SHHHH: There was a plethora of reported jaw dropping among Governor Linda Lingle and her cronies over the “Hawaii State Bar Association's board of directors' rating of appeals Judge Katherine Leonard as ‘unqualified’ to be Hawaii's next chief justice”.
Strangely enough the news of the rejection of Leonard by the bar wasn’t Starvetizer courts reporter Ken Kobayashi’s lede but instead he stressed the professed outrage of Lingle and her republican cronies in the legislature over the secrecy of the bar’s vote.
But we’ve got a lowered mandible ourselves over Lingle’s colossal nerve to criticize the closed vote, especially considering her own legacy of clandestine operations and the notorious way judges in Hawai`i wield their retaliatory sway over attorneys and others in the judiciary, according to many we’ve spoken to over the years.
Lingle and her administration’s abuse of Hawai`i open records laws has been notorious but for those who want to hear the ultimate story of fear and loathing they need turn no farther than legislative staffer Doug White’s recently revived Poinography blog.
Doug finally explained what he was up to in the year plus absence of his popular blog by telling one of those hilarious-if-it-wasn’t-so-serious tales of the runaround he got over a simple record request of the Lingle administration- not to mention the invoice for his temerity in requesting the records for Lingle’s requests for input on the bills she threatened to veto after the 2009 legislative session.
In My UIPA saga – a $1582.15, twelve month struggle White recounts the evasions, lies, delays and the incredible barriers he experienced at the hands of the Lingle administration making any charges of secrecy from her a joke.
We won’t even attempt to truncate the tale- you’ve got to read it for yourself as well as the indexing and posting of the results which White is busily compiling which are already painting a picture of consultation with everyone who is guaranteed to support her position and avoidance of anyone who might dissent.
Also notable is the lack of consultation with the Lt. Governor and current gubernatorial candidate Duke Aiona regarding which we’ll allow you to draw your own conclusions.
Lingle’s legacy of covert governance and feigned outrage over every perceived slight takes a backseat to no other past state administration’s- and that’s saying a lot.
Showing posts with label Doug White. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Doug White. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Friday, November 20, 2009
POLITICAL WON’T
POLITICAL WON’T: Our post Wednesday on the flakey “opinion” given to the charter commission regarding the county manager issue drew a couple of comments that deserve exposition, on an issue we kind of glossed over because it seemed to be self-apparent to us- but obviously not to everybody.
Doug White, who’s left a huge hole in the blogosphere since June when he last posted to his Poinography blog, asked
...under a manager system, who or what would lead the Executive Branch? If that leader is chosen by the Legislative Branch, then in effect there would be no autonomous Executive Branch, and thus no separation of powers. That's how I interpret the CA opinion.
Attorney blogger Charley Foster was of course more to the legal point saying
I think a better way for the county attorney to have argued it would have been to point out that plain text of HRS §46-1.5(1) requires counties to "establish the county executive, administrative, and legislative structure and organization," and that the proposed manager system would establish only an "administrative and legislative structure" in violation of the plain language of the statute. As Doug points out, a "mayor" who is chosen by and serves at the pleasure of the council is not really an "executive." It is true that separation of powers is at the heart of the issue and of the three-branches requirement. But it's possible to argue that the plain meaning of the statute requires an independent executive department without having to invoke that other doctrine.
So let’s look at the words in the relevant constitution and statue passages.
In Deputy County Attorney Mauna Kea Trask opinion he cites the fact that:
Art. VIII, section 2, Hawaii State Constitution states: Each political subdivision shall have the power to frame and adopt a charter for its own self-government within such limits and under such procedures as may be provided by general law. Such procedures, however, shall not require the approval of a charter by a legislative body.
Charter provisions with respect to a political subdivision's executive, legislative and administrative structure and organization shall be superior to statutory provisions, subject to the authority of the legislature to enact general laws allocating and reallocating powers and functions...
HRS section 46-1.5(1) states: Each county shall have the power to frame and adopt a charter for its own self-government, which shall establish the county executive, administrative, and legislative structure and organization, including but not limited to, the method of appointment or election of officials, their duties, responsibilities, and compensation, and the terms of their office.
Nothing there mentions any “autonomous” executive or an executive “branch”, certainly nothing about “separation of powers.” and as a matter of fact the law allows for the “county... to frame and adopt a charter” and determine “the method of appointment OR election of officials” (emphasis added).
Clearly the county may do whatever it pleases as far as not just the method of selecting or electing it’s executive officer but need not make any of them autonomous or adhere to any separation of powers doctrine. As a matter of fact, currently the executive and the administrative entities are indeed part of the same organizational structure with the mayor appointing and overseeing the department heads without any autonomy or separation of powers.
As matter of fact. unless you use an adjective to describe the word “executive”- one that isn’t in the law- no one can argue a county manager (CM) would not be an executive
All a county manager system would do is switch the executive to legislative oversight and make that position appointed rather than elected.
And, it would seem that by saying “appointment or election” the statue leaves room for a county manager type system. Any argument against an unelected executive is clearly a political rather than a legal one.
It should also be pointed out that currently the charter provides for an administrative assistant (AA) whose duties are very close to what a county manager’s would be. That position- who serves solely at the pleasure of the mayor- is one that has routinely overseen department heads on a day to day basis leaving the mayor free to look at the “big picture”, concentrate on “the vision thing” by delegating the nuts and bolts to the AA.
We also mentioned Wednesday that Trask included a section that makes it clear that no more than what is stated in the constitution and statute should be read into it- despite the fact that after saying that he proceeds to read into it separation of powers, checks and balances, autonomy and the lack of an election of the executive.
Trask writes:
According to the law, "The fundamental principle in construing a constitutional provision is to give effect to the intention of the framers and the people adopting it. This intent is to be found in the instrument itself. When the text of a constitutional provision is not ambiguous, the court, in construing it, is not at liberty to search for its meaning beyond the instrument." State ex rel. Anzai v. City & County of Honolulu, 99 Haw. 508, 519, 57 P.3d 433, 444 (2002).
Moreover, a constitutional provision must be construed in connection with other provisions of the instrument, and also in the light of the circumstances under which it was adopted and the history preceding it." Blair v. Harris, 98 Haw. 179, 45 P.3d 798, 801 (2002).
So let’s look at Trask’s arguments one by one:
The phrase included in both Art. VIII, section 2 and HRS section 46-1.5(1) requiring that each county "shall establish the county executive, administrative, and legislative structure and organization", is interpreted by the County Attorney's office to require each county within the state to have specific separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches, which the proposed council-county manager form would not have.
Given that the words “separation of powers” aren’t in the law and the fact that there is currently no separation of powers between the executive and administrative entitles- note also the lack of the word “branches” in law- this argument is clearly erroneous especially since “intent is to be found in the instrument itself” and that one “is not at liberty to search for its meaning beyond the instrument”.
Trask continues:
Furthermore, so as to not render either the, "legislative, executive, or administrative structure and organization," of the county superfluous, void or insignificant said branches need to be substantive and not merely formal.
We’re not quite sure what that means and whether it is a differentiation without a difference but assuming it isn’t, well, the current attachment of the administration to the executive belies irrelevance.
He then seeks to establish what may be called a four prong test.
The proposed amendment would be contrary to both the text and the intent of the State Constitution and the general laws of Hawaii, and therefore illegal, for the following reasons:
1. The State Constitution and the general laws on the subject clearly and unambiguously call for the counties to establish a legislative, executive, and administrative structure and organization of government.
True- and clearly that “structure and organization” is up to the county to determine as long as all three exist- which they would as we established under a county manager executive, certainly to the extent that they exist now.
2. Passage of the proposed amendment would deprive the public of their constitutional and statutory right to a democratically elected executive.
It’s hard to say where he found a “constitutional and statutory right to a democratically elected executive” since the words “democratically elected” not only do not appear but the statute specifically allows for an appointed executive.
And as to any national constitutional or statutory prohibition, how many hundreds of county manager systems exist and have presumably passed legal muster around the country?
3. The proposed council-county manager form of government would deprive the public of a democratic governmental structure that employs checks and balances that would ensure that no particular branch would get too powerful and abuse the representative system of democracy. This is clearly illustrated by the fact that the proposed amendment seeks to delete section 4.03 of the charter thus extinguishing the executive veto power.
We’re not quite sure what the relevance of this is but again the words “checks and balances” do not appear anywhere. Clearly this is a political argument and not a legal one.
4. Under the proposed amendment the council chair would be given
the title of "mayor” but would not exercise any executive authority. Such a titular mayor would not satisfy the mandate of either the constitution or the general laws on the subject.
Ceremonial mayors are common under county manager systems, where the executive is the county manager not the mayor if we’re looking for the “substantive” executive. As a matter of fact some mayors are even appointed by the legislative entity, some on a rotating basis from among the legislative members.
Trask implies that only a title of mayor bestows executive status- clearly an erroneous and presumptuous assertion.
The preconceived notions, the use of the straw man of the specific Lewis proposal to condemn all CM systems- illogically generalizing from the specific argument- and the outright interpretation based on additional language not found in law- especially when the law bans that- and causes Trask’s analysis to fall on it’s fallacious face.
-------
Also on Wednesday, we cited the inability of the council to compel administrative testimony without a formal investigation under the current charter as one of the good arguments for a CM system.
Doug also asked
... has the Council ever actually went the official investigation and subpoena route? If not, then they are fools for not at least trying to exhaust their existing powers before seeking a Charter change, aren't they?
That’s somewhat of a complicated question.- one that has roots in the political, statutory and fiscal realms.
Calling for and authorizing an investigation to obtain subpoena power every time an administrative person doesn’t show up when requested is pretty cumbersome and impractical.
For the last 10 years the council has at times sought to launch investigations. The first obstacle was the lack of any set method of doing so. After dickering around for a year or so they finally passed a resolution that defined a process. But then it became a political football as to which department to investigate first.
Originally it was to be the massive Department of Public Works but the word “massive” was the operative obstacle. Which division to investigate became a problem because so many of them were problematic. Finally a half a million dollars was appropriated to investigate one division but no one could decide which one to investigate.
But then a new council took office and with the departure of a majority of members- including the three main proponents, now-State Senator Gary Hooser, now 5th Circuit Judge Randall Valenciano and then-Chair Ron Kouchi, the newbies decided to investigate the police department instead- a subject well covered in KPD Blue.
The next decision was to, instead of spending lots of money to look at a tree amidst the forest, appropriate salaries for a county auditor position and staff to be able to essentially conduct investigations without having to deal with the cost and limitations of each investigation.
But again after procrastinating over the hiring, the County Attorney stepped in and said this would violate the prohibition of council interference with the administration.
Finally last November the voters passed a charter amendment establishing a county auditor under council services that was specifically exempt from the prohibitions on interference. A month or so back one was appointed by the council.
But really this has been an exercise in lack of political will all along with a majority of the council member eyeing the mayor’s job and not wanting to tie his or her own hands once they took office.
Clear as mud?
--------
With the holiday and resultant “so much basketball, so little time” next week we’ll be a little lite in posting- here’s a little lite reading regarding the whole Board of Ethics 20.02D business which we’ll try to address during half times and between games.
Doug White, who’s left a huge hole in the blogosphere since June when he last posted to his Poinography blog, asked
...under a manager system, who or what would lead the Executive Branch? If that leader is chosen by the Legislative Branch, then in effect there would be no autonomous Executive Branch, and thus no separation of powers. That's how I interpret the CA opinion.
Attorney blogger Charley Foster was of course more to the legal point saying
I think a better way for the county attorney to have argued it would have been to point out that plain text of HRS §46-1.5(1) requires counties to "establish the county executive, administrative, and legislative structure and organization," and that the proposed manager system would establish only an "administrative and legislative structure" in violation of the plain language of the statute. As Doug points out, a "mayor" who is chosen by and serves at the pleasure of the council is not really an "executive." It is true that separation of powers is at the heart of the issue and of the three-branches requirement. But it's possible to argue that the plain meaning of the statute requires an independent executive department without having to invoke that other doctrine.
So let’s look at the words in the relevant constitution and statue passages.
In Deputy County Attorney Mauna Kea Trask opinion he cites the fact that:
Art. VIII, section 2, Hawaii State Constitution states: Each political subdivision shall have the power to frame and adopt a charter for its own self-government within such limits and under such procedures as may be provided by general law. Such procedures, however, shall not require the approval of a charter by a legislative body.
Charter provisions with respect to a political subdivision's executive, legislative and administrative structure and organization shall be superior to statutory provisions, subject to the authority of the legislature to enact general laws allocating and reallocating powers and functions...
HRS section 46-1.5(1) states: Each county shall have the power to frame and adopt a charter for its own self-government, which shall establish the county executive, administrative, and legislative structure and organization, including but not limited to, the method of appointment or election of officials, their duties, responsibilities, and compensation, and the terms of their office.
Nothing there mentions any “autonomous” executive or an executive “branch”, certainly nothing about “separation of powers.” and as a matter of fact the law allows for the “county... to frame and adopt a charter” and determine “the method of appointment OR election of officials” (emphasis added).
Clearly the county may do whatever it pleases as far as not just the method of selecting or electing it’s executive officer but need not make any of them autonomous or adhere to any separation of powers doctrine. As a matter of fact, currently the executive and the administrative entities are indeed part of the same organizational structure with the mayor appointing and overseeing the department heads without any autonomy or separation of powers.
As matter of fact. unless you use an adjective to describe the word “executive”- one that isn’t in the law- no one can argue a county manager (CM) would not be an executive
All a county manager system would do is switch the executive to legislative oversight and make that position appointed rather than elected.
And, it would seem that by saying “appointment or election” the statue leaves room for a county manager type system. Any argument against an unelected executive is clearly a political rather than a legal one.
It should also be pointed out that currently the charter provides for an administrative assistant (AA) whose duties are very close to what a county manager’s would be. That position- who serves solely at the pleasure of the mayor- is one that has routinely overseen department heads on a day to day basis leaving the mayor free to look at the “big picture”, concentrate on “the vision thing” by delegating the nuts and bolts to the AA.
We also mentioned Wednesday that Trask included a section that makes it clear that no more than what is stated in the constitution and statute should be read into it- despite the fact that after saying that he proceeds to read into it separation of powers, checks and balances, autonomy and the lack of an election of the executive.
Trask writes:
According to the law, "The fundamental principle in construing a constitutional provision is to give effect to the intention of the framers and the people adopting it. This intent is to be found in the instrument itself. When the text of a constitutional provision is not ambiguous, the court, in construing it, is not at liberty to search for its meaning beyond the instrument." State ex rel. Anzai v. City & County of Honolulu, 99 Haw. 508, 519, 57 P.3d 433, 444 (2002).
Moreover, a constitutional provision must be construed in connection with other provisions of the instrument, and also in the light of the circumstances under which it was adopted and the history preceding it." Blair v. Harris, 98 Haw. 179, 45 P.3d 798, 801 (2002).
So let’s look at Trask’s arguments one by one:
The phrase included in both Art. VIII, section 2 and HRS section 46-1.5(1) requiring that each county "shall establish the county executive, administrative, and legislative structure and organization", is interpreted by the County Attorney's office to require each county within the state to have specific separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches, which the proposed council-county manager form would not have.
Given that the words “separation of powers” aren’t in the law and the fact that there is currently no separation of powers between the executive and administrative entitles- note also the lack of the word “branches” in law- this argument is clearly erroneous especially since “intent is to be found in the instrument itself” and that one “is not at liberty to search for its meaning beyond the instrument”.
Trask continues:
Furthermore, so as to not render either the, "legislative, executive, or administrative structure and organization," of the county superfluous, void or insignificant said branches need to be substantive and not merely formal.
We’re not quite sure what that means and whether it is a differentiation without a difference but assuming it isn’t, well, the current attachment of the administration to the executive belies irrelevance.
He then seeks to establish what may be called a four prong test.
The proposed amendment would be contrary to both the text and the intent of the State Constitution and the general laws of Hawaii, and therefore illegal, for the following reasons:
1. The State Constitution and the general laws on the subject clearly and unambiguously call for the counties to establish a legislative, executive, and administrative structure and organization of government.
True- and clearly that “structure and organization” is up to the county to determine as long as all three exist- which they would as we established under a county manager executive, certainly to the extent that they exist now.
2. Passage of the proposed amendment would deprive the public of their constitutional and statutory right to a democratically elected executive.
It’s hard to say where he found a “constitutional and statutory right to a democratically elected executive” since the words “democratically elected” not only do not appear but the statute specifically allows for an appointed executive.
And as to any national constitutional or statutory prohibition, how many hundreds of county manager systems exist and have presumably passed legal muster around the country?
3. The proposed council-county manager form of government would deprive the public of a democratic governmental structure that employs checks and balances that would ensure that no particular branch would get too powerful and abuse the representative system of democracy. This is clearly illustrated by the fact that the proposed amendment seeks to delete section 4.03 of the charter thus extinguishing the executive veto power.
We’re not quite sure what the relevance of this is but again the words “checks and balances” do not appear anywhere. Clearly this is a political argument and not a legal one.
4. Under the proposed amendment the council chair would be given
the title of "mayor” but would not exercise any executive authority. Such a titular mayor would not satisfy the mandate of either the constitution or the general laws on the subject.
Ceremonial mayors are common under county manager systems, where the executive is the county manager not the mayor if we’re looking for the “substantive” executive. As a matter of fact some mayors are even appointed by the legislative entity, some on a rotating basis from among the legislative members.
Trask implies that only a title of mayor bestows executive status- clearly an erroneous and presumptuous assertion.
The preconceived notions, the use of the straw man of the specific Lewis proposal to condemn all CM systems- illogically generalizing from the specific argument- and the outright interpretation based on additional language not found in law- especially when the law bans that- and causes Trask’s analysis to fall on it’s fallacious face.
-------
Also on Wednesday, we cited the inability of the council to compel administrative testimony without a formal investigation under the current charter as one of the good arguments for a CM system.
Doug also asked
... has the Council ever actually went the official investigation and subpoena route? If not, then they are fools for not at least trying to exhaust their existing powers before seeking a Charter change, aren't they?
That’s somewhat of a complicated question.- one that has roots in the political, statutory and fiscal realms.
Calling for and authorizing an investigation to obtain subpoena power every time an administrative person doesn’t show up when requested is pretty cumbersome and impractical.
For the last 10 years the council has at times sought to launch investigations. The first obstacle was the lack of any set method of doing so. After dickering around for a year or so they finally passed a resolution that defined a process. But then it became a political football as to which department to investigate first.
Originally it was to be the massive Department of Public Works but the word “massive” was the operative obstacle. Which division to investigate became a problem because so many of them were problematic. Finally a half a million dollars was appropriated to investigate one division but no one could decide which one to investigate.
But then a new council took office and with the departure of a majority of members- including the three main proponents, now-State Senator Gary Hooser, now 5th Circuit Judge Randall Valenciano and then-Chair Ron Kouchi, the newbies decided to investigate the police department instead- a subject well covered in KPD Blue.
The next decision was to, instead of spending lots of money to look at a tree amidst the forest, appropriate salaries for a county auditor position and staff to be able to essentially conduct investigations without having to deal with the cost and limitations of each investigation.
But again after procrastinating over the hiring, the County Attorney stepped in and said this would violate the prohibition of council interference with the administration.
Finally last November the voters passed a charter amendment establishing a county auditor under council services that was specifically exempt from the prohibitions on interference. A month or so back one was appointed by the council.
But really this has been an exercise in lack of political will all along with a majority of the council member eyeing the mayor’s job and not wanting to tie his or her own hands once they took office.
Clear as mud?
--------
With the holiday and resultant “so much basketball, so little time” next week we’ll be a little lite in posting- here’s a little lite reading regarding the whole Board of Ethics 20.02D business which we’ll try to address during half times and between games.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
SPOTLESS
SPOTLESS: When it comes to blogs not all are created equal.
Though what we do is no different than the news analysis and op-ed type column we’ve been writing on and off for 25 years- except for the freedom to extend to 12-1500 words from the standard 800 limit that the newspaper “news hole” imposes- we have suddenly morphed into a blogger.
So be it. Although we often run straight PNN news it’s all in one place due to our sketchy ability to manipulate the technology beyond what the “blogger” software provides.
Not so for the oxymoronic “on-line newspaper” where their reporters can file standard stories and also post “blogs”- if they dare
Trouble is few do. Most of the hard news reporters who have tried such as KITV’s Darryl Huff quickly remove themselves from the fray after finding the opportunity to express themselves is countered by the exposure to vagaries of public discourse with readers.
Perhaps the only one who has done it successfully with any consistency is Honolulu Advertiser’s Derrick DePledge.
None can dispute the hard news value of DePledge’s blog posts. They are often the only coverage of some of the most important events of the day that eventually appear in the headlines of the Advertiser and other papers.
And therein lies the pitfall.
What at face value is a value-added feature, at times turns into a dumping ground for important stories that corporate overlording editors either don’t want to see in print or don’t see the importance of so they wind up before a handful of on-line readers instead of the thousands that their print or even regular on-line coverage reaches.
While more and more people turn to independent blogs as a source of news outside corporate control, the corporate press has apparently usurped that independence and actually used it to counter the charge that they are ignoring certain stories by relegating them to blogs like DePledge’s.
One example is the story of State Rep. Joe Bertram’s (D-Makena-Kihei) defense of a man accused of being a child predator after being caught in one of those “Dateline” style entrapments where there is no actual child involved- a police tactic Bertram called an “imaginary crime” invoking images of the Orwellian thought police.
Bertram became the target of whack job Willes Lee head of the Hawai`i Republican Party who started a radio ad and eventually a TV campaign spinning Bertram’s support of constitutional rights as being “pro child molester”.
But aside from a couple of posts here defending Bertram-electing the same accusations against us- the story was the chief province of DePledge’s blog with a couple of posts on the story as it evolved.
No one but those who perused DePledge’s “Notebook” would have known anything about the story until today when, not DePledge or the Advertiser but the Associated Press picked up the story that Lee decided for reasons unknown to “cut it out” and pull the ads, presumably due to outside pressures- an accusation upon which Lee had “no comment” according to AP.
But if that story could be excused from prime time coverage due to some kind of anti “inside baseball” rule editors often use to dismiss reporters’ stories, it has to make us wonder what the editor was thinking when he relegated DePledge’s coverage of the last minute petition campaign to revive HB 444, the civil unions bill.
Even though the activists, pushing the revival and the petition, put on a full court press on the media, the advertiser’s sum total of coverage was in DePledge’s blog and the Advertiser has yet to run a story on the subject, even after a couple of TV news stations finally relented and ran stories on the filing of the 7000-plus name petition.
DePledge has to be commended for hanging in there with his blog especially after episodes like our post the other day wondering, along with a couple of other bloggers- Poinography!’s Doug White and Kauai Eclectic’s Joan Conrow- why the scrupulously “objective” reporter apparently signed the petition
White had his comment asking about it on DePledge’s post deleted- “accidentally” according to DePledge- from the post and Conrow left a comment on our post saying “(b)etter be careful, Derrick. You wouldn't want someone ratting you out to the editors as a political activist.”.
That seeingly refers to the fact that she lost the race for the job as Advertiser Kaua`i Bureau chief after long time reporter Jan TenBruggencate retired last year when, she says, DePledge turned her in to the editor for an alleged lack of “objectivity” in covering the Superferry story for the paper after she expressed her opposition to the project in her blog.
Then when Conrow tried to post a comment on DePledge’s original post she found herself “awaiting moderation” until it was finally posted today
All that that apparently forced DePledge to put on a full court of his own to clear his name and reputation.
Sensing that it didn’t look good DePledge, after unequivocally saying he didn’t sign the petition, went to the source of the email he cited- and posted portions of along with a personalized URL that provided the petition with a “signed Derrick DePledge” at the bottom- and got an explanation for why he received a copy with his name from Alan R. Spector who organized the emailing campaign to the media and supporters.
He wrote to DePledge saying that:
I just verified all the signatures and your name is not on our petition.How did you get the URL that you posted on your Blog?the correct URL should be
http://eqfed.org/campaign/cupetition
You indicated a different URL (below). that one takes you to a page that auto fills out your info.
http://eqfed.org/campaign/cupetition/8wi8esd4h7k3k5kj
I just figured out what happened. You are entered in our database as a media contact only. On April 27, you received an email from us with a link to the petition. It was my understanding that this was going out to just "General Members" and not "media contacts". Don must have goofed when he ran the query. I noticed that it also went out to media in error. That URL is specific to your account. It makes it easy for our members to click on a link, whether it be an action alert, petition, etc, and have everything automatically filled out based on the information we have on file. In your case, just a name, email, and phone number but no address.
No other media we contacted received an email with that “error” and none of our six emails- all in the form of letters urging us to write about the petition, not press releases per se, contained anything but a “blank” form.
It’s no wonder many if not most MSM reporters refuse to blog, especially with the “appearance of impartiality” requirements of the job and the exposure to criticism reporters face if they “blog”.
“Objectivity” and “lack of bias”, while mythical, remains an imperative of the late 20th and early 21st century press. It’s always been exercise is futility and duality when juxtaposed with the first-day journalism school axiom of “news is what we say it is”.
It insults the intelligence of the reader to think that reporters and editors are either something less than human and that people cannot separate opinion from factual reporting even within a single piece or handle a first person style that is at the core of the news analysis of the now half-century of “New Journalism" originated by Tom Wolfe and Hunter Thompson among others.
No one with a modicum of sense reading this could confuse the opinions in preceding two paragraphs from the factual material reported above it. But somehow it is considered something less than reporting when the reporters expose their preconceptions in order to give readers an accurate prism through which to read the piece rather than try and obfuscate the biases all humans have.
The only ones who complain about the biases of the media are those whose biases are exposed and contradicted by the elements of factual reporting. But as long as the mainstream media insists they are something they can’t be, people like DePledge will come under scrutiny, not necessarily for actual bias but for the contention of the lack thereof.
Though what we do is no different than the news analysis and op-ed type column we’ve been writing on and off for 25 years- except for the freedom to extend to 12-1500 words from the standard 800 limit that the newspaper “news hole” imposes- we have suddenly morphed into a blogger.
So be it. Although we often run straight PNN news it’s all in one place due to our sketchy ability to manipulate the technology beyond what the “blogger” software provides.
Not so for the oxymoronic “on-line newspaper” where their reporters can file standard stories and also post “blogs”- if they dare
Trouble is few do. Most of the hard news reporters who have tried such as KITV’s Darryl Huff quickly remove themselves from the fray after finding the opportunity to express themselves is countered by the exposure to vagaries of public discourse with readers.
Perhaps the only one who has done it successfully with any consistency is Honolulu Advertiser’s Derrick DePledge.
None can dispute the hard news value of DePledge’s blog posts. They are often the only coverage of some of the most important events of the day that eventually appear in the headlines of the Advertiser and other papers.
And therein lies the pitfall.
What at face value is a value-added feature, at times turns into a dumping ground for important stories that corporate overlording editors either don’t want to see in print or don’t see the importance of so they wind up before a handful of on-line readers instead of the thousands that their print or even regular on-line coverage reaches.
While more and more people turn to independent blogs as a source of news outside corporate control, the corporate press has apparently usurped that independence and actually used it to counter the charge that they are ignoring certain stories by relegating them to blogs like DePledge’s.
One example is the story of State Rep. Joe Bertram’s (D-Makena-Kihei) defense of a man accused of being a child predator after being caught in one of those “Dateline” style entrapments where there is no actual child involved- a police tactic Bertram called an “imaginary crime” invoking images of the Orwellian thought police.
Bertram became the target of whack job Willes Lee head of the Hawai`i Republican Party who started a radio ad and eventually a TV campaign spinning Bertram’s support of constitutional rights as being “pro child molester”.
But aside from a couple of posts here defending Bertram-electing the same accusations against us- the story was the chief province of DePledge’s blog with a couple of posts on the story as it evolved.
No one but those who perused DePledge’s “Notebook” would have known anything about the story until today when, not DePledge or the Advertiser but the Associated Press picked up the story that Lee decided for reasons unknown to “cut it out” and pull the ads, presumably due to outside pressures- an accusation upon which Lee had “no comment” according to AP.
But if that story could be excused from prime time coverage due to some kind of anti “inside baseball” rule editors often use to dismiss reporters’ stories, it has to make us wonder what the editor was thinking when he relegated DePledge’s coverage of the last minute petition campaign to revive HB 444, the civil unions bill.
Even though the activists, pushing the revival and the petition, put on a full court press on the media, the advertiser’s sum total of coverage was in DePledge’s blog and the Advertiser has yet to run a story on the subject, even after a couple of TV news stations finally relented and ran stories on the filing of the 7000-plus name petition.
DePledge has to be commended for hanging in there with his blog especially after episodes like our post the other day wondering, along with a couple of other bloggers- Poinography!’s Doug White and Kauai Eclectic’s Joan Conrow- why the scrupulously “objective” reporter apparently signed the petition
White had his comment asking about it on DePledge’s post deleted- “accidentally” according to DePledge- from the post and Conrow left a comment on our post saying “(b)etter be careful, Derrick. You wouldn't want someone ratting you out to the editors as a political activist.”.
That seeingly refers to the fact that she lost the race for the job as Advertiser Kaua`i Bureau chief after long time reporter Jan TenBruggencate retired last year when, she says, DePledge turned her in to the editor for an alleged lack of “objectivity” in covering the Superferry story for the paper after she expressed her opposition to the project in her blog.
Then when Conrow tried to post a comment on DePledge’s original post she found herself “awaiting moderation” until it was finally posted today
All that that apparently forced DePledge to put on a full court of his own to clear his name and reputation.
Sensing that it didn’t look good DePledge, after unequivocally saying he didn’t sign the petition, went to the source of the email he cited- and posted portions of along with a personalized URL that provided the petition with a “signed Derrick DePledge” at the bottom- and got an explanation for why he received a copy with his name from Alan R. Spector who organized the emailing campaign to the media and supporters.
He wrote to DePledge saying that:
I just verified all the signatures and your name is not on our petition.How did you get the URL that you posted on your Blog?the correct URL should be
http://eqfed.org/campaign/cupetition
You indicated a different URL (below). that one takes you to a page that auto fills out your info.
http://eqfed.org/campaign/cupetition/8wi8esd4h7k3k5kj
I just figured out what happened. You are entered in our database as a media contact only. On April 27, you received an email from us with a link to the petition. It was my understanding that this was going out to just "General Members" and not "media contacts". Don must have goofed when he ran the query. I noticed that it also went out to media in error. That URL is specific to your account. It makes it easy for our members to click on a link, whether it be an action alert, petition, etc, and have everything automatically filled out based on the information we have on file. In your case, just a name, email, and phone number but no address.
No other media we contacted received an email with that “error” and none of our six emails- all in the form of letters urging us to write about the petition, not press releases per se, contained anything but a “blank” form.
It’s no wonder many if not most MSM reporters refuse to blog, especially with the “appearance of impartiality” requirements of the job and the exposure to criticism reporters face if they “blog”.
“Objectivity” and “lack of bias”, while mythical, remains an imperative of the late 20th and early 21st century press. It’s always been exercise is futility and duality when juxtaposed with the first-day journalism school axiom of “news is what we say it is”.
It insults the intelligence of the reader to think that reporters and editors are either something less than human and that people cannot separate opinion from factual reporting even within a single piece or handle a first person style that is at the core of the news analysis of the now half-century of “New Journalism" originated by Tom Wolfe and Hunter Thompson among others.
No one with a modicum of sense reading this could confuse the opinions in preceding two paragraphs from the factual material reported above it. But somehow it is considered something less than reporting when the reporters expose their preconceptions in order to give readers an accurate prism through which to read the piece rather than try and obfuscate the biases all humans have.
The only ones who complain about the biases of the media are those whose biases are exposed and contradicted by the elements of factual reporting. But as long as the mainstream media insists they are something they can’t be, people like DePledge will come under scrutiny, not necessarily for actual bias but for the contention of the lack thereof.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
MOVE OVER ROVER:
MOVE OVER ROVER: Tomorrow will mark our 365th day doing whatever-the-heck-it-is-we-do.
Whatever you call it- reporting. political rabblerousing, activism, advocacy or just plain blithering jabber- we can’t help but see it as an outgrowth of the “new journalism” that’s now celebrating it’s 50th anniversary
“They” call it blogging now so we’ll stick with that and keep searching for an adjective to separate it from the social blather of the facebook and my space ilk..
And after this week is over we may just take a weekday off every once in a while whether it’s to do some research, attend a meeting or otherwise put a little leg work into more formal reportage or just watch some basketball on the tube.
But one thing we have done in the last year as the now-perennial low man on the Hawai`i news and political blogging totem poll, is figure out the pecking order in the world of daily on-line news, analysis and opinion.
And we mention it because there never was a better microcosmic case in point than a few posts over the past few days to provide a model of how news travels- and is impeded- in these days of battle between the emerging democratic and the dying corporate models of news delivery.
To pick it up sort of in the middle it all started over the weekend when one of the big three in Honolulu, ”I’m just a blogger” Doug White at Poinography, who works as a paper shuffling grunt at the legislature every year, discovered that new Chair of the House Judiciary Ricki Karamatsu’s usually bland politician-type blog had a post that Doug described as
A tour de force in bizarro rambling! Now, a post like that is less amusing coming from the Chair(!) of the Judiciary Committee than if it were from some random powerless “everyman,” but it still cracks me up.
Now Karamatsu has this thread of religious mumbo jumbo, very Buddhist in nature. But this post described his attempts at inner calm and “compassion” during a meeting in his office, when an elected official he called “5P8C” came in and immediately threatened him if he didn’t capitulate and pass through his committee the mystery man’s “law enforcement package” of bills.
Although as of our press time Karamatsu has put up a sort of zen notice at the permalink of his post that “the page you are looking for does not exist” it is still there on the main page at least until he discovers it.
In part it reads:
On Thursday, February 5, 2009, I had a meeting with 5P8C at my office at his request. I was ready to work with him with an open mind. However, his actions instantly changed my view. In his own words, he threatened me that he will come after me if I don’t agree with him like he did with the Judiciary chairs before me. I was shocked, considering this was my first meeting with this guy who is a couple decades older than me. Now, this is a person who fights for good against evil, yet is arrogant and mean-spirited like those he is fighting against. I just met this guy and he is already threatening me and trying to push around what power he has or thinks he has. He really tested my will.
Now it didn’t take a genius to figure out that it was Honolulu Prosecutor Peter Carlisle- especially since there’s five letters in Peter and eight in Carlisle.
But if Ricki was no Nazi Code Writer, the commenters at Doug’s post were no Navaho Code Breakers themselves with one even speculating it might have been Lt. Governor Duke Aiona despite the apt description of Carlisle as one who “fights for good against evil, yet is arrogant and mean-spirited like those he is fighting against” and especially when he added “childish” to the depiction.
Anyone who’s followed Carlisle didn’t even need the alpha-numeric clue.
Now a post by Doug or others of the three Honolulu wise men- former pro reporter Ian Lind and world-weary-traveler and discoverer Larry Geller of Disappeared News- usually gets the panties of we low-lifes and geographically-challenged neighbor-islanders in a bunch rehashing and analyzing their pearls.
But every once in a while there’s a hole in the filter and you-know-what floats to the “top”. And no time more so that when one of the mere mortal bloggers’ stories gets picked up by Honolulu Advertiser Capitol correspondent Derrick DePledge at his officially sanctioned “Notebook” blog at the Advertiser’s web site.
This time with little ado DePledge- who gets his phone calls returned and apparently lives at the legislature when it’s in session- lost little time in confirming the identity of 5P8C with Karamatsu and Carlisle himself
It seems like if the real political news- the stuff that doesn’t make us yawn- is actually reported, it’s in mainstream reporters’ blogs these days.
Notwithstanding the unequivocal comments from political reporters Richard Borreca of the Honolulu Star- Bulletin and Denby Fawcett of KITV on a KHET’s (PBS) “Island Insights” program a couple of weeks back that there is “never any news on the blogs” so they simply don’t read them and ignore anything that might have originated there, it doesn’t take a genius to see the self-fulfilling nature of those kinds of projections.
Now to be fair there are mainstream corporate press reporters like former S-B Editor Dave Shapiro- who was on the same program defending blogs- along with DePledge who can see past their cloistered employment to see the inevitability of the changes in news distribution to an electronic platform.
But for the most part it seems that until the budget cutting axe that we’ve seen at all the Honolulu newspapers and even TV news-providing station falls on them, most are content to live in their antiquated mid-to-late 20th century paradigm, seeing themselves as the gatekeepers who live by the motto “news is what we say it is”, as every first term J-School student is taught.
Only when the, to steal Larry’s term, ”Disappeared News” bubbles up so furiously that the steam fogs up their fish-eye lenses does it gets through to most of those gatekeepers and the public find out about the real news.
But then again even if the “news” is reported by DePledge in a corner of the Advertiser web site does it make a sound? Or does it serve as a dead end cul-de-sac where it reverberates in a sort of isolation booth?
You would think that a report of the Honolulu Prosecutor Carlisle intimidating and threatening the House Judiciary Committee chair Karamatsu would be, if not plastered on the front pages of a real newspaper and leading the 6 o’clock news, at least getting a little play.
But we’d bet dollars to donuts that the item will live and die it’s quasi-MSM life in DePledge’s blog albeit a slightly higher profile death than it would have died in Poinography.
How long can the corporate press editors survive by ignoring real news as “too much ‘inside baseball’”, as they are wont to tell their reporters and instead present a mélange of prepackaged competing quotes, rewritten press releases and regurgitated news from another member of their incestuous brethren.... and call it THE news?
When the last newspaper prints its last print edition some will, as they do now, bemoan the lack of the tactile pleasure of paper and ink. But few will bemoan the loss of their 21st century no-real-news “content” to a medium that has exploded in a much more democratic- if temporarily less conveniently transportable- medium.
When the actuarially inspired death of modern mainstream journalism comes, the current crop of gatekeepers will, with a few exceptions, have no one to blame but themselves for riding the corporate model dinosaur express to oblivion even as the dust from the asteroid settles in the cogs and shuts their presses down.
Whatever you call it- reporting. political rabblerousing, activism, advocacy or just plain blithering jabber- we can’t help but see it as an outgrowth of the “new journalism” that’s now celebrating it’s 50th anniversary
“They” call it blogging now so we’ll stick with that and keep searching for an adjective to separate it from the social blather of the facebook and my space ilk..
And after this week is over we may just take a weekday off every once in a while whether it’s to do some research, attend a meeting or otherwise put a little leg work into more formal reportage or just watch some basketball on the tube.
But one thing we have done in the last year as the now-perennial low man on the Hawai`i news and political blogging totem poll, is figure out the pecking order in the world of daily on-line news, analysis and opinion.
And we mention it because there never was a better microcosmic case in point than a few posts over the past few days to provide a model of how news travels- and is impeded- in these days of battle between the emerging democratic and the dying corporate models of news delivery.
To pick it up sort of in the middle it all started over the weekend when one of the big three in Honolulu, ”I’m just a blogger” Doug White at Poinography, who works as a paper shuffling grunt at the legislature every year, discovered that new Chair of the House Judiciary Ricki Karamatsu’s usually bland politician-type blog had a post that Doug described as
A tour de force in bizarro rambling! Now, a post like that is less amusing coming from the Chair(!) of the Judiciary Committee than if it were from some random powerless “everyman,” but it still cracks me up.
Now Karamatsu has this thread of religious mumbo jumbo, very Buddhist in nature. But this post described his attempts at inner calm and “compassion” during a meeting in his office, when an elected official he called “5P8C” came in and immediately threatened him if he didn’t capitulate and pass through his committee the mystery man’s “law enforcement package” of bills.
Although as of our press time Karamatsu has put up a sort of zen notice at the permalink of his post that “the page you are looking for does not exist” it is still there on the main page at least until he discovers it.
In part it reads:
On Thursday, February 5, 2009, I had a meeting with 5P8C at my office at his request. I was ready to work with him with an open mind. However, his actions instantly changed my view. In his own words, he threatened me that he will come after me if I don’t agree with him like he did with the Judiciary chairs before me. I was shocked, considering this was my first meeting with this guy who is a couple decades older than me. Now, this is a person who fights for good against evil, yet is arrogant and mean-spirited like those he is fighting against. I just met this guy and he is already threatening me and trying to push around what power he has or thinks he has. He really tested my will.
Now it didn’t take a genius to figure out that it was Honolulu Prosecutor Peter Carlisle- especially since there’s five letters in Peter and eight in Carlisle.
But if Ricki was no Nazi Code Writer, the commenters at Doug’s post were no Navaho Code Breakers themselves with one even speculating it might have been Lt. Governor Duke Aiona despite the apt description of Carlisle as one who “fights for good against evil, yet is arrogant and mean-spirited like those he is fighting against” and especially when he added “childish” to the depiction.
Anyone who’s followed Carlisle didn’t even need the alpha-numeric clue.
Now a post by Doug or others of the three Honolulu wise men- former pro reporter Ian Lind and world-weary-traveler and discoverer Larry Geller of Disappeared News- usually gets the panties of we low-lifes and geographically-challenged neighbor-islanders in a bunch rehashing and analyzing their pearls.
But every once in a while there’s a hole in the filter and you-know-what floats to the “top”. And no time more so that when one of the mere mortal bloggers’ stories gets picked up by Honolulu Advertiser Capitol correspondent Derrick DePledge at his officially sanctioned “Notebook” blog at the Advertiser’s web site.
This time with little ado DePledge- who gets his phone calls returned and apparently lives at the legislature when it’s in session- lost little time in confirming the identity of 5P8C with Karamatsu and Carlisle himself
It seems like if the real political news- the stuff that doesn’t make us yawn- is actually reported, it’s in mainstream reporters’ blogs these days.
Notwithstanding the unequivocal comments from political reporters Richard Borreca of the Honolulu Star- Bulletin and Denby Fawcett of KITV on a KHET’s (PBS) “Island Insights” program a couple of weeks back that there is “never any news on the blogs” so they simply don’t read them and ignore anything that might have originated there, it doesn’t take a genius to see the self-fulfilling nature of those kinds of projections.
Now to be fair there are mainstream corporate press reporters like former S-B Editor Dave Shapiro- who was on the same program defending blogs- along with DePledge who can see past their cloistered employment to see the inevitability of the changes in news distribution to an electronic platform.
But for the most part it seems that until the budget cutting axe that we’ve seen at all the Honolulu newspapers and even TV news-providing station falls on them, most are content to live in their antiquated mid-to-late 20th century paradigm, seeing themselves as the gatekeepers who live by the motto “news is what we say it is”, as every first term J-School student is taught.
Only when the, to steal Larry’s term, ”Disappeared News” bubbles up so furiously that the steam fogs up their fish-eye lenses does it gets through to most of those gatekeepers and the public find out about the real news.
But then again even if the “news” is reported by DePledge in a corner of the Advertiser web site does it make a sound? Or does it serve as a dead end cul-de-sac where it reverberates in a sort of isolation booth?
You would think that a report of the Honolulu Prosecutor Carlisle intimidating and threatening the House Judiciary Committee chair Karamatsu would be, if not plastered on the front pages of a real newspaper and leading the 6 o’clock news, at least getting a little play.
But we’d bet dollars to donuts that the item will live and die it’s quasi-MSM life in DePledge’s blog albeit a slightly higher profile death than it would have died in Poinography.
How long can the corporate press editors survive by ignoring real news as “too much ‘inside baseball’”, as they are wont to tell their reporters and instead present a mélange of prepackaged competing quotes, rewritten press releases and regurgitated news from another member of their incestuous brethren.... and call it THE news?
When the last newspaper prints its last print edition some will, as they do now, bemoan the lack of the tactile pleasure of paper and ink. But few will bemoan the loss of their 21st century no-real-news “content” to a medium that has exploded in a much more democratic- if temporarily less conveniently transportable- medium.
When the actuarially inspired death of modern mainstream journalism comes, the current crop of gatekeepers will, with a few exceptions, have no one to blame but themselves for riding the corporate model dinosaur express to oblivion even as the dust from the asteroid settles in the cogs and shuts their presses down.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
EVERY DOG THINKS HE HAS HIS DAY
EVERY DOG THINKS HE HAS HIS DAY: Well it looked bad for the home team yesterday when we spewed hydrophobic froth and foam over the Honolulu County Clerk regarding “replacing” Chrystn Eads on the ballot for the 24th state House district race
As our “correction” stated we read only a “breaking news” piece and failed to read regular edition version of the story by the Honolulu Advertiser’s Derrick DePledge regarding the musical chairs fiasco originally caused by Ann Kobayashi’s run for mayor of Honolulu, which we also cited tangentially this week.
Unlike the “breaking news” piece we cited, the “regular newspaper” version of DePledge’s story stated in so many words and unequivocally that the “replacement” candidate- who, as we heard today, is Isaac Choy- was to replace Rep. Kirk Caldwell due to his “withdrawal” from his House race.
Although Caldwell he had previously filed for re-election to his 24th district seat he also filed to take Kobayashi’s now open seat on the Honolulu Council to avoid giving former Honolulu Councilperson Duke Bainum a “free ride” in November.
The problem is that apparently he never officially and in writing withdrew from his House race before filing to run for council.
But strangely that “regular” article is apparently no longer in the Advertiser archives today and has been replaced with one updated yesterday evening that is similar to the original “breaking news” piece in not making it crystal clear if it was Caldwell or Eads that was being “replaced”.
Clear as mud? Not yet? Good. Because adding to the ambiguity is that the “breaking news” piece we cited was timelined at 8:36 a.m. Saturday, well after the Advertiser- and presumably the regular news article- went to press.
Oh, and one more slap to the face in this Chinatown “she’s my sister, she’s my daughter, she’s my sister, she’s my daughter” routine: DePledge did assure us in an email after we posted yesterday morning that it was indeed his understanding that it was Caldwell that was being replaced, not Eads.
Unambiguously and unequivocally unclear yet?
Wait. Because unfortunately we also didn’t turn to the other Honolulu newspaper before penning our correction, and evidently they didn’t get the same memo that DePledge did.
Star-Bulletin’s political reporter Richard Borreca seems to tell us that indeed the replacement was for Eads who, according to the clerk that first accepted her petition twenty minutes after the deadline, didn’t get her papers filed in time.
We finally did get to read yesterday’s Star-Bulletin’s “breaking news” after Doug White at Poinography linked to it and our piece early yesterday evening and said, as we did, that the replacement was for Eads.
Here’s the pertinent part of the take from DePledge in today’s ’Tiser:
The state Office of Elections informed the party on Friday that it had until yesterday afternoon to pick a replacement for Caldwell. The elections office determined that Chrystn Eads, an aide to Mayor Mufi Hannemann, had not properly completed her paperwork when she tried to file for Caldwell's seat before the Tuesday deadline.
It’s pretty clear that DePledge thinks that the clerk says that the one being replaced is Caldwell. He apparently tells us that although the Clerk’s rejection of Eads’ paperwork was for Caldwell’s 24th district House seat, it was Caldwell’s withdrawal that allowed the party to pick a replacement, not Eads’
But Borreca seemingly says the opposite in today’s paper as he did yesterday afternoon at 4:30 p.m. in that Star-Bulletin “breaking news” story. Today, as yesterday, he maintains that:
...State Democratic party members picked Choy to fill the vacancy left when state elections officials ruled that Chrystn Eads was not a valid candidate for office in the 24th state House district of Manoa.
Party officials started meeting Friday afternoon after getting word from Kevin Cronin, chief elections officer, that Eads, an assistant to Mayor Mufi Hannemann, did not have enough signatures on her nomination petition by the required deadline.
Cronin said in a notice to the party that Caldwell withdrew his candidacy for the state House on July 23.
"These events create a vacancy for the state House seat," Cronin said in a letter to the Democrats.
Cronin failed to return phone calls to the Star-Bulletin asking for comment....
Now Borreca might be seen to be dancing around and not being sure himself when he says Choy was picked “to fill the vacancy left when state elections officials ruled that Chrystn Eads was not a valid candidate”. Still, it doesn’t leave much more wiggle room than DePledge did in his differing take.
But the real kicker is that, if the Eads saga was not absurd enough, the replacement of Caldwell is also apparently another shell game..
The actual state law says:
In case of death, withdrawal, or disqualification of any party candidate after filing, the vacancy so caused may be filled by the party. The party shall be notified by the chief election officer or the clerk in the case of a county office immediately after the death, withdrawal, or disqualification.
But state law also prohibits someone from running for two offices at the same time.
There’s a whole brouhaha over when Caldwell actually withdrew from his house race because he supposedly gave a “verbal” withdrawal on Tuesday- as he filed his incomplete paperwork for Council before the 4:30 p.m. deadline- but didn’t put it in writing until Wed. morning the 23rd - as Cronin corroborates according to all reports.
The allegedly “illegal” final signature- by a staff member in the Clerk’s office after the deadline- on Caldwell’s Council filing aside, he couldn’t have filed legally for Council until he first withdrew from his 24th district House race... a contest he had legally filed for previous to last week. That would have made the Democratic Party’s naming a of replacement out of the question because the law says “withdrawal... after filing” (emphasis added) triggers allowing for a replacement.
Caldwell is quoted everywhere as saying his official withdrawal letter did not get sent until after the deadline. If that’s so his filing for Council would have been invalid and presumably the Clerk’s office cannot accept an invalid filing.
Oh and one more potential “twist”- local races in Hawai`i are non-partisan and state law is silent on exactly how a “withdrawn” candidate’s party might be determined in the event something like this happens in the future in a local election.
And guess what- that “event” might actually have occurred on Kaua`i as Councilperson Mel Rapozo withdrew from his previously filed council race to run for Mayor but it isn’t clear how, when or even if he did so.
Hawai`i Republicans’ heads are spinning over this one as one would expect and you can actually hear the gnashing teeth and see the steam-emanating ears as you read Republican House Rep. Lynn Flannigan’s op-ed piece on it all in today’s Star-Bulletin.
Therefore we think we apologize for getting it wrong, then right, then wrong, then right again, wrong again and right again. And we seek forgiveness from anyone who was additionally confused by relying on our bewilderment based on everyone else’s uncertainty... or for today’s continued confusion, confarnit.
Maybe we can take solace in the fact that no one seems to know how to play this game..
There’s an old journalism school joke about rookie reporter Finnegan. He comes back from covering a town council meeting and hands his editor a detailed 1500 word chronology about how the new bridge that had been previously cut from the budget was revived at the beginning of the 12 hour meeting but was killed hours later. Then miraculously, after massive public testimony in support, it was passed at the very end of the meeting.
The editor, citing the standard need for a brevity in news writing, tells the cub correspondent to cut it down. After another hour of work Finnegan comes back with a 700 word piece and the editor sends him back to cut more. He comes back later with a 300 word piece and the editor sends him back for an even shorter rewrite.
Finnegan finally comes back with his last version which reads:
“On again, off again, on again- Finnegan.”
Finnegan had it easy....
As our “correction” stated we read only a “breaking news” piece and failed to read regular edition version of the story by the Honolulu Advertiser’s Derrick DePledge regarding the musical chairs fiasco originally caused by Ann Kobayashi’s run for mayor of Honolulu, which we also cited tangentially this week.
Unlike the “breaking news” piece we cited, the “regular newspaper” version of DePledge’s story stated in so many words and unequivocally that the “replacement” candidate- who, as we heard today, is Isaac Choy- was to replace Rep. Kirk Caldwell due to his “withdrawal” from his House race.
Although Caldwell he had previously filed for re-election to his 24th district seat he also filed to take Kobayashi’s now open seat on the Honolulu Council to avoid giving former Honolulu Councilperson Duke Bainum a “free ride” in November.
The problem is that apparently he never officially and in writing withdrew from his House race before filing to run for council.
But strangely that “regular” article is apparently no longer in the Advertiser archives today and has been replaced with one updated yesterday evening that is similar to the original “breaking news” piece in not making it crystal clear if it was Caldwell or Eads that was being “replaced”.
Clear as mud? Not yet? Good. Because adding to the ambiguity is that the “breaking news” piece we cited was timelined at 8:36 a.m. Saturday, well after the Advertiser- and presumably the regular news article- went to press.
Oh, and one more slap to the face in this Chinatown “she’s my sister, she’s my daughter, she’s my sister, she’s my daughter” routine: DePledge did assure us in an email after we posted yesterday morning that it was indeed his understanding that it was Caldwell that was being replaced, not Eads.
Unambiguously and unequivocally unclear yet?
Wait. Because unfortunately we also didn’t turn to the other Honolulu newspaper before penning our correction, and evidently they didn’t get the same memo that DePledge did.
Star-Bulletin’s political reporter Richard Borreca seems to tell us that indeed the replacement was for Eads who, according to the clerk that first accepted her petition twenty minutes after the deadline, didn’t get her papers filed in time.
We finally did get to read yesterday’s Star-Bulletin’s “breaking news” after Doug White at Poinography linked to it and our piece early yesterday evening and said, as we did, that the replacement was for Eads.
Here’s the pertinent part of the take from DePledge in today’s ’Tiser:
The state Office of Elections informed the party on Friday that it had until yesterday afternoon to pick a replacement for Caldwell. The elections office determined that Chrystn Eads, an aide to Mayor Mufi Hannemann, had not properly completed her paperwork when she tried to file for Caldwell's seat before the Tuesday deadline.
It’s pretty clear that DePledge thinks that the clerk says that the one being replaced is Caldwell. He apparently tells us that although the Clerk’s rejection of Eads’ paperwork was for Caldwell’s 24th district House seat, it was Caldwell’s withdrawal that allowed the party to pick a replacement, not Eads’
But Borreca seemingly says the opposite in today’s paper as he did yesterday afternoon at 4:30 p.m. in that Star-Bulletin “breaking news” story. Today, as yesterday, he maintains that:
...State Democratic party members picked Choy to fill the vacancy left when state elections officials ruled that Chrystn Eads was not a valid candidate for office in the 24th state House district of Manoa.
Party officials started meeting Friday afternoon after getting word from Kevin Cronin, chief elections officer, that Eads, an assistant to Mayor Mufi Hannemann, did not have enough signatures on her nomination petition by the required deadline.
Cronin said in a notice to the party that Caldwell withdrew his candidacy for the state House on July 23.
"These events create a vacancy for the state House seat," Cronin said in a letter to the Democrats.
Cronin failed to return phone calls to the Star-Bulletin asking for comment....
Now Borreca might be seen to be dancing around and not being sure himself when he says Choy was picked “to fill the vacancy left when state elections officials ruled that Chrystn Eads was not a valid candidate”. Still, it doesn’t leave much more wiggle room than DePledge did in his differing take.
But the real kicker is that, if the Eads saga was not absurd enough, the replacement of Caldwell is also apparently another shell game..
The actual state law says:
In case of death, withdrawal, or disqualification of any party candidate after filing, the vacancy so caused may be filled by the party. The party shall be notified by the chief election officer or the clerk in the case of a county office immediately after the death, withdrawal, or disqualification.
But state law also prohibits someone from running for two offices at the same time.
There’s a whole brouhaha over when Caldwell actually withdrew from his house race because he supposedly gave a “verbal” withdrawal on Tuesday- as he filed his incomplete paperwork for Council before the 4:30 p.m. deadline- but didn’t put it in writing until Wed. morning the 23rd - as Cronin corroborates according to all reports.
The allegedly “illegal” final signature- by a staff member in the Clerk’s office after the deadline- on Caldwell’s Council filing aside, he couldn’t have filed legally for Council until he first withdrew from his 24th district House race... a contest he had legally filed for previous to last week. That would have made the Democratic Party’s naming a of replacement out of the question because the law says “withdrawal... after filing” (emphasis added) triggers allowing for a replacement.
Caldwell is quoted everywhere as saying his official withdrawal letter did not get sent until after the deadline. If that’s so his filing for Council would have been invalid and presumably the Clerk’s office cannot accept an invalid filing.
Oh and one more potential “twist”- local races in Hawai`i are non-partisan and state law is silent on exactly how a “withdrawn” candidate’s party might be determined in the event something like this happens in the future in a local election.
And guess what- that “event” might actually have occurred on Kaua`i as Councilperson Mel Rapozo withdrew from his previously filed council race to run for Mayor but it isn’t clear how, when or even if he did so.
Hawai`i Republicans’ heads are spinning over this one as one would expect and you can actually hear the gnashing teeth and see the steam-emanating ears as you read Republican House Rep. Lynn Flannigan’s op-ed piece on it all in today’s Star-Bulletin.
Therefore we think we apologize for getting it wrong, then right, then wrong, then right again, wrong again and right again. And we seek forgiveness from anyone who was additionally confused by relying on our bewilderment based on everyone else’s uncertainty... or for today’s continued confusion, confarnit.
Maybe we can take solace in the fact that no one seems to know how to play this game..
There’s an old journalism school joke about rookie reporter Finnegan. He comes back from covering a town council meeting and hands his editor a detailed 1500 word chronology about how the new bridge that had been previously cut from the budget was revived at the beginning of the 12 hour meeting but was killed hours later. Then miraculously, after massive public testimony in support, it was passed at the very end of the meeting.
The editor, citing the standard need for a brevity in news writing, tells the cub correspondent to cut it down. After another hour of work Finnegan comes back with a 700 word piece and the editor sends him back to cut more. He comes back later with a 300 word piece and the editor sends him back for an even shorter rewrite.
Finnegan finally comes back with his last version which reads:
“On again, off again, on again- Finnegan.”
Finnegan had it easy....
Thursday, July 17, 2008
KEEPING THE NOSE TO THE GROUND
KEEPING THE NOSE TO THE GROUND: The actions of the County Clerk of Honolulu regarding the potential rejection of the anti-rail petition initiative is undergoing scrutiny that apparently only reporting bloggers can give it.
Today Doug White at Poinography did what the corporate reporters seem incapable of doing- reading the Honolulu Charter rather than just asking the two know-nothings from two “sides” what they think the law actually says while Doug actually looked it up.
Citing the Honolulu Charter, Doug quite rightly sees that it is the discretion of the Clerk that will determine whether the measure can go on the ballot in November, based on complicated wording regarding “special elections” vs. “general elections” in the charter and in the petition itself.
Ian Lind cites Doug’s work and notes that the petition itself refers to the “special election” only in the introduction, not in the text of the initiative itself.
We won’t rehash all the intricacies that they cover very well but both seem to accept the fact that the balloting must be done either through a “special” electron OR a general election.
The fact appears to be that there is nothing in either state law or apparently in the Honolulu Charter that prohibits a “special election” from being held in conjunction with- and at the same time as- a “general election”.
As a matter of fact that is exactly what the County Clerk has done on Kaua`i by proclaiming that Kaua`i will hold a “special election” for the open mayoral position following the death of Mayor Bryan Baptiste and will hold one “in conjunction with” the general election this November 4.
No one seems sure whether or not the Honolulu County Clerk will use his discretion to put the matter on the ballot on November 4.
But if it’s a matter of not doing it because somehow the interpretation of the petition itself is that it can only be done in a “special election” nothing apparently bans having both kinds of elections on the same day.
And of course if people are going to argue against voting on the petition based on the cost of holding an election just for the ballot issue after the November general election it would stand to reason that the Clerk can make that issue moot by holding both the same day.
Today Doug White at Poinography did what the corporate reporters seem incapable of doing- reading the Honolulu Charter rather than just asking the two know-nothings from two “sides” what they think the law actually says while Doug actually looked it up.
Citing the Honolulu Charter, Doug quite rightly sees that it is the discretion of the Clerk that will determine whether the measure can go on the ballot in November, based on complicated wording regarding “special elections” vs. “general elections” in the charter and in the petition itself.
Ian Lind cites Doug’s work and notes that the petition itself refers to the “special election” only in the introduction, not in the text of the initiative itself.
We won’t rehash all the intricacies that they cover very well but both seem to accept the fact that the balloting must be done either through a “special” electron OR a general election.
The fact appears to be that there is nothing in either state law or apparently in the Honolulu Charter that prohibits a “special election” from being held in conjunction with- and at the same time as- a “general election”.
As a matter of fact that is exactly what the County Clerk has done on Kaua`i by proclaiming that Kaua`i will hold a “special election” for the open mayoral position following the death of Mayor Bryan Baptiste and will hold one “in conjunction with” the general election this November 4.
No one seems sure whether or not the Honolulu County Clerk will use his discretion to put the matter on the ballot on November 4.
But if it’s a matter of not doing it because somehow the interpretation of the petition itself is that it can only be done in a “special election” nothing apparently bans having both kinds of elections on the same day.
And of course if people are going to argue against voting on the petition based on the cost of holding an election just for the ballot issue after the November general election it would stand to reason that the Clerk can make that issue moot by holding both the same day.
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