The State Ethics Commission sent out a news release on Thursday regarding the required financial disclosure statements of candidates for state offices.
A candidate financial disclosure includes information about a candidate’s sources of income; business ownership interests; officer or director positions in businesses; debts; real property interests; clients represented before state agencies; and creditor interests in an insolvent business. Candidate financial disclosures are public records and are available for public inspection.
According to the commission, 237 out of 266 candidates filed their disclosures by the July 25 deadline. Four, including Senator Donovan Dela Cruz, filed but missed the deadline. The remaining 26 had not filed as of the 28th and were labelled “non-filers” by the commission. All who missed the deadline are subject to an automatic $50 fine.
The names of the non-filers and late filers are listed in the release.
Unlike elected and appointed officials, candidates do not have to include information on the financial interests of their spouses and dependent children, but are useful nonetheless in identifying potential sources of future conflicts. I have found they are also a test of whether a candidate and aspiring public official takes their responsibilities to the public seriously, as incomplete or questionable disclosures display an inattention to the importance of this small bit of transparency.
The state candidate financial disclosures for the 2022 elections are available via the Ethics Commission website. Click that link and you are taken to a list of candidates which lists a link to the disclosure report’s contents, the candidate’s name, the office they are running for, the date their report was filed, and the date of any amendments. The system allows you to sort the names into alphabetical order, or in order of the office sought, or to search for a particular candidate.
Candidates for county councils filed disclosures at the county level. Reports filed by candidates for Honolulu City Council can be found here, in a set of records that includes elected members of the council as well as administration officials. I apologize for not including links for each of the counties, but I just haven’t had time.
Back at the State Ethics Commission site, if you’re interested in a particular candidate, it’s not too bad, but stepping through the different categories of information on each candidate takes a lot of clicks, from the summary page to individual categories, then on to specific details, and then back again to the next category, and so on. For the public user, it’s a very inefficient system. Better than nothing, but tiring to use.
I’m in the process of looking at the disclosures filed by candidates for governor and lt. governor, which I’ll try to report on later.
But if you take a little time to browse the financial disclosures, please share what you find of interest, as well as your feeling about whether the layout worked for you.
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$50 fine? A wrist slap.
Dea Cruz a slam dunk: a fine of no consequence.
Thanks for that information–important as campaign financing issues have been a source of considerable contention in this round of state races–as they should be. I look forward to reading your reports about this. According to information posted by Kahele, Green was in violation of a state law in 2018 by having too large a proportion of his donations from out of state donors, for which he received a modest fine. Astonishing how small the fines are, relative to the donation limits! Also according to Kahele, Green this time around has received large donations from a couple affilialted with a mainland company (the CEO and his wife, if I am remembering accurately) that made big bucks on no-bid contracts for COVID testing during his term as Lt. Gov.
Following the money is all well and good, but it seems that Hawaii media have simply abandoned all pretense of fact-checking the wild claims that candidates are now making in TV ads while voters are casting their ballots.
From some of these preposterous ads, you’d think the toothless office of Lieutenant Governor in particular not only had some actual power and authority but was darn near omnipotent in its ability to unilaterally solve Hawaii’s affordable housing and homelessness crises and even protect us from all manner of corruption, secrecy, corporate greed, the tourism onslaught, sea level rise, and global warming.
But it’s really a hoot watching Cayetano go negative in a desperate last-ditch attempt to tear down Green. This, after cuddly ol’ hubby Ben was such a crybaby about the attack ads that targeted him during his empty 2012 run for mayor. At least those ads were from a third-party PAC and thus allowed his opponent Caldwell plausible if unconvincing deniability.
And then there are those even uglier PAC ads targeting other candidates now. Certain media prima donnas who wet their pants about the anti-Cayetano ads ten years ago seem unable to locate their pompous indignation now.
Maybe it’s all just so far over their heads that they don’t know where to start.
To their credit, Civil Beat had a pretty solid roundup about some of this stuff just today, and the Star Advertiser also took a stab at it. Still waiting for Pompadour Joe and Languid Dave to intone at their outraged innocent leisure.
Hey Ian,
I did find some items of interest, and I also came way with the feeling that a smart candidate with a mountain of debt can finagle this website well enough to make him look financially solid. For example, I don’t believe we have anyway of knowing if a candidate has excessive credit card debt which might just appears as a loan–but I could be wrong.
It was interesting to randomly discover a state senator (District 16) that appears to have more creditors (sources of debt) than income. It also appears this lawmaker has college loan debt since Navient is listed as a creditor. (And to be fair, I’m sure with enough digging she isn’t the only one with college loan debt). So I am not sure if this lawmaker is earning enough to keep up with all her creditors, or if she is getting help from a spouse to stay financially solvent. The website makes it appear as though she has more bills than income.
I also found it interesting that Josh Green earned income (contract work) while working as Lt. Governor giving him two sources of income. Wow! Is that even legal?
Scroll down and you see that Green owns a business in healthcare consulting, which evidently connects to his other income. But what I really find interesting is that when you scroll down further you see that the client list box is empty!
So evidently as Lt. Governor Green has been running a consulting business on the side called Green Health International, LLC. and earning income of at least $100,000 but less than $150,000, but the client list is a mystery. I feel that this is another area that needs to be cleaned up unless I am not aware of other navigational links that might answer these questions.
Nothing new or unusual there. The current law doesn’t require itemizing clients. Realtors, lawyers, “consultants,” etc. can rack up income from undisclosed sources. I have been critical of the failure to require disclosure of clients, at least of any clients who have business interests in the level of government represented by the candidate. But, so far, no changes in the law.
I should add that my understanding is that Green has continued to work part time as an emergency room physician. If you’ve found yourself in an emergency room, you probably got a separate bill for the various services there, usually through a company like this. For whatever reason, that seems to be the way things are done in that part of the medical world.
Thank you for the clarification Ian. Green’s “consulting work” doesn’t sound as bad now.