I received an email from a longtime reader with questions about the practice of elected officials using their campaign funds to make contributions to other candidates.

Here’s his email:

Hey Ian,

I visited the Hawaii Campaign Spending Commission website to see who is donating to candidates I am familiar with and was taken aback by the high level of candidates donating to other candidates!

Has this been a growing trend in Hawaii?

They’re easy to spot: “Friends of …” (fill-in blank with name of state lawmaker) contributes dollar amount to another state lawmaker. One candidate I researched received six different “Friends of” donations for a total of $8,600. That’s a lot of help from your legislative buddies.

For the candidate committee making the donation, obviously legislative loyalty is expected in return–or else, I guess. And if you are one of these “Friends of” candidates that receives free money in return for votes, your job just got a lot easier.

What say you Ian?

Are these “Friends of” committees wrongly exploiting campaign spending laws at the detriment of democracy or simply helping like-minded candidates get re-elected?

Michael Formerly of Waikiki

So I took a look at contributions to candidates made this year by the campaign committees of other candidates. I found 79 contributions with a total value of $92,100 made by campaign committees.

Below is a list of each of the contributions from a “Friends of (fill in the name)” committee.

I’ll be back later today with a follow-up looking at the law and my own assessment of whether or not this practice conflicts with the letter or spirit of the campaign spending law.