As reported here yesterday, House Speak Joe Souki filed an annual financial disclosure statement in late January 2014, days before the filing deadline. However, this disclosure appears to have been simply a place holder, since it failed to disclose Souki’s actual interests and instead check off “None” for each required category.

It allowed the Speaker to technically meet the reporting deadline, although this disclosure statement failed to disclose anything. Income? Souki answered “None.” Ownership or beneficial interest in businesses? None. Creditors? None.
Real estate? None.

All of these answers were not true.

Yet the form, apparently filed using the ethics commission’s online filing system, also checked off the legal certification:

CERTIFICATION: By checking this box or signing your name on this form, you signify and affirm that you are the person whose name appears as the “Filer” above and the information contained in the form is true, correct and complete to the best of your knowledge and belief. You further certify that you understand that there are statutory penalties for failing to report the information required by Hawaii law.

But did Souki violate the ethics law by answering “None,” rather than reporting his actual financial interests in that January 2014 report?

Unfortunately, what I observed several years ago about the disclosure lapses by a different state legislator continues to be the case.

When you get to the fine print, though, it’s pretty discouraging.

The ethics law provides penalties for late reports, but it doesn’t not appear to have meaningful penalties for false reports, whether intentional or due to negligence.

The ethics commission may investigate and issue a finding. That appears to be the extent of its powers in the case of false reporting, unless I’m missing something.

Perhaps there is some other statute with penalties for falsely certifying an official document as true. Does anybody know? Otherwise, it looks like apart from public outrage, if any, there is no penalty when an elected official hides their financial interests from the public and fails to comply with the state’s ethics laws.

When it comes to disclosures required of others, such as lobbyists, the legislature has provided the ethics commission with some additional enforcement powers, even though still relatively weak.

The state’s lobbyist registration and disclosure law (Chapter 97 HRS) provides:

§97-7 Penalties; administrative fines. (a) Any person who:

(1) Wilfully fails to file any statement or report required by this chapter;

(2) Wilfully files a statement or report containing false information or material omission of any fact;

(3) Engages in activities prohibited by section 97-5; or

(4) Fails to provide information required by section 97-2 or 97-3;

shall be subject to an administrative fine imposed by the commission that shall not exceed $500 for each violation of this chapter. All fines collected under this section shall be deposited into the general fund.

Those penalties can only be assessed if a full administration hearing is held and the commission makes a decision on the case.

That can be lengthy and costly process for the commission, and it has rarely imposed such penalties.

However, on paper at least, the commission can take action against lobbyists who fail to disclose the information required by law. However, when the same thing is done by a legislator, the legislature provided no such enforcement power.

Of course, there may be unrelated statutes that could be applied. I think there is a law against filing false statements in an official document. But that would likely require action by the prosecutor or the attorney general, again very unlikely.