A joint House and Senate committee Friday unanimously endorsed another bill aimed at rooting out political corruption by making it a Class C felony for committing a crime of “official misconduct.”
“This is an important measure that helps to further our goal this session to strengthen our laws to prevent official misconduct and corruption that we have seen too many cases of in recent time,” said Rep. David Tarnas, chair of the House Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs Committee, who recommended that House and Senate members of the conference committee approve the latest version of House Bill 986.
The bill went to conference committee after it was amended to become official “upon approval.”
HB 986 “Establishes the class C felony offense of official misconduct to prohibit a person, in the person’s official capacity, from acting or refraining from performing an official duty with the intent to obtain a benefit other than the person’s lawful compensation, or submitting or inviting reliance on any false statement, document, or record.”
On March 31, Gov. Josh Green signed into law seven bills mandating greater transparency of lawmakers and state boards after disgraced former Senate Majority Leader J. Kalani English and now-former Rep. Ty J.K. Cullen pleaded guilty in federal court in February 2022 to accepting bribes to support and kill legislation on behalf of Milton J. Choy, owner and manager of a company called H2O Process Systems.
On July 5, Senior U.S. District Judge Susan Oki Mollway sentenced English, then 55 and a former majority leader of the state Senate, to 40 months in federal prison and to pay a fine of $100,000 “for honest services wire fraud consisting of acceptance of multiple bribes in return for performing, and agreeing to perform, official legislative acts on behalf of a Hawaii businessperson.”
On April 6, Mollway sentenced Cullen, 42, to serve 24 months in federal prison “for honest services wire fraud which consisted of his acceptance of multiple bribes in return for performing, and agreeing to perform, official legislative acts on behalf of a Hawaii businessperson.”
The arrests of English and Cullen spawned a furious chorus for reform, prompting House Speaker Scott Saiki to create a special Commission to Improve Standards of Conduct that recommended several of this session’s bills, along with the state Campaign Spending and Ethics commissions.
The bills that Green signed into law in March, among other things, now:
>> Require state candidate committees and noncandidate committees to file fundraiser notices regardless of the price or suggested contribution for attending a function.
>> Set a $100 limit on the total amount of cash a candidate, a candidate committee or a noncandidate committee may accept from a single person during an election period.
>> Prevent lobbyists from giving gifts to legislators that are prohibited under state ethics laws.
>> Require lobbyists to identify actions they comment on whether in support or opposition starting in January 2025.
Other bills intended to clean up government corruption are also scheduled to go before conference committee, including:
>> The latest version of HB 727, which prohibits “a ballot issue committee to donate surplus funds to a community service, educational, youth, recreational, charitable, scientific, or literary organization” and prohibits campaign funds “to be used to buy up to two tickets for an event or fundraiser held by another candidate or committee.”
>> The latest version of Senate Bill 203, which allows the Campaign Spending Commission “to treat a respondent’s failure to explain or otherwise respond to a complaint alleging a violation of campaign spending laws” as a “presumption that a violation has occurred.”
