Don’t miss Stewart Yerton’s story at Civil Beat describing the misuse of public power by Senator Donavan Dela Cruz (“Land And Power 2023: How One Influential Hawaii Senator Is Using Public Agencies To His Advantage/A decade after his controversial Public Land Development Corp. was dissolved in the face of a public outcry, Sen. Donovan Dela Cruz is using other agencies to buy and develop land“).
It’s an important story and deserves your attention.
Although members of the legislature aren’t empowered to personally attempt to set policies or demand official action be taken by agencies except through action by the legislature, Dela Cruz has been quite blatant in making personal demands that agencies follow his directions, “or else.” In this case the “or else” involves his threats to retaliate financially against recalcitrant agencies or employees by cutting their funding, in some cases digging down several layers in an agency and threatening to eliminate an employee’s specific position from the state budget if they don’t do the senator’s bidding.
It strikes me that the senator’s strong-arming of state employees, especially when he reaches down into an agency to pressure a specific employee or office within the agency, can be seen as a violation of the Fair Treatment provisions of the state ethics law. It is one of those ethics laws that applies to legislators as well as other state employees.
§84-13 Fair treatment. (a) No legislator or employee shall use or attempt to use the legislator’s or employee’s official position to secure or grant unwarranted privileges, exemptions, advantages, contracts, or treatment, for oneself or others….
And the provision is implemented in the State Ethics Commission’s administrative rules.
§21-7-10 Fair treatment. (a) Subject to article IlI, section 7 of the Hawaii State Constitution and section 84-13, HRS, legislators and employees shall not use or attempt to use their official positions to solicit, request, accept, receive, or grant unwarranted privileges, exemptions, advantages, contracts, treatment, or benefits, for themselves or others, or to subject others to unwarranted treatment, whether favorable or unfavorable.
It is one thing to publicly advocate for a favored project, as long as financial rewards don’t flow directly or indirectly back to the senator or his friends, a caveat that suggests further investigation would be appropriate.
However, it is something very different to go out of official channels to use behind-the-scenes political arm-twisting to influence their official action, and subjecting them to “unwarranted treatment,” including threats to their continued employment.
Dela Cruz has been at this for a while, and I’ve belabored this point several times before.
It’s payback time as two powerful senators twist arms to kill one of the governor’s nominations, iLind.net, March 22, 2023
UH budget tripped up by Dela Cruz pork, iLind.net, May 9, 2021
Stadium redevelopment plan’s legacy of deceit, iLind.net, February 25, 2021
Powerful state senators pressure agencies to back Hu Honua, iLind.net, September 17, 2020
Legislator’s tie to NextEra consultant shows gaps in required financial disclosures, iLind.net, September 15, 2015
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Didn’t Donna Mercado Kim do the same thing with the then UH President MRC Greenwood?…threatening to cut UH funding because her son didn’t get into UH Law School?
An obvious question is: why does this type of behavior continue? Is there not enough evidence to provide some consequences? Are impacted employees afraid to come forward?
I’m guessing because we live on a small rock, a lot of people aren’t up for making waves as they might get swept under and they still have to live in this one horse town.
Government employees are notorious for ducking their heads and not looking up in order to wait time out until retirement.
The fact that there are so many AJAs in government here is another factor with their go along get along cultural baggage.
DDC is an outright punk and I’m glad he’s being spotlighted a lot lately. He’s definitely sweating a little. However, unless the so called leadership do not rein him in, he’ll continue. But who knows, maybe what he does is in line with what Kouchi wants? Like Kouchi’s junkyard dog.
Unless the so called leadership rein him in…
There, fixed it.
DDC and Kidani both occupy the loveseat of power in the Senate.
My question is Why do voters continue to elect him?
His constituents are either in favor of his actions or ignorant of them. If all the voters in his constituency could be notified personally, then they might not vote for him in case they aren’t in favor of his actions. Obviously, they are not following the news enough to realize that their guy is doing all of this.
Yes, only to find out he had not applied to the law school. Now he’s a member of the House of Representatives following a political footprint.
Corruption at the highest level!
It’s so good that Civil Beat is bringing corruption to our attention. There is nothing to respect. about Kouchi, DelaCruz and like. Drinking in House Speaker Saiki’s office will not be forgotten.