It was somewhat surprising to see the reports yesterday that the Attorney General had filed charges against Kauai Rep. James Tokioka for “recklessly” filing campaign spending reports that were not complete or accurate during last year’s primary election. It was reported last night by KHON (“AG files campaign reporting violation charges against Kauai lawmaker“), and this morning by the Star-Advertiser (“Tokioka settles campaign finance charge“).
The surprise came from several things. First, such complaints are very rare. Second, the complaint was filed back on the afternoon of August 11, 2015. That was two weeks ago, and apparently it went unreported until now. And there wasn’t much attention paid to the investigation earlier.
I did a brief look early this morning for the background.
Hawaii News Now’s Rick Daysog reported in April that cases involving unreported contributions to three legislators had been referred to the AG (“EXCLUSIVE: Attorney general’s office asked to investigate lawmakers“). Tokioka was named, along with Angus McKelvey and Richard Fale.
Daysog reported:
Sources said the commission found that all three collected tens of thousands in campaign contributions last year but did not report them until the reporting discrepancies were flagged by investigators.
Daysog also noted: “Usually, allegations like these lead to civil fines. But because they involved incumbents, sources said the commission believed the violations are intentional and warranted a criminal referral.”
In June, The Garden Island newspaper reported that the case involved a contribution from one of the state’s top lobbyists, George “Red” Morris, and that the AG’s office had asked Tokioka to take a lie detector test (“Tokioka takes polygraph test voluntarily“).
Tokioka acknowledges that his campaign made an error by filing late, and said that a campaign volunteer made an additional clerical error when entering information about a $500 donation from G.A. “Red” Morris, of Capitol Consultants of Hawaii. Tokioka said the reports have since been amended.
Tokioka said that the contribution was inadvertently entered as a personal donation from Morris, when it should have been recorded as a donation from one of Morris’ clients. According to Tokioka, that sparked concern that they were trying to conceal the source of the money.
“It was clearly a simple error and an honest mistake to put his home address on the campaign spending report,” Tokioka said.
Morris did not respond to multiple attempts over several days to reach him for comment.
A quick check of the Campaign Spending Commission website shows that virtually all of Tokioka’s campaign reports filed during 2013 and 2014 were later amended.
Tokioka is Kauai business manager for Oceanic Time Warner Cable, according to his financial disclosure reports.
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“. . . virtually all of Tokioka’s campaign reports filed during 2013 and 2014 were later amended.”
It’s pretty easy to play a game with the reporting by filing on time but then amending reports — one case I noticed was three years later. At a minimum, amended reports should include a statement as to what is being amended as well as why.
Uh-huh. Sure. I’m certain it was accidental.
It would be interesting to know who was the client they were trying to hide.
I’m one of three Kaua’i residents who filed the complaint against Jimmy Tokioka.
Our complaints had NOTHING to do with any money Tokioka received from Capitol Consultants.
We filed the complaints because Tokioka FAILED to report two high end fundraisers that were held on O’ahu and raised nearly $30,000 in campaign contributions. One fundraiser was a $1,000/plate dinner held at the Kahala home of Hawai’i Tourism Authority executive director George Szigeti. Not only did Tokioka fail to file how much he raised at these events, he also failed to file the expenses stemming from the two fundraisers.
Compounding the matter, Tokioka waited 19 DAYS to filed his amended campaign spending report. Early voting had already started and his constituents had no idea this was happening because The Garden Island never did a followup story. They reported that Tokioka was three days late, but never followed up 16 days later when he actually amended the campaign spending report.
Tokioka then did this story about the polygraph test and Red Morris.
That was NEVER part of the complaints we filed, nor was it mentioned in court last Monday.
According to the Campaign Spending Commission, along with being a Class C Felony for “willingly and intentionally filing late,” the fines from not filing an amended report in a timely manner start at $50 per day for the first seven days and then the fines increase to $200 per day for each day afterward.
Mind you, Tokioka’s two opponents both correctly completed their campaign spending reports on time.
In my opinion, given that he’s been filing such reports for more than a decade, Tokioka should have been responsible for $2,750 in fines and been charged with a Class C Felony.
Instead, the Campaign Spending Commission referred his case to the AG’s office and he was charged with “reckless” filing and only charged $1,000 along with being on “probation” for the next year.
Many people think this was a slap on the wrist, but Tokioka now has the distinction of being the first legislator to be charged with this crime.