Posted on: Friday, May 31, 2002

Campaign investigation made 'bad publicity'

•	Mayor Harris withdraws from governor's race
•	Mayor's campaign troubled from start
•	Lingle says no change in strategy
•	Mayoral hopefuls left without a race
•	Hirono back in race for governor
•	Democrats scramble to move into position
•	Reshaping Hawai'i's political landscape:
•	Major events in Jeremy Harris' effort to run for governor
•	Lee Cataluna: Democrats search for real leader
•	Interactive/Multimedia: Video of Harris announcement (courtesy of KHNL-News8) Do you think the mayor made the right decision? Take our survey. Join our discussion. • Submit a letter to the editor.

By Walter Wright and David Waite
Advertiser Staff Writers

Mayor Jeremy Harris said yesterday he didn't quit the governor's race for fear of indictments alleging campaign spending violations.

But during the past several months, Harris and his campaign organization spent much of their time battling allegations in court to deny any improprieties involving campaign donations and procedures.

At least one aspect of Harris' campaign contributions — called "bundling" — remains under investigation by Prosecutor Peter Carlisle, and news of its dragging on could have dogged his candidacy if he stayed in the race.

Although Carlisle could not be reached yesterday, his office has confirmed that it is investigating a complaint by Campaign Spending Commission Executive Director Robert Watada that Harris' 2000 campaign circumvented limits on donations by attributing them to people who never contributed.

Harris did win at the Hawai'i Supreme Court on May 7 when the justices ruled against former state Sen. Russell Blair's lawsuit seeking to force Harris to step down as mayor immediately because he was running for governor.

And Harris in April won two specific battles with the Campaign Spending Commission. First, U.S. District Judge Helen Gillmor ruled that donations to his mayoral campaign in 2000 didn't reduce what he could get from the same donors in the governor's race this year.

Then the commission dropped a complaint that Harris illegally failed to report his campaign's $100,000 donation to the Democratic National Committee.

Harris didn't mention campaign spending specifically yesterday.

He referred to "bumps in the road" and said it was a "year of bad publicity" that had caused his polling numbers to drop.

In connection with the commission's complaint, the prosecutor's office has begun interviewing people. The interviews are related to allegations that companies that got contracts from the city, primarily for engineering or architectural work, were using other people's names, without their consent, to make campaign contributions to evade donation limit laws.

Watada yesterday referred questions to attorney Jim Bickerton, who is defending Watada in a lawsuit filed by Harris accusing him of unfairly targeting the mayor. Bickerton said yesterday he could not conclude that Harris dropped out of the governor's race because of Watada's investigations.

"But we do believe that the work that the Campaign Spending Commission has been doing has much enhanced the climate in electoral politics, made the playing field cleaner and more level, and made the process more transparent," Bickerton said. "For all of those reasons, we think the system is working."