State Rep. Matt LoPresti and House Speaker Joe Souki are quarreling with the state Ethics Commission after the agency’s staff questioned LoPresti about his campaign to solicit fans and air conditioners for Ewa schools.

It’s not clear what concerns the Ethics Commission may have about LoPresti’s “Cool Schools 4 Ewa” initiative. Neither Les Kondo, executive director of the Ethics Commission, nor LoPresti would say.

Asked about the line of questioning from Ethics Commission staff, LoPresti said, “It was a while ago, and I can’t remember what was said.”

LoPresti (D, Ewa Villages-Ocean Pointe-Ewa Beach) contends that the larger issue is that the Ethics Commission shouldn’t be asking such questions in the first place — unless there is an official complaint or investigation.

“They were giving me the third degree,” said LoPresti, who compared the questioning to randomly being interrogated by a police officer on the street.

However, Kondo said that staffers were merely following up on some concerns from the Attorney General’s Office.

“We had gotten an inquiry from the AG’s office actually, questioning certain things and we wanted to ask Rep. LoPresti some questions just to clarify the facts,” Kondo told the five-member commission that oversees his agency on Wednesday during a monthly meeting.

Kondo also said that he planned to respond to a letter that his office received from Richard Dvonch, attorney for the House of Representatives, on behalf of Souki and LoPresti.

In that letter, Dvonch suggests that Kondo needs to clarify whether there was an official complaint levied against LoPresti before proceeding with questioning to avoid “adverse consequences.”

“As you can imagine, the threat that one’s actions in donating one’s own time and effort to facilitate donations to the state could lead to questioning by the commission staff could certainly cause individuals to decide not to help out the public schools, which is the concern of leadership in this case,” Dvonch wrote.

Dvonch said official charges must be made under oath or signed by three members of the commission.

Kondo said that he disagrees with Dvonch’s interpretation of Hawaii ethics laws.

“We think the commission staff has the ability to ask questions just to clarify in our own mind if there is an issue that we need to investigate,” he said.

The scuffle represents ongoing tensions between the House of Representatives and staff of the Ethics Commission. In May, Souki sent a letter to the former chairman of the Ethics Commission, Ed Broglio, suggesting that any new policies Kondo had put in place since becoming executive director in 2011 be dismissed.

LoPresti said that he’s just trying to help out schools in his district that lack air conditioning. He launched his “Cool Schools 4 Ewa” program, which solicits donations from the public and businesses to pay for fans and air conditioners for schools, last month.

For years, the Department of Education has struggled to come up with funding to cool Hawaii schools.

“I’m very proud of what we have done for public schools,” said LoPresti.