[ OUR OPINION ]
Casting out violators
will help clean houseCAMPAIGN-spending reform died in this year's session of the state Legislature, but the state Procurement Policy Board has taken an important action in barring companies that are fined large amounts for making illegal contributions from receiving state or county contracts. The board's power to impose the restriction may be challenged in court, so legislators should be prepared to grant it that specific authority.
THE ISSUE
A state board has approved a rule that will allow it to bar campaign-spending violators from bidding on state or county contracts.
The board approved an administrative rule that would allow it to initiate proceedings to bar from bidding on contracts any contractor fined more than $5,000 for campaign spending violations. The Campaign Spending Commission can fine companies up to triple the value of the amounts in violation.
The commission has fined more than 60 city and state contractors some $600,000 for violating limits on campaign donations or laundering them under false names -- an average of $10,000. However, the rule will apply only to companies fined after it goes into effect, which is at least a month away.
Carl Varady, an attorney for R.M. Towill Corp., a target of civil and criminal investigations, argues that the board lacks power to implement the rule. However, the board reviews and interprets procurement policies and claims the authority to make and implement rules related to those policies.
Randy Chu, president of the 200-member Structural Engineers Association of Hawaii, complains that the rule "implies that a campaign spending violation was committed to secure a contract, although we believe that this has never been proven." Precisely. Although fairly obvious, the difficulty in proving such a link is similar to a prosecutor's problem in establishing a motive for a crime, which is why prosecutors are not required to prove the motive.
"The government is saying that if you show this unethical behavior, we're not going to continue to let you get taxpayer money," says Bob Watada, the spending commission's executive director. The procurement board should not have to prove a specific link between a donation and a government contract.
The board's action comes as a pleasant surprise. Governor Lingle had called for an "honest, fair and totally merit-based" process of awarding contracts and had supported campaign finance reform in last year's Legislature, but she had not mentioned the possibility of spending violations resulting in procurement restrictions.
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Plea-bargain proposal
would overload courtsCROWDED federal court dockets in Hawaii could become even more overloaded by a directive from Attorney General John Ashcroft that prosecutors reduce plea bargains with criminal defendants. However, the policy may be difficult to implement. The "limited, narrow circumstances" under which pleas may be bargained already exist, and U.S. Attorney Ed Kubo should regard Ashcroft's get-tough-on-crime stance as nothing more than political pandering.
THE ISSUE
Attorney General John Ashcroft has directed federal prosecutors to reduce the number of plea bargains with criminal defendants.
Ninety-six percent of the 60,000 cases handled by federal prosecutors in fiscal 2001 resulted in plea bargains. However, nearly all of the pleas that result in lesser sentences are either to reward defendants for "substantial assistance" to the prosecution, such as testifying against others, or part of "fast track" proceedings for immigration and drug cases.
Those exceptions remain valid, but Ashcroft's directive subjects those cases to review by the Justice Department's Washington office. The centralizing of authority puts more pressure on the nation's 93 U.S. attorneys to explain their actions.
The directive follows an Ashcroft memorandum ordering U.S. attorneys to report cases in which judges imposed sentences lighter than the range set by federal sentencing guidelines. Meanwhile, the Judicial Conference of the United States, a 27-judge panel that makes federal court policy, unanimously voted this week to ask Congress to repeal a new law that curbs judges' discretion.
"Plea bargains have been used historically because the courts don't have time to have trials," says David Burham, co-director of a Syracuse University operation that tracks federal law-enforcement data. "Charges are reduced to encourage prisoners to avoid going to trial, and we just don't have enough judges to do it differently."
Any effort to bring more cases to trial could wreak havoc on Hawaii's federal courts, which Chief District Judge David Ezra says already face a "crisis" because of a shortage of judges. One of Hawaii's four judiciary positions is vacant, resulting in "unacceptable delays in the handling of both civil and criminal cases," according to Ezra.
No Senate Judiciary Committee hearing has been set for Frederick W. Rohlfing III, President Bush's nominee to be the fourth judge. Rohlfing's nomination was put in danger when he received the only unanimous "not qualified" rating by the 15-member American Bar Association Standing Committee on the Judiciary of all Bush's judicial nominations.
