With the primary election only days away, a lots of votes already cast in advance, there’s still a lot of political talk in the air.
• Mufi Hannemann’s campaign may have violated the state ethics code by emailing targeted messages to UH faculty and staff through the University of Hawaii email system, the UH faculty union said yesterday.
However, the state ethics code only applies to state officials and employees, so it appears there could be no actual violation unless the emails were sent by a state employee. UHPA was investigating but did not have evidence to show this kind of violation. However, it could be a violation for a state employee to forward a campaign email to other via the UH or state system.
Kris Hanselman, associate executive director of the UH Professional Assembly, said emails started hitting campus mailboxes last week at Leeward Community College and West Oahu, later at Hilo. Emails this week from the Hannemann campaign included an online version of the controversial advertisement that appeared in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser on Sunday, in which Hannemann implies the endorsement of Hawaii’s two U.S. senators despite their public pledges of neutrality.
“It’s an inappropriate use of public resources and another instance of their ‘its their way or the highway’ approach,” Hanselman said.
UHPA has endorsed Neil Abercrombie in the Democratic primary and has distributed its own independent materials urging faculty to support him.
Other emails inviting faculty to join “Education Professionals for Hannemann” and pledge support for his campaign link to a Google Group set up by Kevin Yamazaki, a recent Pomona College graduate. On a separate LinkedIn profile, Yamazaki identifies himself as “Technology Coordinator for Mufi Hannemann, Mayor of Honolulu.”
The emails prompted a “friendly reminder” (read: Warning) from the State Ethics Commission sent to all UH faculty and staff last week.
As the election season continues to heat up, the Hawaii State Ethics
Commission has issued a friendly reminder that UH email and other State
resources may not be used for campaign purposes.Several publications relevant to campaign activities, including the use
of public email systems, have been issued by the Commission and are
available at:
http://hawaii.gov/ethics/pubs_guides/campaigning
• Two environmental groups blasted the Hannemann campaign yesterday for falsely claiming credit for “Keeping the Country Country.”
“From supporting luxury homes in Laie to supporting development at Turtle Bay, Mr. Hannemann has been a proponent of developing one of the last rural areas on Oahu,” said Stuart Coleman, Surfrider Foundation’s Hawaii Coordinator. “We respectfully call upon him to withdraw and disavow the advertisement that usurps the Keep the Country COUNTRY slogan.”
• In an email, Representative Isaac Choy’s campaign chairman questioned why the Hawaii Venture Capital Association made an endorsement in just one legislative race.
The only House or Senate race at the State Legislature was for Kimberly Case against Rep. Isaac Choy. Isn’t it odd that the proponents of the 221 tax credit go after the one state legislator who they see as the roadblock to their cash flow? Forget the Gov’s race, these greedy folks want to suck another $100 million a year from the state for the next ten years, again.
While I disagreed strongly with Choy’s backing of a bill to restrict public information about consumer complaints, I was quite impressed with the level of his participation during Finance Committee discussions of the budget, these tax credits, and other issues. Choy, who is a CPA, raised the level of committee discussion and provided key perspectives.
No wonder he’s been targeted by the HVCA, I guess.
• And from retired Star-Bulletin editor, Chuck Frankel:
I disagree strongly with your assessment on the Star-Advertiser story on tax breaks for millionaires and their historic homes. This is the kind of stories that newspapers exist for.
It did not bother me that Kirk Caldwell wasn’t mentioned until deep in the story. I found it intriguing that Jon Van Dyke’s Roundtop home wasn’t visible at Roundtop but could be seen from Kahala — if you knew where to look. Yet he got a tax break.
It’s another incident where the rich get richer, thanks to attorneys. The program to help preserve historic homes was well conceived but it has failed and should be repealed. Thank you, Star-Advertiser, for bringing this blatant misjustice to the attention of the reading public.
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I will be glad when Hannemann’s name disappears from the media as has Jeremy Harris’s.
A reader just attempted to post an entire Associated Press story as a comment, and I didn’t approve it. You can try again with a link to the story, but posting an entire story from another publication without permission isn’t appropriate.
I’m not sure I get how it’s a violation of state ethics to SEND email to public email accounts. I get if it’s sent FROM a public email account, but the reception of mail is different, something recipients have little control over. If the mail is sent from a private address, what binds it to any code at all? The fact that it’s sent by someone who lives in Hawaii?
Isn’t the issue that Mufi used the UH email system to send political materials to UHPA members? Or am I not reading this correctly?
Of course the main issue is whether or not the UH email system was used to distribute the email in question.
The ethical dilemma on the receiving end, as I understand it, isn’t being in receipt of said email, but rather using a “public” email account to forward the email to others.
Actually, I agree with you and have amended the original post to reflect this.
The ethics code only applies to state employees. By definition, there could be no violation unless the emails originated with a state employee and were sent on behalf of the campaign using the UH email system.
So far, this has not been demonstrated.
I hope this is not one of those “It’s somebody else’s fault” excuse.
isn’t it proper blogging etiquette to make it known what edits/modifications you make to an original blog post? kinda like you don’t get a free pass on a mistake/oversight, but you can fix it for future references in a effort to continually improve information. No?
As a UH student in 2008, I received very clear and emphatic instruction more than once from the administration that it is not ok to use the UH email system for political emails.
Although it did not seem fair, people were in trouble for receiving political emails.
The logic was that the system is paid for with the state’s money and therefore use for political objectives is not ok.
Whether it’s strictly within the letter of the law or not, Mufi’s use is definitely not within the spirit of the law. Pilau, yet again.
The spirit of the law doesn’t apply to him or his campaign unless he (or it) was using a UH address to SEND the mails. Whether or not his recipients’ RECEIVING the mails (as you say) is against state ethics codes is not his concern; he’s not a public employee.
scrivener:
Too classic.
I think scrivener is correct.
There’s nothing about email systems in the ethics code.
The commission is applying the “fair treatment” provision, which says:
§84-13 Fair treatment. No legislator or employee shall use or attempt to use the legislator’s or employee’s official position to secure or grant unwarranted privileges, exemptions, advantages, contracts, or treatment, for oneself or others; including but not limited to the following:
(1) Seeking other employment or contract for services for oneself by the use or attempted use of the legislator’s or employee’s office or position.
(2) Accepting, receiving, or soliciting compensation or other consideration for the performance of the legislator’s or employee’s official duties or responsibilities except as provided by law.
(3) Using state time, equipment or other facilities for private business purposes. (4) Soliciting, selling, or otherwise engaging in a substantial financial transaction with a subordinate or a person or business whom the legislator or employee inspects or supervises in the legislator’s or employee’s official capacity.
The commission advises:
“The State Ethics Code prohibits state personnel from using state e-mail to generate campaign material. It also prohibits the use of state e-mail to send, forward, or reply to campaign material. Campaign material may include political campaign endorsements, fundraiser material, notifications of campaign events, political party material, or other material.”
I think the question that remains is, was a distributions list created as a function of the email system utilized to distribute this information.
A recent example was the distribution of an email at the State Capitol that provided recipients with the information for a fundraiser for a Republican candidate.
It is easy enough to compile a list of all the email addresses of all of the reps and all of the sens through information available on the Capitol’s website. It could also be a coincidence that the sender happened to name these lists as “All Reps” and “All Senators”, which are the titles of distribution lists on the Capitol’s email system.
What was curious about this campaign email was that it was also sent to all of the permanent staff for each chamber. These individual email addresses cannot be easily acquired without acces to the email system. Curiously, the distribution lists were named “All Reps Permanent Staff” and All Senators Permanent Staff”, which of course are the titles dedicated to the distribution lists on the Capitol’s email system. This may not be an ethics violation as outlined in statute, but it stinks to me.
Well said!
(Ian, every time I try to post a brief comment, as above, I get an error message that it’s too short! So I have to add stuff like this. What’s up with that?!?)
And the “Well said” reply was supposed to be directed to “let’s remember,” below, not Pono, above (not that Pono wasn’t well spoken, also).