On January 14, Gov. Linda Lingle and House Speaker Calvin Say each received replicas of the first Hawai’i Superferry vessel from John F. Lehman, the company’s chairman and its largest investor. The model ships, valued at $500 by Lingle and $200 by Say, were presented less than three months after Lingle called the Legislature back into an extraordinary special session that swept aside a Supreme Court decision in order to allow Hawai’i Superferry to begin interisland service.

Senate President Colleen Hanabusa was given a framed photo of the Superferry, valued at $50, back in November, just a week after the bill had been signed into law.

The State Ethics Code (Chapter 84 Hawai’i Revised Statutes) prohibits legislators or other state employees from soliciting, accepting or receiving any gift “under circumstances in which it can reasonably be inferred that the gift is intended to influence the legislator or employee in the performance” of their official duties “or is intended as a reward for any official action” on their part.

The law also requires public disclosure of any gifts from a single source, which, singly or in aggregate, are worth more than $200.

The recipients all properly reported the Superferry’s gifts to the ethics commission. But were they “intended as a reward” for successful passage of the bill that launched the ferry into service, and therefore prohibited?

It’s a question that isn’t easy to answer.

“Gifts are the hardest issue to deal with in the ethics area,” says Dan Mollway, State Ethics Commission executive director and general counsel. The law currently has no “bright line” test, or way to definitively decide what constitutes as a gift, he explains.

“Many gifts that go beyond what might be called tokens of aloha may raise issues, but you don’t know if there’s an actual problem until you go out and ask questions,” Mollway says. “What was the occasion? What was the gift? Who was the source? What was the purpose? An agency like ours would have to spend an awful lot of time and thousands of dollars asking these questions, and even then people will debate whether our conclusions are correct.”

Nothing to disclose

Most gifts received by legislators and other officials are well under the $200 disclosure threshold, such as the loaf of Moloka’i bread given to Sen. Hanabusa by the Moloka’i Community Health Center or the $2 button from organizers of Champions for Children Day. As a result, the majority of legislators simply report that they have nothing to disclose.

Luckily, a minority of legislators, including both Hanabusa and Say, appear to disclose all gifts received, regardless of value. Their detailed reports, combined with the few reports of larger gifts, provide an eye-opening glimpse behind-the-scenes.

At face value

A few gifts are substantial. Lt. Gov. Duke Aiona reports receiving two New York Knicks tickets valued at $1,900 each from Chris and Kimberly Dey, owners of Hawai’i IPTV, LLC. The Dey’s company allows viewers anywhere in the world to watch Hawai’i television programs delivered over the Internet, including archives of past University of Hawai’i games.

Rep. Mina Morita and Sen. Ron Menor, chairs of the House and Senate energy committees, traveled to Malaysia in December 2007 where they visited palm oil plantations and factories courtesy of the American Palm Oil Council at a cost of $3,300 each. Proposals to import palm oil to produce biodiesel have been hotly debated in the Legislature for several years.

Rep. John Mizuno reported taking six trips costing a total of more than $7,000, but all were sponsored by the National Council of State Legislatures and were directly related to his legislative duties.

Sen. Norman Sakamoto reported traveling to a “transformation conference” in Argentina in September 2007. He reported the trip cost over $1,000 and was paid for by the Moanalua Gardens Missionary Church. A second trip to Japan, sponsored by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was similarly valued at over $1,000.

The usual suspects

The “usual suspects,” professional lobbyists and the local companies, industry groups and unions that hire them, provide the bulk of reported gifts, including common items like lei and flower arrangements, fruit baskets, cookies, cakes, manapua and T-shirts.

Hawaiian Electric gave out potted palms. Capitol Consultants, an influential lobbying firm with a long list of clients, gave out beach chairs and a book of street maps. Say reported being given a couple of bottles of scotch whiskey, a cigar lei and several bottles of wine, including two bottles of red wine ($20 each) from well-known lobbyist Richard Botti and another from Hawai’i Community College chancellor Rockne Freitas. Before it folded, Aloha Airlines gave away Ali’i Gold memberships in its frequent flyer club. A few legislators got a similar perk from Hawaiian Air.

Even cash-strapped public agencies got into the act. The State Transportation Department’s Airports Division presented each legislator with a laser pen/pointer variously valued between $10 and $30. Clayton Frank, state public safety director, gave out maile lei and floral arrangements. House Finance Chair Marcus Oshiro reported receiving a plant from the Traffic Violations Bureau. Various UH officials, departments and programs also gave gifts. Most were of token value, such as the packages of cookies distributed by UH Engineering Dean Peter Crouch. However, those small amounts add up. On his own gift disclosure form, Crouch reports spending a total of $935 from his protocol account at the UH Foundation for opening day gifts at the Legislature. It isn’t known how much UH spent overall on the array goodies for lawmakers.

Perhaps the most unusual gift this year was a bronze sculpture of First Lady Laura Bush given to the governor by Eduardo Vasquez, which followed his gift of a similar sculpture of President Reagan, given in 2006.

Mollway said he would support amending state law to prohibit state officials from accepting any gifts from lobbyists, pointing to Minnesota’s state law and new Congressional rules as models.

Gift disclosure reports are open to public inspection at the State Ethics Commission office or on its website at [hawaii.gov/ethics].