Whatever Happened To...
An update on past news
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Gill refused call to challenge Lingle
Question: What ever happened to the effort to get labor attorney Tony Gill to run for governor?
Answer: Oahu Democrat Tony Gill announced he would not run for governor, despite the plea by supporters.
Last year, several Democratic activists independently formed a committee to build support for a Gill challenge to Gov. Linda Lingle. There is no official Democratic challenger to the Republican governor.
"I wanted to either pick up the banner or get out of the way. I guess it's the latter," Gill said in a statement in December. "I was hoping to put together a campaign this time, but I won't. Sorry, guys, gotta work."
Although their Web site is still up, the Draft Tony Gill for Governor committee disbanded as soon as Gill announced he would not run. The group has not found another candidate to back.
"There's no one to throw our support behind just yet," Marion Heen Shim, committee co-chairwoman, said yesterday. "We'll see what happens."
In his statement, Gill said that he could not afford to take most of the year off work to launch a campaign.
"The campaign laws make clear that no matter how much money the public is willing to entrust to a candidate, the candidate can't use any of it to feed his or her family while campaigning," he said.
Gill's father, Tom, was a leading figure in the party's emergence in the 1950s. The former Hawaii congressman and lieutenant governor made two unsuccessful bids for governor in the 1970s.
Tony Gill is an attorney with the firm Gill & Zukeran.
This update was written by the Associated Press and Star-Bulletin reporter Leila Fujimori.
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