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Two down, one to go: Hawaii’s efforts to make sure the public can keep a close eye on police misconduct remain intact after the Intermediate Court of Appeals last week upheld a lower court decision that the names of officers who were suspended or fired should be included on disciplinary summaries that are filed with the Legislature every year.

Those annual summaries have been sent to the Legislature every year for decades but they were sorely lacking in detail and never included names of officers who had been disciplined. In 2020, after years of resisting, lawmakers finally passed Act 47 which mandated that police officers be treated the same as other public employees and that their disciplinary files be available for public scrutiny.

Police files had not been open to the public since 1995 when the Legislature granted cops an exception to the public records law that is followed by all other state and county employees. Instead, lawmakers required the four county police agencies to file annual summaries that listed disciplinary actions.

Act 47 not only removed that exemption it also required police departments to include more details on each of the misconduct incidents on the annual summary including the names of officers, even in cases when appeals to the disciplinary action is ongoing.

The State of Hawaii Organization of Police Officers took the City and County of Honolulu to court over that one when the city agreed to release arbitration reports to Civil Beat after the law had been changed. In 2021, Circuit Court Judge Dean Ochai upheld Act 47 and said the names must be released despite SHOPO’s contention that it was unconstitutional and essentially unfair while the union grievance process was still playing out.

“It’s the law,” the judge said.

For the last two years, the county police agencies have been mostly following the Act 47 requirements, in part because the Hawaii Supreme Court in a separate case in 2021 declared that the public has a compelling interest in police misconduct and that officers don’t have a constitutional right to privacy in these situations.

SHOPO had already appealed to the ICA which last week went along with everything the Supreme Court had already said.

Now it looks like the high court will get a chance to say it again, this time with former SHOPO attorney Vladimir Devens on the bench as a new justice.

SHOPO president Bobby Cavaco tells The Sunshine Blog that the union will appeal — again.

“When it comes to privacy and due process rights for public employees in Hawaii, there’s two classes, police officers and everyone else,” Cavaco said in an email. “If you’re an officer and you show up late to work two times, you will get disciplined and then your name released to the entire state. If you’re a secretary, a paramedic, or a librarian, you can be accused of a much worse offense and your privacy is protected until those charges are proven. We just want to be treated fairly.”

Devens was for years a vigorous advocate for the union, battling it out with the city and Civil Beat in a number of different cases (all of which he pretty much lost). It would seem like he would need to sit this one out when the case gets to the Supreme Court. But you never know.

No preference, please: A majority of states hold government-run presidential primaries, but not Hawaii. Instead, the local parties for Democrats and Republicans have in recent years held party-run “presidential primaries” or caucuses.

proposes to put in place presidential preference primary (how’s that for alliteration?) elections for the 2028 election cycle, when Joe Biden and Donald Trump are unlikely to be on the ballot again.

But members of both local parties strongly object to the idea, arguing that it would be too expensive and that the parties should handle it instead. Republican Tamara McKay said at a hearing Friday that SB 2386 would only give more control to the state.

In , McKay also took on the bill’s author directly: “My questions are, what are you and your cronies afraid of Mr. Rhodes? Are you afraid that the people are waking up to the fact that the left is leading us down the path of socialism? Or do you not like the fact that the republican party will prove that the one day paper ballot system can and will work?”

Sen. Karl Rhoads (note the proper spelling), chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee that was hearing the bill, later got into a little verbal exchange with McKay, with Rhoads challenging McKay on the notion that somehow state-run presidential primaries amount to dictatorship.

In the end, Rhoads killed his own bill. “Everybody hates it,” he muttered, adding that he thinks presidential primaries will continue to be an issue down the road.

OHA rolls the dice: As practically everyone in Hawaii knows, gambling is illegal here. But year after year gambling or gaming measures surface at the Legislature before being swiftly snuffed out.

Well, here we go again: On Wednesday the House Economic Development Committee that would allow “limited casino gaming” at a “single integrated resort property” on commercial use lands under the control of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs (it excludes lands west of Ko Olina). It would also establish a Hawaii Gaming Commission.

Lawmakers “gaming dollars have appreciably improved the basic health and education on reservations” and that there are “downstream economic and social benefits” to be had, as seen in Macau, Singapore, the Bahamas and many states in the U.S..

Also passing that allows for the regulation of sports wagering by the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism. That could create licensing requirements for sports wagering operators and sports wagering suppliers.

DraftKings and Sports Betting Alliance like that bill, but the Honolulu Police Department does not.

In other sporting news or really a giant PR stunt, the Honolulu Zoo’s elephants — Mari and Vaigai — on Friday were asked to pick the Super Bowl winners by choosing a watermelon. One had the logo of the Kansas City Chiefs and the other the logo of the San Francisco 49ers. And the winner will be … Chiefs!

Hope they got it right. Elephants never forget, you know.

He coulda been a contender: BJ Penn, who finished second in the 2022 Republican primary for governor, has pulled papers to run for the Hawaii County Council District 1 seat, which represents parts of South and North Hilo, Hamakua and Waimea. It’s a nonpartisan race, and incumbent Heather Kimball has indicated she will run for reelection.

Meantime, Seaula Tupai Jr., who was Republican Duke Aiona’s running mate in the 2022 gubernatorial election, has pulled papers for Hawaii County mayor. That nonpartisan matchup already features incumbent Mitch Roth and challenger Kimo Alameda.

Should he run, Tupai’s ballot named would appear as “Tupai Jr,” although his legal name would appear wherever “the name requested to be printed on the ballot” is used … “except on the ballot.”

That comes from inspired by a state House candidate on Oahu’s west side who ran under an alias, making it difficult to learn exactly who he was.

BJ Penn’s legal name is Jay D. Penn, by the way.