Checking the morning news…Sean Hao has a good story in today’s Honolulu Advertiser on public agencies that hire outside lobbyists to push their agendas.

The hiring of professional lobbyists by agencies such as HTA and the Board of Water Supply, while legal, raises questions about whether taxpayer money should be used to lobby public officials.

These agencies aren’t the only ones. The county councils have also contracted for lobbyists to track legislation and represent the counties while the legislature is in session, which strikes me as a more legitimate purpose.

Although Hao discuss it, it seems to me that the city’s Board of Water Supply being represented by a lobbyist at the legislature, a whole different branch of government, is different than using that same lobbyist to influence the city council.

Similarly, the Hawaii Tourism Authority’s lobbying at the legislature, which directly controls the agency, raises more questions.

Signs of agency lobbying can be found throughout the gift disclosures filed by legislators. Browse through the gifts reported by House Speaker Calvin Say or Senate President Colleen Hanabusa and you’ll see many public agencies spending money on gifts. I’ve always questioned whether this is appropriate. I can see spending money on factual materials that present an agency’s best case, but that next level of personal gifts bothers me paid by public agencies continues to bother me.

At the federal level, federal funds cannot be used to lobby for further funding.

According to a summary prepared by George Washington University:

Federal funds may not be used to influence or attempt to influence any member of the Executive or Legislative branches of government (including any agency employee) for the purpose of securing a grant, contract, or cooperative agreement or an extension, renewal, or modification of any of these. Charging travel expenses to a federal award or being paid from a federal award while attempting to influence the award of federal funds
for a specific program is defined as lobbying, and is prohibited. Such expenditures by a third party on your behalf are prohibited as well.

It appears Hawaii does not have a similar restriction on lobbying with public funds. Perhaps it’s time to adopt one.

In other news, Star-Bulletin reporter Susan Essoyan provides an update on the school consolidation task force considering the future of Kaaawa Elementary School.

I was also glad to see the interest in telling Sonny Kaniho’s story. The Hawaii Tribune-Herald published a long obituary that used one of my photos to tell the story.

In an email, attorney Carl Varady wrote:

Ironically, Uncle Jimmy Akiona was testifying in our Kalima Hawaiian Homes class action case on Friday. Uncle Jimmy described Uncle Sonny’s leadership and his friendship with him that morning. I think it may have been around the same time Uncle Sonny passed. Thanks for putting these pictures up. People with Uncle Sonny’s courage and aloha are rare, indeed.

And Robert “Gill” Johnston, former director of the Hawaii Legal Aid Society and now retired dean of the John Marshall Law School in Chicago, served as Kaniho’s attorney back in the 1970s. In an email, he said:

I started working with Sonny in 1970 on the Aged Hawaiians and the “vanishing” Waimea HHL list. There were moments of hilarity and joy, others of anger and depression. Sonny was a fierce, dedicated warrior. However, he was always a man of peace. I believe I was benefitted as a person by knowing him….

The news of Sonny’s death is just sinking in. A second look at the picutre
of Sonny brought up a overwhelming mix of emotions. I am deeply saddened.
There seems to be so very few of those like Sonny who started speaking out
in the early 70s about the plight of the Native Hawaiians, particularly
where the Homelands was involved.