Harris' fund told to give up excess $98,500

By Robbie Dingeman
Advertiser City Hall Writer

The state Campaign Spending Commission has notified Mayor Jeremy Harris' campaign that it must give up $98,500 in excess contributions identified over the past year, commission executive director Robert Watada said yesterday.

Under state law, a campaign must transfer such money to the Hawai'i Election Campaign Fund rather than give it back to the donors. That fund is used primarily for partial public financing of qualifying candidates.

The Harris campaign so far has transferred $20,000 of the money in question, Watada said in an interview.

Watada said his office has yet to send out demand letters for some of the contributions. Today, the commission is expected to fine two more companies $500 each for contributing more than the $4,000-per-donor limit to Harris' 2000 re-election campaign.

Since the commission began analyzing a pattern of excess contributions, Watada said the bulk of excess donations has been to the Harris campaign.

"There's a pattern of contributions over the limit," he said.

Watada said his office also is probing the campaigns of Gov. Ben Cayetano, Maui Mayor James "Kimo" Apana and, "to a much smaller extent," mayoral candidate Mufi Hannemann and Lt. Gov. Mazie Hirono.

Watada points to the example of Geolabs-Hawaii, a geotechnical engineering firm based in Kalihi that was fined $64,000 by the commission in January. The company gave Harris more than $48,000 since 1997, directly and through affiliates, employees and their spouses. The company also gave Cayetano more than $41,000 in campaign contributions and lesser amounts to other Hawai'i candidates, for a total of $124,700 in improper donations.

Those scheduled to be fined $500 today are:

• AJ Construction, which Watada said donated $4,000 worth of work on Harris' downtown campaign headquarters, then gave $1,000 worth of contributions, pushing them over the limit by $1,000.
• Attorney Eric Yamagata, of Yamagata Development, who Watada said gave $5,000 to the Harris campaign, $1,000 over the limit. Watada said Yamagata said it was an oversight.

Last month, the commission fined two other companies $500 each for excess contributions to the Harris 2000 campaign at its April 17 meeting.

They were:

• Helber Hastert & Fee, a land planning company. The company agreed that it had contributed $1,000 more than it should have.
• Archico Inc. a wholesale flooring business, headed by Jing Shan Liang. In the conciliation agreement, Liang acknowledged that he gave excess contributions of $3,000.

Those contributions date to Harris' 2000 campaign for mayor, when he was limited to $4,000 from each contributor during the 1996-2000 election period.

Harris and his campaign officials have repeatedly accused Watada of having a political vendetta that causes him to scrutinize the Harris campaign more closely than the campaign finances of others. Watada denies that and says he's doing his job.

"When we've identified now possibly close to a hundred contributors that may have given over the limit, it's significant," Watada said. "Some of the companies we see have made contributions to a number of campaigns."

Reach Robbie Dingeman at rdingeman@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8070.