Persona non grata: Common Cause Hawaiʻi director Camron Hurt is the latest to feel the wrath of Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi. The mayor removed Hurt from a city commission that directs money to nonprofits the day after Hurt was quoted in a Civil Beat story criticizing Honolulu Managing Director Mike Formby for threatening to withhold funding from two council members’ districts unless the members voted to confirm the mayor’s choice for housing director.
Hurt is often outspoken, and refreshingly so. But so is Blangiardi, which The Blog has always appreciated. People who are not afraid to speak their minds are rare in these islands. So it’s really too bad that the mayor seems to be sending a message that speaking out will not be tolerated. (Now who else do we know who doesn’t like that? Hmmm.)
Civil Beat is focusing on transparency, accountability and ethics in government and other institutions. Help us by sending ideas and anecdotes to sunshine@civilbeat.org.
For the record (and so you don’t have to click on the link above) here’s what Hurt said about Formby’s behavior:
“It is completely disgusting for a member of the mayor’s body to try to coerce members of the legislative branch of the city in that way. Not only is it disgusting, it’s unethical, immoral, and the mayor should reevaluate who he has around him if he doesn’t want to be seen as immoral.”
Surprisingly, or perhaps not since it is in some kind of weird way in keeping with the Blangiardi style, the mayor openly acknowledges he whacked Hurt because he didn’t like what he had to say.
“We did not believe that it was appropriate to have someone who so clearly and so vocally does not believe in the leadership of this city to continue to serve as an appointed representative of the mayor on one of our boards and commissions,” city spokesperson Ian Scheuring told Civil Beat reporter Ben Angarone last week.
Mayor Rick Blangiardi sent Camron Hurt a brief letter on Dec. 18, dismissing him from the Grants in Aid Advisory Commission. This image of the letter was cropped to removed Hurt’s personal address. (Courtesy: Camron Hurt)
Hurt had served since 2023 on the Grants In Aid Advisory commission, the group that recommends each year which nonprofits should be awarded city funds.
His removal means the seven-member commission now has two vacancies, although two candidates have already surfaced. Scheuring said the city doesn’t foresee this being an issue with the upcoming award cycle.
Hurt’s term had ended in January 2025, but city staff with the Office of Grants Management asked him in the fall if he wanted to serve another term. They said the City Charter allowed him to keep serving until someone else was appointed in his place.
In mid-December, shortly after Hurt’s comments were published in Civil Beat, one of those staff members emailed him to coordinate picking up a flash drive in preparation for the next award cycle. A day later, the mayor sent Hurt the letter saying his services were no longer needed.
Hurt said he understands why the mayor removed him, but he’s frustrated the removal happened so suddenly. And now that he knows why, he thinks there’s a message there for others who may be considering serving at Blangiardi’s pleasure.
“This government is OK to politically retaliate against people who have done nothing but serve their community with honor, just because they call out an obvious case of bullying,” Hurt says.
Camron Hurt, director of Common Cause Hawaiʻi, is often outspoken and unvarnished when he weighs in on matters affecting public policy. (Kevin Fujii/Civil Beat/2025)
The long and the short of it: It’s that time of year when reports ordered up by legislative committees are starting to roll in as lawmakers prepare to return to the State Capitol later this month. So The Sunshine Blog was glad to see the Legislative Reference Bureau’s study on a year-round legislative session — one of The Blog’s favorite issues — pop up on the list.
But alas, the 109-page report, plus another 214 pages of supporting documents, makes no attempt to address a key question — what a longer session would cost taxpayers.
“Sine Die Another Day: Should Hawaii’s Legislative Sessions Be Longer?” was compiled by three of the LRB’s research attorneys who two years ago were handed the political hot potato of studying “a continuous legislature, extending the legislative session, and adding additional recess days.” They appear to have been given no other guidance, not even a deadline for finishing the report.
Last year, House Speaker Nadine Nakamura pushed the issue herself during session, including a proposal to form a working group around the idea, but in the end tabled it until the LRB finished its work. So now it has and here we are again.
The researchers do a good job of rounding up already known information, such as the fact that the Legislature already has the option of staying in session as long as it wants as long as it doesn’t hold more than 60 floor sessions as set forth in the state constitution. Or, as the report points out, lawmakers could ask voters to amend the constitution. As The Blog likes to point out, the end of session is nothing more than legislative leaders naming their own convenient quitting time, especially when there are bills still on the table they want to kill.
The authors did look at a handful of other states as well as Hawaiʻi’s year-round county councils, but in the end, the report is reduced to somewhat informed speculation in the form of “key observations”:
— Many state agencies could accommodate longer sessions without making big changes, but increased costs would be likely for those that work directly for the Legislature, like the LRB and the Senate and House staffs. Again, what are those costs? Unknown.
Members of the House and Senate money committees pack into a conference room to announce highlights of the state budget during last yearʻs legislative session. (Chad Blair/Civil Beat/2025)
— When it recommended big pay raises for legislators, the state Salary Commission concluded that lawmakers were already working full-time for the state.
— “It is not clear that increasing the duration of regular sessions alone would provide for greater legislative transparency.” The Blog agrees here — more transparency also requires the election of more reform-minded legislators.
The Blog is troubled by the fact that the LRB researchers were ghosted by House and Senate officials when they asked for information. We’re used to the Senate dodging information requests but Nakamura ought to be asking why her people didn’t cooperate since she asked for this report, right?
“The Bureau requested detailed operational and financial information from the Chief Clerks of the House of Representatives and the Senate for an analysis of the potential operational and financial impact that lengthened or continuous regular sessions might have on each body,” the report states. “As of the publication of this report, we had not received the requested information.”
Perhaps not surprisingly then, the offices of the House speaker and Senate president did not respond this week to inquiries about the LRB.
The authors are also quick to note that they would’ve needed a lot more information to adequately analyze the issue. Their whole assignment, they opined, “is rather nebulous and leaves open to speculation a vast array of possible options to explore.”
Minority view: The Blog has been amused to see Hawaiʻi lawmakers scrambling to distance themselves from their (at least publicly) unknown colleague who, while with convicted former Rep. Ty Cullen, took $35,000 in a paper bag from a suspected briber while the FBI surreptitiously watched. We’re making a leap here, but since it’s hard to imagine the need to put $35,000 worth of checks in a paper bag, it seems likely to have been cash.
Most House and Senate lawmakers are swearing none of them took $35,000 in potential bribe money handed over in a paper bag. (David Croxford/Civil Beat/2025)
In the months since former federal public defender Alexander Silvert decided to make it his mission to get lawmakers to conduct a special investigation into the matter, lawmakers and their leaders have had little to say. House Speaker Nadine Nakamura kinda sorta tried to deflect criticism by at least asking Attorney General Anne Lopez and Acting U.S. Attorney Ken Sorenson what they were doing about it. Lopez says, essentially, it’s not her problem because Sorenson is on top of things; Sorenson as usual won’t say anything about what he refers to as “an ongoing investigation.”
Leave it to the Loyal Opposition to step up when you need them. The House GOP Caucus (minus Rep. Kanani Souza, of course, who really isn’t a member of the Republican caucus) says it supports Silvert’s petition. The House Republicans say they get it that there is already an ongoing investigation but something else can and should be done.
Meanwhile, we have also finally heard from the Senate on the issue. That chamber had remained characteristically silent even though the House had been responding to questions about Silvert’s petition and the situation in general.
Last week, the House issued a statement saying none of the current House members took the $35k and none of them knew who did. They sent around a press release with a signature from all 23 House Democrats who were in office in 2022 when the incident occurred.
And now a similar press release from Senate President Ron Kouchi declares much the same.
“All current sitting Senators have been asked as to whether they received the alleged funds and/or if they know any legislator who received the alleged funds,” Kouchi said in a statement issued Friday. “All majority Senate members have stated that they did not receive the alleged funds and do not know any legislator who received the alleged funds. None of the minority members responded to my inquiry.”
Kouchi, like Nakamura, cited Lopez’s refusal to initiate a state level investigation while the federal inquiry is still (allegedly) playing out because it would interfere with the feds. “The Hawaiʻi State Senate will await notice from the Department of the Attorney General with regard to its review of the federal investigation and its pending course of action,” Kouchi said.
Just so you know, the statue of limitations for this potential federal charge is marked from the time the potential crime occurred. So the feds have until January 2027 to put up or shut up on this one.
Meanwhile, state mawmakers plan to introduce a bill this session that would have the clock start running on a campaign spending violation (which this might have been, who knows) when it’s discovered by campaign spending officials, not necessarily when it occurred.
The Blog is liking Silvert’s idea on this one: Form a special legislative committee with subpoena powers and haul former Rep. Ty Cullen in and ask him who the “influential state legislator” is.
Cullen likely can’t get in any more criminal trouble. He’s been convicted, sentenced and served his time. Perhaps he would now be willing to win back a little bit of public goodwill by coming clean about it.
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