The Hawaiʻi/Kauaʻi political landscape just got more interesting, more confusing, and much more complicated.

Senator Kouchi’s announcement (Civil Beat – Kouchi’s Running After All) that he is definitely running for reelection in 2026 and will NOT be retiring – presents a bit of a conundrum for Mayor Kawakami’s own campaign for that same Senate seat.

The facts seem pretty straightforward.

The Friends of Derek Kawakami official Campaign Spending Commission “Organizational Report”, signed by the candidate and his treasurer clearly states – Office Sought: Senate District 8.

On September 10, 2024 the Kawakami campaign filed a “Notice of Fundraiser” for an event at the Honolulu Pacific Club declaring the “office sought” as State Senate District 8 (Kauaʻi).

At that event and in the days preceding and following, the Friends of Derek Kawakami campaign raised approximately $250,000 from people, businesses, and organizations who made generous contributions in support of his newly launched effort to run for the Kauaʻi State Senate.

The top contributor was Oahu based AHE Group LLC who gave $10,000. An additional $4,000 was also donated to the campaign by Joelle Chiu identified on the campaign spending report as “Real Estate Developer” – AHE Group.

The top expense listed in his campaign finance report for his Kauaʻi Senate campaign was approximately $3,133 for hotel, air travel, car rental, and food expense for a “talk story event” held on Maui.

Campaign spending reports are fascinating.

On September 19, 2024 Kauaʻi Now reported, “The campaign office for Kauaʻi Mayor Derek S.K. Kawakami has confirmed the mayor intends to run for Hawaiʻi Senate District 8 in 2026, with the support of the current seat holder, Senate President Ron Kouchi.”

But then on June 6 Civil Beat reported, “The Senate campaign declaration Kawakami made last September in order to raise funds for his political future, to comply with state campaign finance law, appears to be a placeholder. He said he would not oppose Kouchi, who has helped him fundraise for the Senate but has not indicated any plans to retire.”

A placeholder? Can a candidate declare they are running for a specific political office, and raise money ostensibly to support a campaign for that office – when they don’t really intend to run for election to that office at all, and are only using it as a “placeholder”?

To sort through the confusion I went straight to the campaign law.

Caveat: I am not a lawyer (but did serve in a lawmaking role for 16 years).

HRS §11-384 – says a “candidate who receives contributions for an election but fails to file nomination papers for that election shall return residual funds to the contributors…” AND a “candidate who withdraws or ceases to be a candidate for the election…shall return residual funds…”.

To be absolutely clear I am not implying any wrongdoing by the Kawakami campaign – merely pointing out their conundrum.

Since he’s already stated publicly he would never run against Senator Kouchi for the Senate seat, Mayor Kawakami must now find another political office to “seek” and amend his official campaign organizational report.

His choices are Kauaʻi Council, State Representative, Lieutenant Governor, Governor or the U.S. House of Representatives CD2.

I presume his campaign must now notify the existing donors who donated money to his Senate race and offer them the option of a refund, and/or repurposing of their prior contribution to whatever new seat he now chooses to run for.

It will be interesting to see how this whole thing shakes out.

In the meantime, I’m hoping Kauaʻi Mayor Kawakami will make his final year as our top government executive a great one!

Gary Hooser
Former Kauaʻi State Senator 😉