The campaign committee of Honolulu City Council member Ikaika Anderson tops the list of those campaigns making contributions to other candidates during the period January 1-July 24, 2020. Anderson’s committee contributed $10,000 to other candidates during the period, followed closely by the campaign of Ann Kobayashi, which gave $9,000 in contributions to other candidates during the period.

Both these council members will leave the council when their terms expire later this year, but you’ll notice a number of other active candidates also used their campaign funds to bolster the campaigns of others.

There are specific provisions in Hawaii’s campaign spending law governing the use of campaign funds.

The law (Section 11-381 HRS) provides that campaign funds are generally to be used for “any purpose directly related…to the candidate’s own campaign.”

However, the law then provides several exceptions to the rule, including a limited number of donations to nonprofit organizations or any public school or library, to award scholarships, contributions to the candidates’s political party, “ordinary and necessary expenses” of holding office, and “to purchase not more than two tickets for each event held by another candidate.”

And the immediately following section of the law provides:

Prohibited uses of campaign funds. Campaign funds shall not be used:

(1) To support the campaigns of candidates other than the candidate with which they are directly associated;

(2) To campaign against any other candidate not directly opposing the candidate with which they are directly associated; or

(3) For personal expenses.

The law further provides that candidates can hold their campaign funds “for the candidate’s next subsequent election” by registering as a candidate.

Candidates who are elected and later terminate their campaign committees can use their funds as provided, return the funds to the original donors, or let the balance go to the election campaign fund.

In a quick scan of contributions made to other candidates, there appear to be different circumstances.

Example: Mayoral candidate Kymberly Pine made a $4,000 contribution from her campaign funds to Andria Tupola on February 26, 2020. Tupola filed a notice of intent to hold a fundraiser on the evening of February 25 at the Pacific Club. The price of tickets, or the suggested contribution per person, ranged from $200 to $4,000.

Reading the provisions together, it could be argued that Pine could have properly purchased two $200 tickets for a total of $400, but paying ten times as much could be reasonably interpreted as going further and supporting the campaign of another candidate, a prohibited use under the law.

Obviously this is a gray area. The $4,000 expenditure may be legal under a very literal interpretation of Section 381, but it appears to run afoul of the overall intent of the law, in my non-lawyerly view.

Example: Councilmember Ann Kobayashi’s campaign contributed $4,000 on July 1, 2020 to the council campaign of Dave Watase. However, Watase’s campaign did not file any notice of a fundraiser with the Campaign Spending Commission for any events so far this year, according to the list provided on the commission website.

If there was no fundraising event, and hence no tickets to purchase, would this be a prohibited use of funds by Kobayashi’s campaign?

I’ve drawn these examples to illustrate the different kinds of questions that arise when candidates transfer funds from their campaigns to those of other candidates. I’m sure that a closer examination of all 72 such contributions made so far this year would provide other interesting examples as well.

In any case, thanks to “Michael formerly of Waikiki” for starting this discussion.