STAR-BULLETIN / 2002
On March 12, Mayor Jeremy Harris and lawyer Robert Klein announced the suspension of Harris' gubernatorial campaign.
Harris’s legal battles Although Honolulu Mayor Jeremy Harris has withdrawn from the governor's race, don't expect the legal pressure to let up.
won’t go away
anytime soon
Prosecutors say their investigation
will not be affected by his decisionBy Rick Daysog
rdaysog@starbulletin.comCity Prosecutor Peter Carlisle -- whose office has been looking at Harris' 2000 mayoral campaign for possible criminal violations since January -- will not deviate from his course now that Harris has dropped out of the governor's race.
"This has no bearing on our investigation." said Jim Fulton, executive assistant to Carlisle. "Our investigation is continuing."
Earlier this month, the Star-Bulletin reported that Carlisle's office had broadened its investigation into the Harris campaign by issuing subpoenas to city departments for records. City prosecutors previously issued subpoenas for Harris campaign records.
Carlisle's investigation is being supported by the U.S. attorney's office, the FBI and the Internal Revenue Service.
All three federal agencies have declined comment, but people familiar with the investigations said they do not expect an indictment in the near term since the agencies are still collecting information and have not convened a grand jury.
The federal and city inquiries are an outgrowth of the state Campaign Spending Commission's yearlong investigation into the Harris campaign and dozens of city contractors that have donated money to his campaign.
Harris has denied wrongdoing, and said his decision had nothing to do with the threat of a possible indictment. Harris attributed his decision to a drop in the political polls.
A year ago, the polls showed that he was the only Democrat who could beat Republican gubernatorial candidate Linda Lingle, he said. Polls now show that he would lose to Lingle by 22 percent, Harris said.
"Politics is pragmatic, and when you drop 30 points in the polls, you can no longer win the race," Harris said. "It doesn't make much sense to run in the race."
But Harris conceded that the legal challenges have hurt his standing, citing former state judge and lawmaker Russell Blair's lawsuit challenging Harris' right to run for governor without resigning as mayor.
Blair argued that Harris should have stepped down in May 2001 when he filed organizational papers for governor with the Campaign Spending Commission. Circuit Judge Sabrina McKenna ruled in Blair's favor, prompting Harris to suspend his campaign.
Although the state Supreme Court reversed McKenna's decision earlier this month, Harris has not been able to get his campaign back on track.
The impact on his legal battles with the state Campaign Spending Commission is unclear.
Chris Parsons, an attorney for the Harris campaign, said campaign officials are assessing their lawsuits against the commission.
Earlier this year, the Harris campaign sued the commission and its executive director, Robert Watada, in federal court, saying they violated Harris' First Amendment rights after the commission filed a formal complaint against the campaign for raising $100,000 two years ago on behalf of the Democratic National Committee.
Federal Judge Susan Oki Mollway dismissed the lawsuit, but the Harris campaign has filed an appeal with Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The commission has withdrawn the complaint.
In a separate lawsuit, U.S. District Judge Helen Gillmor issued an injunction against the commission for attempting to limit the amount of money that a donor to Harris' 2000 mayoral campaign could donate in his campaign for governor this year.
Political career over the years ranges from Kauai to Honolulu
A look at Mayor Jeremy Harris' career over the years:>> 1972: Obtained a bachelor's degrees in arts and science from the University of Hawaii.
>> 1974: Obtained a master's degree in population and environmental biology and urban ecosystems from the University of California-Irvine.
Harris, an instructor of oceanography and biology at Kauai Community College, also started the University of Hawaii's sea grant program on the Garden Isle.
>> 1978: Elected as a delegate to the Hawaii Constitutional Convention.
>> 1980: At the age of 30, Harris was elected to the Kauai County Council and served as chairman.
>> 1981: Re-elected to Kauai County Council. Harris, a longtime opponent of the controversial Nukolii resort, and the Council voted to downzone the 34 acres from resort to agriculture. However, Kauai Mayor Eduardo Malapit vetoed a bill to rezone the property.
>> 1984: Mayor Frank Fasi named Harris as his executive assistant after Harris lost in the Democratic mayoral primary to Tony Kunimura on Kauai.
>> 1985: Fasi promoted Harris to managing director after D.G. "Andy" Anderson resigned to run for governor.
Harris assisted Fasi in backing Councilmen George Akahane, Rudy Pacarro and Toraki Matsumoto in a recall campaign. The councilmen tried unsuccessfully to stave off their recall election.
The Democratic Party was angered the three switched to the Republican Party, and Akahane, Pacarro and Matsumoto were recalled. Harris held the position of managing director until he ran for mayor in 1994.
>> 1993 and 1994: Named Public Administrator of the Year by the American Society of Public Administration.
>> 1994: Elected mayor over Arnold Morgado, Ann Kobayashi and Gary Gill during a special election after Fasi resigned to run for governor.
>> 1996: Won the re-election for mayor, besting Morgado.
>> 2000: Defeated Councilman Mufi Hannemann for mayor.
Star-Bulletin staff
