EDITORIAL
Keep fund-raising apart from lawmaking session

State Sen. Clayton Hee's recent misstep with campaign solicitations is symptomatic of a distasteful, long-standing practice of scheduling political fund-raisers during the legislative session.

In this case — only one of many episodes in which people seeking legislative favor are approached to buy fund-raiser tickets — the senator's campaign volunteers shopped the tickets around University of Hawai'i regents at about the same time that interim members were seeking confirmation by his committee.

Nominee John Kai, who did not buy tickets, saw his nomination rejected and has since called for an ethics probe into the matter.

The senator, who maintained that he was unaware of the ticket sales and that it had no bearing on the vote, apologized nonetheless.

And one of Hee's staffers, Amy Agbayani, has acknowledged poor judgment in sending fund-raiser tickets to another regent nominee, Ramon S. de la Pena, whom she identified as a personal friend.

Clearly, even the mere appearance of a shakedown damages the credibility of the legislative process.

A whistle-blower organization called Citizen Voice has urged lawmakers to pledge that they won't conduct fund-raising during session. That's a good idea.

The overlap of the fund-raising calendar with legislative season is a creature of expedience: It's more convenient to sell tickets while all the players are in town. It's undoubtedly quite effective, too.

But it's a practice that must change, if lawmakers want to preserve their credibility with Hawai'i's taxpayers and avoid accusations that their decisions arise from political self-interest.