A couple of interesting comments concerning Friday’s item about the questions raised by Hannemann fundraiser in Pittsburgh.
Keith Rollman, “senior advisor” in the city’s Department of Information Technology and an advisor to Hannemann’s mayoral campaign (and likely to his current campaign?), commented:
The Hannemann haters want to blow up Cox’s planted story into the second coming of Watergate.
Well, for a former adman to dismiss it as a “planted story” because Carroll Cox sent out a press release about the issue is certainly disingenuous. But, more seriously, while Rollman dismisses the story by attributing it to “Hannemann haters,” his boss, the mayor apparently took it quite seriously.
KHON reported that Hannemann won’t accept any of the money raised in Pittsburgh.
Hannemann spoke with KHON2 today from the Oklahoma: “With respect to event in Pittsburgh, in my view although it was a fundraiser, I saw it more of a meet-and-greet, to be able to touch base with folks who have known me since college, and with the Pittsburgh Steelers, one of my favorite teams. No donations collected that evening, and I’m not coming back to Honolulu with contributions, nor will I accept any contributions from that fundraiser.”
Anytime a candidates turns away real money, something’s going on.
Although KHON jumped on the story, other media have not followed, a point noted by another commenter:
The new Star-Advertiser’s silence on this major story is ominous — likewise the combined TV station news show.
I tried to search using Google News, and confirmed that the story has so far been ignored by other media, including the two largest news operations (the Star-Advertiser and Hawaii News Now).
However, the Star-Advertiser did mention it in a “Newswatch” brief on Saturday.
In his comment to KHON, Hannemann doesn’t make clear just why he is disavowing this fundraising event, which was planned, prepared, and apparently paid for by or in coordination with his campaign.
As I understand it, here are the questions that have been raised.
• Possible commingling of city business and campaign activities. There is some indication the official business schedule of the trip was changed in order to make the campaign side trip to Pittsburgh.
The mayor notified the council of his travel by letter dated June 8, the same day he was scheduled to depart for Washington.
Here’s what KHON reported on the timing:
According to Hannemann’s office, Hannemann was to meet with the Chairman of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure on Wednesday, June 9, in Washington, D.C.
Hannemann even sent a message on Twitter about his meeting with Rep. James Oberstar. With a June 8 p.m. departure, given airline schedules, it would be difficult to get to Washington in time to hold one or more meetings and still get to Pittsburgh in time for a scheduled 5 p.m. fundraiser.
Rep. Oberstar’s office told KHON2 News the meeting was actually scheduled for Thursday, June 10.
“I do know that the schedule was changed that he was moving with Oberstar today. I’m not sure if he met with anybody yesterday in Washington,” said Dean Okimoto, Hannemann Committee 2010 Chair.
I have not found any direct prohibition on adding a private side trip to other official business, assuming all the restrictions on keeping the activities separate.
But there is a general ethics provision requiring fair treatment, found in Section 11-104 of the City Charter:
Elected or appointed officers or employees shall not use their official positions to secure or grant special consideration, treatment, advantage, privilege or exemption to themselves or any person beyond that which is available to every other person.
A case could certainly be made that scheduling or altering official travel to accommodate a campaign trip might reasonably be considered to violation of this provision. As always, though, it would depend a lot on the factual circumstances.
• Central role of a rail consultant linked to one of the key bidders to provide the rail technology for the city.
I would say this is, or certainly could become, a hot political issue. But if active campaign support from actual or potential corporate beneficiaries of Honolulu rail transit poses a problem for the mayor, then the Pittsburgh fundraiser is just the tip of the iceberg.
• Filing of the “Notice of Intent” to hold a fundraiser. The notice of the Pittsburgh event had not been posted on the Campaign Spending Commission website by the end of the week, although notices for other events planned at the same time were posted in a timely manner.
The Hannemann campaign says the notice had been filed before the event, as required.
Even if it wasn’t, I don’t know that this is a major issue in itself, although if I were in the opposing camp, I would certainly see it as an opportunity.
So, for Mayor Hannemann, the question is: If the Pittsburgh fundraiser wasn’t a big deal, and none of these are real issues, why did you so quickly attempt to disassociate yourself from it?
As you can see, there are lots of questions for reporters from the state’s largest news gathering organizations to be asking.
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Its not true that this wasnt covered by SA. I read that MH was not taking the money yesterday in my hard copy. It was, however, just a small paragraph about it. Still, its just not true that SA didnt cover it.
Frankly, I think its a smart move by the MH camp to just not take the money and make it a non-issue, a non-campaign-diversion, as quickly as possible. If MH and his peeps screwed up, or not, its already a moot because he’s already resolved it.
They are gonna get the money from somewhere, somehow, people. The collective WE arent forcing them to change that, now are WE? So, I accept the reality that these poor guys have to pimp themselves out, every chance they can get. Neil’s going after his share. Heck, Duke’s climbing into bed with Karl Rove (444 imagery, intended!). Fundraising really is what is fundamentally wrong with American government today, isnt it?
But thats not going to change, at least not for this election.
So, can we all work to keep us all focused on whats we can change & what is important.
I think MH’s move to give this money back seeks to ensure just that.
Personally, I’m struggling to understand how/why MH can actively campaign (as personally witnessed by moi, waving signs, etc.) and not be in breach of SOMETHING. I am completely open to a plausible explanation for this. But my cursory understanding of the law indicates he may be breaking same – and no one has written about this to the best of my knowledge.
Nope.
As correctly stated by Keith Rollman, the Supreme Court decided back in 2002 that he has to resign before filing his nomination papers. In that lawsuit, former State Senator Russell Blair argued that then-Mayor Jeremy Harris should have to resign when he filed an organizational report with the campaign spending commission for a gubernatorial campaign. However, the court concluded the constitutional provision only requires the resignation to come “before” filing nomination papers for the second office. So Mufi seems to be in the clear as a legal matter.
Here’s a link to a recent discussion of the legal issue in the blog, Inversecondemnation.com.
http://www.inversecondemnation.com/inversecondemnation/2010/05/hawaiis-resign-to-run-law-when-must-a-candidate-resign.html
I should say that there are policy concerns that were cited by the constitutional convention back in 1978, concerning whether a candidate can be campaigning for a new office and still give full attention to his/her current position, and whether the public resources that go with incumbency should be supporting a candidate for a higher office. These are legitimate concerns. However, the legal question of the point at which a candidate has to resign from office to run for another office with an overlapping term seems to be settled for now.
The question may be: Is there anyone who does not think MH is running for Governor? It would be nearly unanimous among the voting public that he is. Just because he has not filed his papers to run does not mean he isn’t. That loop hole should be plugged, among others…
He should resign his mayors position or not run for governor. Fat chance for either.
Next year, the primary moves up to August, and the filling deadline goes to the 2nd Tuesday in June. The earlier dates will take some of the steam out of this issue.
http://capitol.hawaii.gov/session2010/lists/measure_indiv.aspx?billtype=HB&billnumber=2397
Gee, where’s civil beat in all this? It’s funny how Keith Rollman claims he is speaking on his own capacity (like Brennan), but I’d like to see him disagree with his boss in his private citizen hat and see what happens.
If he doesn’t do this, then his claims are false, and he is getting reimbursed fo his civil beat shilling – directly or indirectly.
No hipoli, giving back the money doesn’t mean anything if indeed the activites are illegal- anymore than if a bank robber gave the money back when he got caught.
The whole thing is archtypical of the sleeze factor associated with Mufi and his campaign- up to and including including the statement by Rollman. That’s what makes it an important issue in the campaign.
Fundraising for political campaigns is as old as the hills. The difference, of course, is the scope and amount.
That said, any observation about money and politics has to be tempered with the reality that it is far more transparent and open than it was in the past.
Can there be more transparency, accountability, etc.? Of course. But read accounts of how money was passed out during the presidential campaign of Abraham Lincoln.
In this case, I think the Mayor did the right thing. It really is possible that his campaign screwed up. On the other hand, not taking money now is only part of the story. Contributors who think they might be able to buy influence can send their checks later. Wanting those kinds of contributions is not limited to the Mayor. As Hipoli notes, it’s the way our political system currently works and politicians who want to be elected have to be a part of it.
Don’t waste your time asking about “civil beat”….it’s clearly a HUGE failure and not worth anyone’s time to even check. I wonder why there hasn’t been more discussion about the early departure of their only two local reporters? Is it true that they only have a couple hundred people signed up and nearly half of them live on the mainland??
I hope it’s not as bad a situation at Civil Beat as you suggest.
The question is how many would actually pay to get a subscription?
The Star-Advertiser is free. So is Hawaii News Now and even the NY Times. They’re established.
The publisher has no track record and is assuming that people will subscribe just because the product is different.
But what a customer really needs to get is valuable content that’s not available anywhere else. Otherwise it’s not worth the price.
All the talk about when Mufi will resign is amazing. He will step down as mayor, as the law requires, when he files on July 20. People seem to forget that Neil announced his run for governor on March 8, 200NINE, and continued to serve in DC for another year. He announced his personal choice to resign from Congress on Dec. 13, 2009 (although it was widely leaked the previous week), and resigned 77 days later at the end of February. As Ian points out, there is no legal problem here. It is just a matter of campaign strategy. Neil played it the way he saw it, and Mufi is doing the same.
The state Campaign Spending Commission is looking into whether Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann’s campaign for governor provided inadequate notice of a fundraiser in Pittsburgh last week:
http://blogs.starbulletin.com/inpolitics/intent/
And, like a ghost, that news came to us in the guise of the departed Star-Bulletin!!
Just need to point this out – the media/Carroll Cox didnt know about the pittsburgh event till after it happened. Hannemann decided to not accept money from it before it happened. Therefore those two are unrelated.
Slow down there. I haven’t seen any info on when Hannemann decided not to accept any money at/from the event, and certainly no evidence the decision was made before the event.
Of course, the “notice of intent” sent to the Campaign Spending Commission is time stamped after the event was over. So it may be that Hannemann realized it had not been filed.
But, again, it would be good to have some additional evidence either way.
Yeah, let’s get the facts straight…there’s a $50 fine hanging in the balance!
While technically true, the $50 fine isn’t the only thing “in the balance”. If it were, the mayor would certainly have just collected the contributions in Pittsburgh as planned. The $50 fine is the commission’s formal action, but the potential political issue it creates is a more significant matter. The campaign clearly recognizes that. No problem is others recognizing it as well, is there?
well Keith, your comment shows just what is wrong with the Admin.
Perhaps you would like to present a little more detail so I can respond properly…like who you are…and what you’re talking about.
That $50 fine must be like the Dept. of Labor’s fine for the company involved in the death of a worker in the tower collapse, where the company had no contractors license or demolition plan as required by law.
Someone died, but hey, to paraphrase,”there’s only a $750 fine hanging in the balance!”
So who cares, right Keith!
I think you are inadvertently helping me make my point. Comparing a minor filing error with a fatal industrial accident is gross exageration. They are obviously not the same, and anyone who would offer that comparison is blatantly overhyping the story.