As readers of this blog have read before, the saga of what happened to Lt. Governor Sylvia Luke was broken up into three “phases”. You can read about Phase I here and Phase II here.

If Phase I marked the emergence of the story, and Phase II was the period when the noise faded, but the questions remained, Phase III is where those questions began producing consequences.

The hallmark of Phase III can be summed up in one word: change.

With Governor Green recently announcing that he will resume his ability to travel out of state, and with a new authority structure now in place, with Acting Lt. Governor Keith Regan given the job of overseeing day-to-day operations, Phase III of this part of the saga has come to an end.

Because any savvy political watcher will know that this all started with a disclosure, and then an adjustment that grounded the governor in Hawaiʻi – something that is now pau.

But along with the resumption of travel, one only needs to scratch beneath the surface of this saga to find other things that changed—some of them radically altering Hawaiʻi’s political landscape.

The first unexpected shift came with Sylvia Luke doing two things, one week apart. First, she withdrew from her re-election campaign for Lt. Governor. Then, the following week, she took a voluntary leave of absence from her elected office. As she said in her announcement, she was doing this to deal with the aftereffects of receiving a target letter from the Attorney General the week before.

The target letter changed the trajectory of one politician. The events that followed changed the trajectory of Hawaiʻi politics.

This immediately raised questions about who would serve as acting Lieutenant Governor. For about a week, the speculation had all the hallmarks of palace intrigue before Governor Green ultimately landed on State Comptroller Keith Regan to fill the position.

With Regan’s arrival, things did quiet down – at least for the saga as it affected the office itself. But in other circles, things were stirring up.

While the early stages of Phase III were unfolding, there were already people boarding planes to Kauaʻi to talk with Mayor Derek Kawakami. Long viewed by many in Hawaiʻi political circles as someone destined for higher office once his time as mayor concluded, it did not take long for him to jump into the Lt. Governor’s race. His arrival came with an immediate splash, aided by For A Better Tomorrow, the Super PAC backed by Pacific Resource Partnership.

His entry also appeared to receive a warm reception from Governor Josh Green. Observers pointed to the easy interaction between the two at Mayor Rick Blangiardi’s State of the City address as an early sign that Hawaiʻi’s political landscape was already beginning to reorganize itself.

But that didn’t mean the Lt. Governor’s race – with Luke out and Kawakami in – meant that the race would not see other new faces join.

Enter current State Representative Della Au Belatti, who at the time announced she was stepping down, not running again for her seat, to run for Congress in a challenge to current Congressman Ed Case for the Democratic nomination. With that race already looking like a challenge – with another challenger to Case in Senator Jarrett Keohokalole coming on strong – this blogger started to hear in his circles that Belatti might make a jump to another race.

And, lo and behold, with about a week before the filing deadline, Belatti announced that she would jump into the Lt. Governor’s race. As for why…. her reasoning goes all the way back to the genesis of this saga of Sylvia Luke, in which she said, with the clearest hindsight possible, “In the last month, there has been a fundamental change in the political landscape.”

She then cited the issues with Luke as one reason for the switch. At the same time, her supporters say she intends to carry forward many of the issues and priorities that Luke championed.

So, to this blogger’s eye, what has happened is that the Lt. Governor’s race is all new, with new faces, and while both big-name candidates are there as “clean government” candidates, at least one who will pick up the flag that Luke dropped and continue her work.

Now that’s an interesting angle, and should make that race very interesting to watch.

The changes, at the end of Phase III, came in waves.

The first change, of course, came from the revelation by Luke about the potential payoff.

The second change came with the reaction to the news, and how specific players, from the Governor to the leaders of the Legislature to other political pundits, handled the news and changed operations due to it.

The third change came from the obliteration of political assumptions and the introduction of new players that no one had on their bingo card just one year ago. The political assumption was that Luke would be a shoo-in for Governor in 2030, with those who were supporters of her waiting in the wings to work and serve under her at the executive level.

And, of course, the introduction of new faces at the statewide level – Kawakami and Belatti.

But another change occurred, which is a fundamental change in the way the Governor sees his role vis-à-vis travelling outside of the state. Until the Luke saga, no one would have thought twice about the Governor going to the Continent to attend a conference, or meeting in Washington DC, or even to fundraise.

Now, and into the future, the role of the Lt. Governor will forever be tied to the question many had during this time: “Can the Governor trust their LG?” Or more pertinent to the voter who will choose the next one, “who would I trust to run this state?”

The answer to that question will be made clearer in August, and definitively in November, as the “Luke Saga”, exiting Phase III now, will go into new phases as the investigation continues.

Here is a question to the reader: What happens when the traditional systems that once moderated political behavior lose influence?

(If you want to provide me with an answer, send me an email here, or post a response to this article in the Facebook “Politics Hawaii with Stan Fichtman” page)

This question has been at the forefront of this blogger’s mind after two recent incidents involving public officials raised a deeper issue: where exactly is the accountability for behavior that once would have triggered institutional backlash?

The first example is that of FBI Director Kash Patel being allowed to snorkel around the USS Arizona, which is a living memorial in Pearl Harbor. The second is that of a speech by Hawaii State Senator Brenton Awa, giving a “Mister Ambassador of Aloha” letter to a person who was videoʻd beating up a tourist on Maui who threw a rock at a Monk Seal.

Both incidents have elicited very strong feelings in the public, with outrage being expressed both on social media and in traditional media. In fact, for Awaʻs speech, he got a rather strong rebuke from the upstart Aloha State Daily e-newspaper. Considering that his speech gave praise to a person who took the law into their own hands and invoked vigilante justice on the Maui tourist — despite the tourist himself later being arrested and facing federal charges — the mere suggestion that a person of authority would sanction this action feels out of the realm.

Because of that speech, if any random person were to take the same position, an ordinary person publicly endorsing retaliatory violence could quickly find themselves condemned for advocating violence.

For Patelʻs actions, which reportedly had authorization and were described as a “VIP” experience signed off by those above him, the story has raised both an emotional “how dare he” response and a practical “how did he get permission to do that?” In reality, an ordinary citizen would never be granted permission to snorkel around the USS Arizona. And if someone attempted to do so without authorization, authorities would intervene almost immediately, dramatically altering that personʻs day.

So, with these actions, the question stands – who holds these leaders accountable?

There was a time when accountability did not begin and end with elections.

Between the public and the ballot box stood layers of intermediary accountability: party leadership, donors, institutional pressure, media scrutiny, respected civic voices, and political elders who quietly signaled when a line had been crossed.

For Patel, the established media would probably be the first line in citing outrage over his actions. More likely than not, a Pearl Harbor survivor would be found and interviewed by a local station, in which their reaction would be good enough for national coverage. Then the political system would wind up, with party bosses and influential lawmakers making calls to the White House and the FBI, asking, “What are you guys doing?” If there is no action, congressional investigations, and further media scrutiny would lead the President to say something to calm things down, all the way to firing the Director over this.

For Awa, a bit of a different approach. The media, of course, would pick it up and start asking the question of why a state lawmaker is making such a statement. Perhaps lawmakers and influential political players in the opposing party would issue a combined statement calling on the Senator to apologize and rescind the remarks. Eventually, donors to the Senator as well as to the political party he is part of would get itchy, start making calls and asking for a combination of “settling down” as well as “find a way to fix this, because the public is not happy”.

And as you, the reader, know, it’s the public that eventually has a chance to make their voice known through the ballot box. With them not happy, it becomes a lot harder for the now-incumbent candidate to get re-elected.

But these days, one can see how it’s panned out on both of these examples; accountability is lacking. For both, yes, there was a dustup in the media, maybe a couple of people called on the powers that be to express their feelings on it, and a bunch of people on social media came out and posted and re-posted articles expressing their outrage over their behaviors.

Then that is it.

The media cycle moves on. Social media finds the next outrage. Public attention shifts elsewhere. And the officials involved continue largely unchanged — perhaps with a temporary bruise to their reputation, but little visible institutional consequence.

So, where is the accountability when public officials cross lines that once would have carried institutional consequences? Right now, it’s hard to see. Maybe you have a different perspective – so email Politics Hawaii with Stan Fichtman and let me know!

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The award-winning blog “Politics Hawaii with Stan Fichtman” wants to hear from you! Provide your manaʻo (insight, knowledge, feelings) on this matter by emailing or posting on the Facebook page for this blog. The blog may share your comments in an upcoming article that will continue to address the issue of “who is keeping them accountable?”

Update since this was posted on the morning of May 9 –
The Attorney General’s office did release an update on the status of the investigation, based on inquiries made by other media outlets asking why the April 24th update was not issued. The AG did issue a press release on Friday, May 8 – one day before this article came out. Thanks to Andrew Walden of Hawaii Free Press for letting PHwSF know. The original article will be kept as it is.

~Stan Fichtman – Politics Hawaii with Stan Fichtman

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As the dust begins to settle following Lt. Governor Sylvia Luke’s leave of absence and the appointment of State Comptroller Keith Regan as interim lieutenant governor, a few things are beginning to emerge more clearly.

For instance, the activities of the State Attorney General, Anne Lopez.

in January, when the story surrounding the alleged $35,000 transfer erupted publicly — along with speculation that the lieutenant governor may have been involved — the Attorney General maintained that the state could not initiate its own investigation while the federal government was still conducting its inquiry and information-sharing had not yet occurred.

That soon changed.

Federal investigators later informed the Attorney General that they would share evidence with the state, creating a pathway for Hawaiʻi to begin its own inquiry. Soon after, the Attorney General’s office announced not only that it would investigate the matter, but that it would also provide regular biweekly public updates.

And from then on, the Attorney General’s office issued a steady series of press releases updating the public on the case. Taken together — January 20, March 13, March 27, and April 10 — the releases created a narrative arc showing how the investigation was evolving.

These releases also conditioned the political class and media ecosystem to expect timely updates on the public corruption investigation tied to the now-infamous $35,000 ‘bribe in a bag’ saga.

Then the situation escalated rapidly: Luke reportedly received a target letter, and soon after stepped aside from office on April 23.

Yet since April 10, and despite everything that has happened since then, the AG’s office has said nothing further publicly about the investigation. In fact, the April 10 release marked something of a rhetorical shift. Rather than simply describing procedural activity, the office became notably more specific, citing “thousands of pages” of reviewed documents and 18 conducted interviews that were helping investigators resolve “key questions.”

That shift becomes even more notable when one reads the final line of the April 10 release itself: “The next scheduled public update will be provided on Friday, April 24.” Yet no such release appears on the Attorney General’s public press release archive.

So the question becomes, why did the AGʻs office stop publicly narrating the investigation?

A savvy observer of Hawaiʻi politics may note that the silence began at the precise moment the political system began responding as though the matter was no longer abstract. One could argue that the “enforcement mechanism” effectively shifted from investigators to political actors, and once institutional consequences began unfolding, the matter moved from a law-enforcement narrative into a political one.

But that may be too simple an explanation.

The silence itself raises further questions. For instance, what changed to cause the communications strategy to shift from transparency to silence even after the office publicly stated that the updates would continue?

There is also the broader question of how this entire saga, and the way it has been presented to both the press and the public, have largely flowed through a single institutional narrative.

A good example of that dynamic can be seen in the statements of Governor Josh Green, who expressed his manaʻo on the matter during appearances on Hawaiʻi News Now’s podcast, citing the ongoing investigation as the reason for limiting further public comment.

So, in short, are further updates still coming? Or does the narrative now reside in the purview of the politicians?