Senator Clayton Hee has filed a new personal financial disclosure statement which now includes additional sources of income and other information previously omitted. For years, Hee has filed reports that simply reported “None” for most categories of interests for himself and his wife, shielding his financial interests from public scrutiny and apparently flouting state law in the process.
The omissions became apparent when compared to the disclosure filed independently by his wife, Lynne Waters, after she was appointed to a high-level public relations position in the University of Hawaii system earlier this year.
Senator Hee’s filing of apparently false reports was detailed here on Saturday.
The latest document appeared on the State Ethics Commission web site yesterday.
The senator’s latest disclosure statement, dated May 23, amends an earlier disclosure statement filed just two weeks earlier, but is not identified as an amendment. The earlier report, in which the senator certified that he had no additional items to report, has now disappeared.
Although now removed from the Ethics Commission web site, a copy of Hee’s original report can be found here.
It is not clear whether the commission routinely allows previously certified statements to disappear and be replaced by amended documents without public notice, or whether the previously filed report is still available for inspection at the commission’s office even though no longer available online.
It appears Senator Hee relied on the information disclosed by his wife and simply copied it into his new form. His disclosures filed in 2008, 2009, and 2010 have not yet been amended and still claim none of the income or other interests disclosed in his latest report.
Also a question mark are Senator Hee’s own outside business interests, if any. His own campaign materials described Hee as a “business owner and consultant”, but no such business interests or associated income are reflected in his available disclosures filed with the ethics commission.
The disclosures filed by Hee and Waters also illustrate a significant shortcoming of the disclosure process. Waters reports earning between $50,000 and $100,000 from her private consulting business, but ethics policies do not require disclosure of clients, so the public is left to wonder whether any special interests might have hired Waters in order to influence her husband in his official role as state senator.
Of course, this problem is not unique to Hee and Waters. Elected officials who also own or operate businesses, or hold real estate or insurance licenses, are also able to shield their client lists from public view.
Also unknown at this point is whether Hee will face any sanctions or penalties for the years of filing false and incomplete financial disclosures.
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Excellent work, Ian. Keep on it! Hawaii needs more independent oversight like this.
You should consider interviewing Ethics Commision Director Les Kondo on why they would not pursue a misdemeanor false certification prosecution against Hee. The integrity of public filings by elected officials in critically important in a democracy. This is precisely why false certification to governmental authorities is a criminal offense.
Attaboy, Ian. Although the snooze-paper has had days to catch up with you, not a whisper yet. Wonder if there ever will be.
Don’t hold your breath waiting for penalties or sanctions for Hee.
Clayton Hee is a complex individual – I suppose we all are but he’s ben in office or a high-ranking appointed official for the past 25 years and we’re not – who drives me crazy at times.
He understands and usually does the right thing on a number of issues as diverse as protecting animals from abuse to establishing strong land use protections to supporting public education.
However, his general approach is “My way or the highway” and that does not bode well for not only his constituents but also the general public.
Now that Mazie Hirono has officially committed to running for the US Senate – Big Mistake – Clayton is getting ready to go after her seat. It will indeed be an interesting election season next year for those of you who will be around to be involved in it -= even as a side-line spectator.
If Hee has to resign to run for Mazie’s seat, all I can say is good riddance! Hee has blocked and stalled way too many good bills for his own political agenda and I will not miss him one bit.
Clayton Hee has two open and active GE Tax Licenses on the Hawaii Tax Collector website:
W03215112-01 (opened 08/01/1983)
and
W03215112-02 (opened 08/01/1989)
dba “THE COWBOY COMPANY & THE HAWN HORSEMAN”
I wonder if more information could be gleaned from reviewing his previous OHA ethics disclosures.
Great find!!
I hadn’t thought of checking the GET.
Although, to be fair, they keep those licenses active forever.
I thought I read somewhere that they had gotten more aggressive with people holding dormant licenses requiring them to still file $0 revenue or to close the accounts. (I also understand that they would not assign him a new GE tax license when they converted to the new system if he didn’t file.)
Leinanij:
This is the start of Reapportionment Season. All State Senate seats are open in 2012 – even those who ran in 2010.
In fact, the concept of determining who will be running for two-year terms and who will be running for four-year terms in 2012 was briefly discussed at yesterday’s State Reapportionment Commission meeting.
No matter where you live, if he decides to run for the Second Congressional District seat, then please make sure that your concerns are made public.
Without speaking to his report omissions, I will say that Senator Hee ran his committee as smoothly as most senior senators can. In fact, as a regular audience member, I know we appreciated how he would open hearings with a run down of the bills and the likely committee position. He was a mostly pleasant chair to people testifying– I often caught him smiling and genuinely listening. And conference, well, that sucked for everyone. Maybe he/Hee killed off bills, but as do other committee chairs, but leadership killed off bunches too. Maybe the biggest conference committee chair criticism I have is that he/Hee was heavy handed with wanting the Senate position on conference bills–I watched commas being discussed.
Sure, there’s plenty to say about Senator Hee –and until Ian’s investigative report surfaced I’m more than sure Senator enjoyed every minute of the attention–but I found Senator Hee to be a fair and a good manager his senate committee business.
I just can’t let this one slide, hipoli. You know better than anyone that what happens in the public eye is just a dog and pony show. I’m not a fan of repealing the exemption for state legislators within the sunshine law, but Clayton constantly forces me to reassess my position.
I like Clayton, but to suggest that he is “fair and a good [at] manag[ing] senate committee business” is absurd.