View Point
Monday, October 18, 1999
IF the results of two complaints that Common Cause Hawaii filed with the state Ethics Commission are typical, the commission needs to get tougher. Ethics panel needs
teeth in its biteOne of our complaints was against Maui Sen. Joe Tanaka, D-5th District (Wailuku-Upcountry-Kahului), for allowing his office phone number to appear in a newspaper advertisement which announced a celebrity baseball game with three Playboy playmates and included a discount coupon for receiving the Playboy cable channel.
To his credit, Senator Tanaka accepted blame for the error and produced letters showing he had asked Playboy to use his home phone number.
The Ethics Commission, therefore, found that there was no violation.
However, even if we leave aside the question of whether it is appropriate for a state legislator to co-sponsor an event with Playboy, I agree with Senator Tanaka that he should have checked the advertisement in advance to avoid violating the ethics law.
He was negligent, and the Ethics Commission should have said so.
In a much worse case, five days before the 1998 election, Sen. Sam Slom, R-8th District (Kalama Valley-Aina Haina), faxed a press release to the media noting the Governor and Mrs. Cayetano had purchased a lot in his district.
The ethics law prohibits using a legislator's official position or resources to secure an unwarranted advantage for anyone.
Nevertheless, Slom's press release was printed on official state Senate stationery, contained several statements about how the economy would improve if Republican candidate Linda Lingle were elected, and implied both that Governor Cayetano had obtained the money for the lot illegally and that his moving into the district would lower property values.
Slom defended using his official position and resources to promote Lingle and smear Cayetano by saying that he was merely welcoming the governor to his district. However, he admitted that he had not sent a copy of the "welcome" letter to Cayetano.
Slom also claimed that he was carrying out his legislative duties in welcoming a new constituent. But he admitted that he had never welcomed any other constituent in this way. He also maintained that his claims of the future benefits of a Lingle win were part of his legislative duty to comment on the economy.
AFTER several hearings and exchanges of letters, the commission found that the primary purpose of the press release was electioneering and that Slom should not have used official stationery.
Nevertheless, the Ethics Commission broke its own rules by deciding that the facts of the case did not warrant further deliberation and instead issued an informal advisory opinion.
This was wrong. The commission should have prosecuted such a blatant violation.
It is no consolation that the Ethics Commission was too lenient with both a Democrat (Tanaka) and a Republican (Slom). If the commission really wants to encourage ethics in government, it should criticize and penalize all those who violate the ethics law instead of letting them off.
Larry Meacham is executive director of Common Cause Hawaii.
(Diane Chang's column will return Friday.)