Mike “Big Mike” Palcic and a group calling itself the Hawaii Republican Assembly probably erred by including House Speaker Calvin Say among the recipients of a June 23 email blast with the subject, “Help Support Hawaii’s Republican Candidates for State House and Senate in 2010”. The email was addressed to Say at his state capitol office.

Say responded with an email notifying the group that House policy restricts use of its computer system to state business, and that both House policy, and state law, prohibit use of state computers for campaign communications.

I have instructed the House Clerk to block you as a sender of e-mails to our computer system if further electronic communications are received from you in violation of our House computer policy.

Palcic responded for the group by calling for “an immediate retraction”, and attacking Say’s email as “a threat to block electronic communications between the public and elected officials.”

Palcic wrote:

Any “House computer policy” your office may have adopted has no bearing, effect or jurisdiction over what the public may transmit to government officials. This should be obvious to any intelligent person or to anyone who values living in a free country.

Not so fast, Big Mike.

A State Ethic Commission memo regarding use of state email for campaign purposes generally agrees with Say’s characterization of the law.

At first glance the statute cited (Section 84-13 HRS) applies to legislators and employees, not to members of the general public. The specific case cited by the commission involved “a situation in which a state e-mail account was used to forward a message advocating the election of certain candidates for state office.” So there’s at least some basis for Palcic to feel that restricting access to the system isn’t required by statute.

However, the prohibition against using state resources for “private business purposes” would appear to give the House plenty of room to adopt policies that would prohibit businesses from sending promotional emails to state offices or bar political organizations from directly promoting election or defeat of candidates using the state email system to reach state offices and employees.

The prohibition is nonpartisan, meaning that it applies equally to all political parties.

So I think Palcic is plain wrong on this score.

By the way, Palcic’s wife, Julia Allen, has taken out nomination papers to run against Rep. Say, and both have tried unsuccessfully to unseat Say in the past.

Palcic is listed as treasurer of the Hawaii Republican Assembly. The group’s chairman is Paul E. Smith. The group registered with the Campaign Spending Commission in April 2009.