Candidates and elected officials are allowed to raise money to advance their political campaigns, which should be firmly grounded in public service. Campaign war chests are not intended to personally enrich a candidate, or to finance their everyday expenses. When candidates misuse their supporters’ contributions, they confirm voters’ worst suspicions about the political process in general and fuel a distrust that serves to undermine participatory democracy.
Campaign-spending violations, therefore, are a big deal, a sign of corruption that must be rooted out. Veteran Democrat Romy Cachola may claim that infractions discovered by the Hawaii Campaign Spending Commission were unintentional on his part, but that defense is hard to fathom, given his long experience on the Honolulu City Council and in the state House. Cachola should be well versed in the rules regarding the proper reporting and expenditure of campaign contributions. Friends of Romy Cachola, the campaign fund, is intended to keep the man in office, not pay for his day-to-day life.
Cachola should repay out of his own personal funds all the campaign money he is accused of misusing, an amount that totaled nearly $70,000 when fines were included. Moreover, he should be prepared to answer additional accusations, given that the city Ethics Commission is reported to also be investigating his conduct. Such a probe is welcome, given that the time period covered by the Campaign Spending Commission overlaps with Cachola’s term on the Council, when he received a monthly car allowance of $250 to $300 a month. This is significant because among the expenses the state commission accused Cachola of improperly paying from campaign funds are costs one would assume would have been at least partly covered by the car allowance during the time he was on the Council, such as gas, vehicle registration, parking and repair and maintenance bills.
Suspected double-dipping on vehicle expenses could justify elevating the scope of this investigation.
As it stands now, the Campaign Spending Commission granted Cachola a continuance until June 18, as his lawyers hastily submitted paperwork the day of his hearing last week, showing that he was reimbursing about $14,500 of the total due to his campaign. But this show of "good faith" that Cachola is cooperating fully with the investigation is not enough. He must pay back all the money, and accept the consequences of any wrongdoing.
One egregious example cited by the Campaign Spending Commission was the $30,437 Nissan Pathfinder purchased with campaign funds in March 2008, a vehicle that Cachola obviously used for personal business, as verified during a weeklong surveillance operation by the state last January that documented him driving from his Kalihi home to his wife’s medical office, a country club, a church and the state Capitol, where his office is located. Another $21,826 was claimed through December 2013 for gasoline, insurance, parking and other vehicle-related expenses.
Cachola, who served on the City Council for years before returning to the state Legislature in 2012, also was called out by the state commission for excessive, vague expenses from January 2011 to December 2013 for "public relations" and "food and beverages." Cachola failed to keep the detailed records required by the campaign-spending law to justify such expense claims, which are usually allowed.
The lawmaker did not attend the hearing in person, but his lawyer was there to contend that any misuse of funds was inadvertent, that such errors would have been more than offset by legitimate campaign expenses that Cachola paid out of his own pocket, and that the lawmaker was too busy during the recently completed legislative session to gather all the documents requested by the commission in time for last week’s hearing. Cachola should have made the time. The public trust is too precious to squander so callously.
