed, and two withdrew before the deadline, leaving a lively field of 14 who will vie for the seat.
The presumed front runners appear to be Ann Kobayashi, who held the seat before resigning to run for mayor, and Nathaniel Kinney, who expects to draw labor backing and the support of Mayor Hannemann. I’ll have to look at prior election results to see if Matt Matsunaga ran well enough in the district to be a serious presence in this race, given the extremely short campaign period.
And in light of yesterday’s ruling by the Intermediate Court of Appeals in the campaign spending case involving contribution limits, corporations will continue to use their treasury funds to back candidates of choice.
I can’t help referring again to my comments back in February, when the House was considering a bill that would have limited a corporation to a total of $25,000 in contributions. It was shouted down by proponents of a ban on all corporate contributions, a position which found little traction in the legislature.
If those opposing HB 539 asked my advice, I would suggest they weigh the risks and rewards.
The risk in opposing the bill is that the legislature will again take no action, key legislative friends of reform will end up feeling “burned”, corporations will be free to use as much of their own money as they wish because of the Maui court’s decision, and the Supreme Court will make that situation permanent by upholding the decision. The director of the Campaign Spending Commission noted the additional risk that corporate contributors will be able to evade disclosure requirements, meaning that the public will have a difficult time tracing corporate influence. The reward, absent success in pressing a total ban, is being seen by the public as opponents of corporate power and as advocates of the rest of us.
We’ve ended up just about precisely where I feared. Friendly legislators feel “burned”, corporations are free to spend, and disclosure will be diminished, but reform advocates can say they held strong to their beliefs. So it goes.
Meanwhile, I’m almost starting to sympathize with the spot Mayor Hannemann is in regarding the proposed transit. Until relatively recently, his decision to fast-track the train, block out alternatives, and ram through his own technology choice, seemed to be working with the tacit support of federal transit officials who, perhaps, were feeling some pressure to go along because of the backing of Hawaii’s Congressional delegation.
But then things started getting rocky. The local AIA, representing the architectural community, began questioning the process which initially directed that questions about specific technology choices should be held off until “later”, but when “later” arrived Mayor Mufi said it was already too late to consider those alternatives. And AIA has rather persuasively suggested that some of those alternatives, including running the train at ground level through central Honolulu, make tremendous financial as well as visual sense.
Then, in one of his last official acts, Duke Bainum teamed with Councilmember Djou in sending a letter to federal transit officials spelling out an array of legal problems with Hannemann’s fast track process and, in the process, calling out federal officials who might otherwise be inclined to just go along. It’s the kind of carefully written letter designed to make “cover your okole” bureaucrats worry about the chance of being held responsible if the process is subjected to critical legal and political reviews. And it appears to increase the possibility that the Honolulu’s rail environmental impact study will be found lacking due to several outstanding technical issues. The letter is definitely worth reading to get a sense of the vulnerabilities of the city process so far.
But consider the mayor’s problem. On the one hand, he wants to keep the political momentum in favor of the rail project going, but he must recognize that some of these issues are substantive and could result in litigation. And he certainly knows that a court challenge could derail the fast track and put the project in limbo, at least temporarily.
In this climate, though, an open-ended legal delay could also be the opening legislators need to follow through on their threat to raid the city’s transit funds, which have been accumulating via the half-percent excise tax increase. If the funds don’t have an immediate use, their vulnerability to a raid increases.
So the dangers of total intransigence are becoming clearer. However, the mayor might also be worried that making adjustments in the rail plan to include more flexible, less expensive, and more widely used rail technology could discourage bidders. Why? Because the city, at the mayor’s insistence, has jumped ahead of the review process and already put the first big contracts out for bid, and the specifications lock the city in to a particular older type of train. So even if he were willing to look at alternatives, which I believe he is legally required to do, Hannemann may be worried that bidders will lose interest or be scared away by the prospect of shifting specs.
So the mayor may be between a rock and a hard place, with his predicted run for governor adding it’s own timetable to the mix.
Interesting times, for sure.
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Can’t say I have any sympathy for Mufi. In many ways,it’s as wrong as the Superferry
CORRECTION, Ian: I have NO aloha for Ann Kobayshi, especiallybecause of the way the District V Council candidate filing process unfolded last year, but she did NOT resign to run for mayor. Her Council term was set to expire and, at the last moment, supposedly, she chose to run for Mayor instead of seeking re-election to her Council seat. Because she had not served two full consecutive terms (she came onto the Council as the result of a special election to fill the seat of the convicted/ousted Andy Mirikitani), she can attempt to do so now. YUCK!!
Yes, the Mayor may be between a rock and a hard place but shed no tears for him: he put himself there.
Finally, note that, in an apparent change of tune, rail spokesperson Scott Ishikawa said on KIPO’s “Town Square” yesterday afternoon that the City would not break ground without a “Record of Decision” from the FTA. Awarding contracts? Now THAT’s a different matter.
I look at it differently. As one who tried to kill the bill, I like where we are now. The $25,000 would have kept the bill alive and moved it out of committee, subject to changes in conference or in other committees including the lifting of all limits that was proposed. one point. And it would have been “permanent” in respect to getting a bill this coming session because they would say it was already dealt with last year.
I thought it was important to killed the whole bill early in the session stopping any bill from being enacted last year. If it were left it “alive” at that point anything could have happened in the name of “clarifying” what the law said. We succeeded in killing the bill knowing the worst that would happen is we would wind up with the limits the same as for individuals.
Now this next session we come in with the only realistic choices being between the status quo or to lower or even eliminate corporate donations entirely. No one is going to introduce or outwardly support a bill designed to raises the limits- it would be politically suicidal. The only way they could have accomplished that was to take a “reform” bill and slip something by in the “confusion” of last year’s ambiguity.
I like our chances when the choice is between eliminating corporate money and allowing it, all without having to worry (as much) about some political ploy to actually raise the limits in the name of eliminating ambiguity in the current law. Plus waiting a year has no real effect since there’s no election this year.
Re HB539 — $25K isn’t much of a limit! And recall that the legislation morphed from $25k, to $50K, to unlimited. Maybe if they had proposed much smaller numbers, citizen activists wouldn’t be so horrified. Remember there are 21 states with bans — that’s ZERO dollars. Then, after those exemplary 21, there are an additional 7 states with limits under $10k per 2- yr cycle. And THEN another 6 states with limits between $10K-$16K per cycle. So proposing $25K, $50K, or unlimited is really embarassing.