Pardon me while I go on a bit of a rant, but I’m sick and tired of legislative leaders who refuse to lead, preferring instead to just keep their heads down and look the other way.

Meanwhile, the bribery, both legal and illegal continues.

Please join me today in making positive change happen by contacting your District Representative and State Senator (type in your address to find).

Contact information for all State Representatives is here and all State Senators is here.

Call or email them today, and ask them to support a special legislative session to close the “contractor loophole”.

In other words, we must do as other states have already done, and ban the practice of government contractors giving money to elected officials who authorize and fund their government contracts.

Today, the head of a contracting company AND their spouse, brother, sister, and mother can all legally give $2,000 – $4,000 each to the Representative and Senator who approves the funding for their contracts. AND if the contractor feels the need to sweeten the deal even more, members of their corporate board of directors and their spouses and children can also give.

It’s called the “contractor loophole” and it must be closed. The ability of government contractors to fund directly the campaigns of the lawmakers who fund their own government projects, is at the very core of the “pay to play” culture that permeates that big square building on Beretania Street. This is legal corruption, is as close to quid pro quo as it can be, and it must be stopped – NOW, TODAY, as in ASAP.

Please, make the call and send the email – TODAY.

Ask our Hawaiʻi government leaders to lead.

When they tell you “not now maybe later”, remind them they’ve been saying “later” for the past 4 years, and enough is enough.

When they tell you “it’s complicated”, “there’s no time”, “it’s not that easy” and “we can just wait until January and try again during the regular 2027 legislative session” – restrain your anger and and try not to swear.

Listen to them intently, take a deep breath, and then tell them again as politely as you can:

“This is important. I know that if you wanted to make this happen, it would happen. I’m asking you again, please lead on this, do the right thing and close the contractor loophole”

It is without question that if “House/Senate Leadership” wanted to end this practice and put a significant dent in the “pay to play” culture that now exists at the capitol – they could do it.

But they don’t, and they won’t.

They could close the “contractor loophole”, they could pass and fund a strong “publicly funded elections” program, AND they could stop the “two ticket to a fundraiser scam” (IYKYK).

But clearly they won’t do any of these things because the status quo works just fine for them.

“Leadership” in the Hawaiʻi House and Senate will not move on these issues until forced to do so by a majority of “their members”.

That’s the bottom line.

Until a critical mass of individual legislators (and candidates) make it clear that closing this loophole and re-instilling faith and confidence in government is a priority, nothing will happen and the corruption will continue.

So while my friends on Kauaʻi must definitely reach out and contact Senate President Ron Kouchi AND House Speaker Rep. Nadine Nakamura – EVERYONE from across the islands must contact via phone AND email their own district State Senator and House Representative TODAY (prior to August 20th) AND ask them politely and professionally to schedule and hold a special session NOW and at the very least – “close the contractor loophole”.

Please, let’s do this.

Whether your district legislator is Republican or Democrat, it doesn’t matter.

All we need is a majority to say in writing, yes they are willing to hold a special session, and yes they’re willing to pass into law a strong ban on government contractor campaign contributions.

Call and email, today please. Ask these two questions, and keep calling and emailing until you get an answer.

This is how democracy works.

We must each take action.

We’re all in this together and together if we each do our small part, we can win.