VOLCANIC ASH
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By David Shapiro
Why doesn't Sen. Cal Kawamoto spare us his annual ethical evasions to perpetuate his hold on public office and just put forth legislation to have himself anointed senator for life?
Surely his colleagues would humor him, given their history of timidity when it comes to standing up to the blustery Waipahu senator and his perverse propositions that dishonor them all.
Last year, Kawamoto commandeered a campaign finance reform bill intended to remove dirty money from politics and instead inserted language that made it easier for special interests to buy votes.
Kawamoto was acting out of personal pique over an investigation by the Campaign Spending Commission into his own questionable finances.
Outraged fellow Democrats in the House made the unprecedented request that Kawamoto be removed from the House-Senate conference on much-needed reforms to stop illicit campaign contributions that corrupt fair elections. The Senate stood by Kawamoto and the reforms died.
This year, Kawamoto struck preemptively against campaign finance reform.
On Day 1 of the Legislature, he introduced bills to give senators appointment power over the Campaign Spending Commission that regulates them — and the right to fire its executive director, Robert Watada, who heads the investigation of Kawamoto's finances.
If Senate Democratic leaders don't finally muster the courage to rebuke Kawamoto's self-serving, he'll continue to impose his lethal views against honest campaigning as chairman of the Government Operations Committee.
That's too often how it goes in the la-la land of the Legislature, where misguided loyalty to fellow lawmakers prevails over fidelity to the public they're all sworn to serve.
Kawamoto's reasoning for his latest bills is that the Campaign Spending Commission affects senators' political ambitions, so therefore the Senate should control them.
"They're dealing with our lives and all of that kind of stuff," he said. "We want the proper people in there."
We can only imagine how this legislator who demonstrates so little propriety would define "proper."
Putting the commission under the control of the politicians it regulates would cripple the panel.
It's now appointed by the independent Judicial Selection Commission to protect against exactly the kind of political pressure Kawamoto is bringing, so members and staff can freely do their job of keeping Hawai'i's elections clean and honest.
Kawamoto's vendetta suggests the outrageous position that his interest in his own re-election trumps any public interest.
His manipulation of flawed campaign finance laws certainly has served him well.
He raised a massive $265,000 war chest in the last election, which he spent not to campaign against opponents, but to curry favor with constituents by sprinkling cash donations to community groups all over his district.
Such gift-giving from campaign coffers is the possibly illegal practice Watada is investigating, saying it amounts to blatant vote-buying.
It gave Kawamoto such an unfair and insurmountable advantage over potential challengers that he scared them off and ran unopposed in 2002.
An uncontested election is one of the greatest insults to our system of democratic competition.
Bullies like Kawamoto can exercise only as much power as colleagues give them.
If his abuse of the system isn't what Senate Democrats stand for, it's long past time for leaders such as Senate President Robert Bunda and Judiciary Chairwoman Colleen Hanabusa to draw a line and remove Kawamoto as an obstacle to campaign finance reform.
And if Republicans want to be taken seriously as a political party, they must end Kawamoto's free ride and see that voters have a credible choice when he runs for re-election, no matter how rigged a battle it may be.
David Shapiro can be reached at dave@volcanicash.net
