[ OUR OPINION ]
Eject political lobby
from governor’s officesTHE prohibition against public resources being used for political purposes can be hazy, but the line crossed by the Lingle administration in promotion of education reform is stark as can be. Any explanation of such transgression risks comparison with Al Gore's infamous claim of "no legal controlling authority" over his solicitation of campaign contributions from White House offices.
THE ISSUE
A private organization promoting education reform has been raising funds and operating from Governor Lingle's Capitol office.
The Cayetano administration ran a thinly veiled advocacy campaign three years ago to ban smoking in restaurants when the state Health Department spent $850,000 on a media ads in partnership with the hotel workers union and the Coalition for a Tobacco Free Hawaii. The campaign succeeded in pressuring the City Council to impose such a ban. It was not incorporated and registered as a political lobby, but it walked, talked and quacked like one.
Lingle created Citizens Achieving Reform in Education, or CARE, last October as an advisory group, but it soon became an advocacy organization. On New Year's Eve it was registered with the state as a private, nonprofit corporation. It signed on with the state Campaign Spending Commission in February as a political action committee, a lobby with the ability to raise funds to push for education reform.
CARE's Internet presence is a government Web site maintained by Lingle's staff. It gives the organization's address as 415 S. Beretania St., Suite 417, which is the governor's office in the state Capitol. CARE's administrator and e-mail contact person are state employees. Bob Awana, the governor's chief of staff, says five or six state employees work on CARE activities, including fund-raising efforts, along with their other duties.
CARE has received $50,000 from Castle & Cooke, $25,000 from the Unity House labor umbrella and $5,000 from a couple. Lingle has earmarked $65,000 in state funds from her office's budget to be injected into CARE. More than $13,000 has been spent on radio commercials backing Lingle's education reform plan.
Lingle has been lukewarm to further regulation of campaign spending, preferring increased "transparency" of political fund raising. The thrust of that position is that people can reach conclusions about political money as long as they know where it is coming from and to whom.
"The governor has been transparent in everything she does and would never knowingly do anything that's not within the boundaries of the law," Awana told the Star-Bulletin's Rob Perez. He said someone in the Lingle administration -- he can't remember who -- told him the CARE arrangement was OK.
It is not OK. State Ethics Commission director Don Mollway, while declining to comment specifically on CARE, says the state ethics laws prohibit state resources from being used for private purposes, including "a private organization that lobbies or is engaged in political activities." Rep. Scott Saiki, the state House Democratic leader, is calling for Mollway's commission and the Campaign Spending Commission to investigate the matter.
