Governor Abercrombie’s office issued a press release yesterday announcing his nomination of Karen Nakasone, a deputy public defender, to a seat on the First Circuit Court. Undoubtedly she is a well qualified pick and worthy of confirmation.
But the press release, which failed to even mention that Nakasone’s name came from an undisclosed list of nominees forwarded to the governor by the Judicial Selection Commission, was also a single finger salute to the OIP and the public’s right to know. OIP has previously determined that state law requires the list of nominees to be made public once the governor makes his choice, but the governor has refused to comply, instead saying he would not obey the law unless directly ordered to comply by a court.
Unfortunately, the news media is not doing well in its watchdog role. The issue of the governor’s refusal to disclose the list of nominees was not mentioned in broadcast reports, and got only a passing mention in Honolulu’s daily newspaper.
The press release was duly reported by KHON, Hawaii News Now (with the single quote taken directly from the press release), and the Star-Advertiser.
Only long-time court reporter Ken Kobayashi, now writing for the Star-Advertiser, even mentioned the nomination process and the governor’s dissing of the law. He wrote:
It is unclear whether Abercrombie could have chosen prosecutors, because the governor is not releasing the names of the four to six candidates submitted to him by the Judicial Selection Commission for each judicial vacancy.
But no more was said about Abercrombie’s stubborn refusal to comply with the OIP opinion and the state statute it is empowered by law to interpret.
As far as I can tell, Civil Beat, which has been pounding on the disclosure issue, has yet to report on Nakasone’s nomination.
The reality is that the governor isn’t going to reverse course and obey the law unless someone comes up with the money to fund a legal challenge, or the political heat intensives. Unfortunately, though, it looks like the mainstream media is giving up and relegating this to the very back burner, essentially giving the governor an undeserved victory, at least for now.
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Deja vu? Why does this remind me of the infamous f**k you letter?
Stonewalling is actually an effective technique in our little go along and get along world. Left unchallenged, we can expect more unilateral actions and decisions as precedent has been set.
I’m not at all happy with my former Prof.
Sure, Neil deserves many lashes for thumbing his nose once again at the OIP and state openness laws and past practices. That said, I see nothing usual in the coverage of this appointment.
TV has become the great waste land that was predicted. News in the merged area is nothing but ambulance and fire chases and ripping and reading. I have not seen an in-depth TV report in years in Hawaii.
The hybrid has shrunk newspaper reporting and the news columns as it becomes ever Oahucentric
Timing and depth has taken a real toll as well.
Only chance I see is for senate judiciary committee to refuse to act without the whole list of candidates governor received. I see that as wishful thinking.
Not only wishful thinking, it simply won’t work.
If the Senate fails to reject a nominee within 30 days it is deemed to have given consent. Or, if Senators vote to withhold consent, the Gov must pick another candidate from the list within 10 days.
So, if the Senators really wanted to know who was on the list, they’d have to vote down at least three nominees. After three, it’d be a gamble for the Senate to deny any more, because the (secret) list could be from 4 to 6 names long.
Far better is Ian’s idea: the media should sue and force the Gov to follow the law.
Thanks, Ian, for keeping an unblinking eye on the issue.
Any chance of him getting hammered on this by a future opponent?