Harris repeats his charge
that he is the victim
of a vendetta

Carlisle demands Harris records

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By Gordon Y.K. Pang
gpang@starbulletin.com

Mayor Jeremy Harris repeated his charge yesterday that the chief of the state Campaign Spending Commission is waging a political vendetta against him to help the mayor's adversaries.

But when asked for whom commission Executive Director Robert Watada is waging the vendetta, Harris would not say. "Unlike Mr. Watada, I'm not going to slander people until I have the hard evidence," he said yesterday.

The commission forwarded its campaign spending violation case against Harris' 2000 mayoral campaign last week to city Prosecutor Peter Carlisle.

To illustrate what he considers Watada's bias against him, Harris said that his supporters were told on the eve of the 2000 mayoral contest that they could not use advertisements or letters showing campaign Co-chairman Lex Brodie endorsing him because Brodie was a candidate for the state Board of Education.

"It provided my opponent, Mr. (Mufi) Hannemann, a great advantage, obviously, to take my key supporter out of the race in the final days and ruin our media strategy," Harris said.

The commission later ruled that it had made a mistake, Harris said, "but by that time the damage was done."

Harris went on to win the election over Hannemann and others.

Watada, however, has a different recollection of the events. A Harris campaign official called about the Brodie advertisement but did not give the commission staff all the pertinent information, Watada said yesterday.

As a result, he said, his office refused to answer questions about the matter until it received all the facts in writing.

Watada said it was "absurd" for Harris to insinuate that the investigation into the mayor's campaign is designed to aid Hannemann, who is running for mayor this year.

"Mufi's running for mayor and, as far as I know, Mayor Harris is running for governor," Watada said, echoing comments made Thursday by Hannemann. If Harris were to drop out of the governor's race because of the uproar over the investigation, there would be no race to replace him as mayor.

Hannemann noted earlier this week that in 2000, Watada hurt his campaign against Harris by barring contributors who had given the maximum during his 1998 Council race from giving any more.

Watada said that his staff is actually looking into Hannemann's records as part of a larger investigation into the relationship between campaigns and contributors. Other politicians' records are also being looked at, he said.

Harris, meanwhile, said he opposes proposals before this year's state Legislature to tighten up campaign laws.

"In general, I think the issue is how do you remove the need for large amounts of money in a campaign, not how do you restrict certain individuals from participating in the political process," Harris said.

He said proposals to bar companies who have government contracts from contributing to campaigns is unfair and unconstitutional.