Public agencies were three of the five biggest spenders when it came to lobbying state lawmakers during the eight-month period ending December 31, 2009, according to spending reports filed with the State Ethics Commission.
The Hawaii Tourism Authority and the Honolulu Board of Water Supply ranked #2 and #3, just behind the top spender, Altria, parent [...]
Entries Tagged as 'Politics'
Three public agencies among leaders in lobbyist spending
February 6th, 2010 · 5 Comments · Ethics, Politics
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Court says State of Washington violates constitution by failing to provide ample funds to schools
February 5th, 2010 · 2 Comments · Politics
The state of Washington is violating its constitution by failing to provide adequate financial support for its public schools, a Superior Court judge ruled yesterday.
In a 73-page written opinion, Judge John P. Erlick said the Washington constitution makes public education the “paramount” responsibility of government, and the failure to provide “provide stable and dependable funding [...]
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Yes, I miss Frank Fasi
February 4th, 2010 · 7 Comments · Politics
I got up late this morning and saw the announcement of Frank Fasi’s death in the Advertiser’s Breaking News section.
A friend of ours once observed that you can judge a person by the stature of their enemies. If that’s true, then Frank Fasi was a great politician. He shook the party establishments from the populist [...]
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Mid-Week Miscellany
February 3rd, 2010 · 7 Comments · Cats, Media, Politics
Have you noticed that the Star-Bulletin quietly eliminated the easy link to the past week’s editions as well as any link to its online archive, both features which made the S-B stand out in user friendliness. I don’t know when the change took place. I searched in vain for “back issues” and “archives” at Star-Bulletin.com [...]
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Money, money, money
February 2nd, 2010 · 6 Comments · Campaigns, Politics
Both daily newspapers report today on the money raised for what is expected to be a hotly contested campaign for governor.
Poor Star-Bulletin. Richard Borreca’s story was accompanied by a table that transposed the two columns of figures, so that candidates appear to have all spent more than they have raised. Definitely a painful beginning their [...]
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Another strange twist in the tale of the city’s “disclosure” of personal services contracts
January 31st, 2010 · 10 Comments · Politics, Sunshine
Hold on to your seats! Here we go on the latest round in the sunshine saga of how the city handles disclosure of a quarterly report of personal services contracts required since a 1997 city council resolution was adopted..
The latest twist. The personal services contracts listing for the October-December 2009 period was released earlier this [...]
Candidate filing begins on Monday, despite what the Office of Elections web site advises
January 30th, 2010 · 1 Comment · Campaigns, Politics
I hope this isn’t an indication of things to come!
This notice to candidates was copied this morning directly from the “Candidates” page on the Office of Elections web site:
Actually, I think candidate filing begins this coming Monday, February 1. Will there be a rush of early filers?
In any case, they’ll soon be off and [...]
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Responding to thorny questions about blogging and bias
January 30th, 2010 · 2 Comments · Politics
I suppose I should take the time to reply to two recent critical comments received in response to my query about whether or not to accept political advertising on this site. Both appear bothered by the fact that I’ve continued to blog even during periods where I’ve been employed at the legislature. And both were [...]
Tags: Ian Lind
