Tag Archives: Keith Rollman

Got Schnitzer?

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I was browsing this morning, and ended up at the Honolulu Ethics Commission web site. This is the city agency, not connected to the State Ethics Commission.

Unlike the state, which makes lots of information readily available, from lobbyist registration forms, public financial disclosures, and gift disclosures, the city site is pretty bare. I clicked on “Lobbyist Information.” Not much there, but it did include annual lists of lobbyists registered to represent clients before the city. Mostly it’s the usual suspects.

Development consultant Keith Kurahashi seems to be the leading figure representing a variety of clients, from the Queen’s Medical Center to Kyo-Ya Hotels.

Then there’s Schnitzer Steel Hawaii with an unusual number of big guns, including “Red” Morris and John Radcliffe, PR exec Cindy McMillan, John Sabas (married to Jennifer Goto Sabas, Sen. Dan Inouye’s chief of staff), Travis Taylor (former communications advisor to Duke Aiona), and former city council member (remember her?) Rene Mansho.

A quick check on the city’s Docushare system found that Schnitzer is Hawaii’s largest metal recycler, and has been in the middle of the controversy over whether to continue a city subsidy that costs taxpayers a lot of money every year regardless of the profitability of the company.

With so much lobbying muscle at Schnifzer’s disposal, I wondered who was on the other side. They include Jim Banigan, former Schnifzer manager, and Keith Rollman (yes, the same Keith Rollman who became a household name with his Atomic Monkey web site that attacked then candidate Neil Abercrombie).

Rollman testified against the subsidy on behalf of “CleanGreen Advocacy for Hawaii.” Although sounding like an environmental group, CleanGreen lists its partners as Paragon Metals International, Inc., a scrap metal company, and Kokua Renewable Energy, which does not appear in the state’s business registration database.

Paragon is a competitor of Schnitzer and launched an unsuccessful federal lawsuit against Schnitzer back in 2008.

According to the CleanGreen Advocacy web site:

What We Do

We focus on legislative and government regulatory issues that affect the growth of sustainable industries in Hawaii. We can help with permitting processes, bill tracking, testimony preparation and one-on-one lobbying with key decision makers. We can work as an adjunct to your existing public policy consultants and PR teams.

That sounds a lot like lobbying, although neither Rollman nor CleanGreen appear on the city list of registered lobbyists.

For more on Rollman’s current activities, check his resume, and R Strategic Communications, a trade name Rollman registered in July 2008.

Rollman distinguishes his “Atomic Monkey” from Maine site hit with campaign violation

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Keith Rollman jumped into the discussion of the Maine Ethics Commission decision concerning an anonymous political web site with an articulate and reasoned defense of his “Atomic Monkey“.

You probably missed it if you’re not one who prowls the discussions, and it’s worth giving wider attention. His full comment is reprinted below.

OK, I’ll bite.

Actually, there’s some significant differences. The authors of the political website you mention are still anonymous, maintained publishing throughout the campaign and their opponent lost.

To put this into perspective, this case involves a campaign ethics commission in Maine fining some political web blog $200. In their opinion the web blog in question skirted the legal definition of a “contribution” and should have borne a political disclaimer.

If the still anonymous blogger choses to take this to court on constitutional grounds I am confident he will win. Here’s why:

1.The first amendment to the constitution protects political speech, and more specifically, anonymous political speech. I am willing to bet that proven constitutional law, as defined by the U.S. Supreme Court, will eventually trump a local ethic board. (But, how far do you fight a $200 fine?)
2.The particular campaign ethics board that issued this fine has been repremanded by the state courts before for infringing on free speech.
3.This action appears to be brought by the losing candidate’s lawyer, so it could be construed as exactly the type of political retribution that the constitution was seeking to protect against.
4.The internet has changed the rules and wide distribution of material can be achieved, virally, at zero cost. All the old rules, including Maine’s statue 21-A are dependent on an “expenditure” on behalf of a candidate. Maine 21-A further defines this as over $100. And, the material, must advocate the election or defeat of a clearly identified candidate. In Hawaii this has been interpreted as direct “vote for” or “vote against” statements, not information or issue messages. “In kind contributions” are defined by Maine’s 21-A even more archaicly as “printed material.”

So, even without examining constitution protections, the individuals in Maine didn’t meet the threshold for 21-A as written. No expenditure, as defined by Maine law, was made.

If the content of the site is, or was relevant; what did it really say?

The plaintiff’s lawyer laments the content of the offending website: “The Web site was vicious,” said Richard Spencer. “It lied about the identity of its sponsors and it contained gross distortions and misrepresentations about Eliot Cutler.”

This sounds like a standard rebuttal smoke screen.

More alarmingly, Ian Lind picks up this rhetoric and reports it as fact: “an anonymous web site set up to viciously attack a candidate for governor…”

Ian, did you see the site and report on its tone and content first hand or merely parrot the opponents colorful rebuttal? Now THAT does sound familiar.

Ian, Atomic Monkey was different in many ways. First of all it was voluntarily removed from the web. Second, I identified myself to the media voluntarily (the disclosure to Derrick DePledge was OK’d by me – I even did an interview with KITV). And Third, AM’s content fell under disproportionate and inaccurate criticism only AFTER the website was down.

I haven’t seen the Maine website, but I can vouch for the accuracy of and attribution for any statements, presented as fact, made on Atomic Monkey.

Which description fits: “campaign volunteer and advisor” or “Hannemann appointee and paid campaign consultant”?

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Interesting to watch the deft spin by the Hannemann campaign as it deflected the issue of the “Atomic Monkey” blog, a “no holds barred” web site that had been pounding Neil Abercrombie from various directions. Abercrombie, of course, is Hannemann’s main opponent for governor in the Democratic primary and a political adversary for at least 25 years.

Derrick DePledge linked the site to Keith Rollman, a “campaign volunteer and city advisor.” From the Star-Advertiser story:

The Hannemann campaign also confirmed yesterday that a campaign volunteer, who works as a special adviser attached to the city Department of Information Technology, was responsible for a parody website that savagely mocked Abercrombie.

Tanaka said Keith Rollman, the campaign volunteer and city adviser, created the “Atomic Monkey” website on his own time and without the campaign’s approval. The website, which has been taken down, included a disclaimer stating that it was not operated or financed by Hannemann or any other candidate for public office.

“Given his volunteer status with the campaign, it was pointed out to him that this type of website could be misconstrued,” Tanaka said.

Well, the “just a volunteer and advisor” schtick was a spin meant to minimize Rollman’s ties to the campaign. If the story described Rollman as a Hannemann appointee and campaign consultant, that would give a very different and more accurate sense of Rollman’s position.

It looks like the only reason Rollman is a campaign “volunteer” is that he was given a day job as “senior advisor” in the Dept. of Information Technology once Mufi was elected mayor.

Keith Rollman

Until recently, Rollman’s name appeared after the director’s in the listing of city departments, a slot usually reserved for the deputy director. But sometime after the “Atomic Monkey” flap surfaced, his name was removed.

Then there’s the other little role as campaign consultant.

Rollman was a consultant to Hannemann’s 2004 campaign, before being rewarded with his appointment as senior advisor. During the successful campaign, he was paid just over $75,000, according to reports filed with the Campaign Spending Commission.

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Nothing nefarious here, but his ties to the Hannemann campaign are considerably more substantive and active than the phrase “campaign volunteer and advisor” conveys.