The rough quarry tiles of Honolulu Hale are a long way from the marble floors of the White House, but as CNN and its White House reporter Jim Acosta battle President Donald Trump for press access, I can see the same conflicts fought in both spots.

The battles between politicians and the press are an expected part of democracy — hard-fought positions, unflinching reporting and the cross-examination style in professional news conferences is expected.

Back in 1973, years of skirmishes between then-Mayor Frank Fasi and the Hawaii news media ended with me being banned from Fasi’s news conferences and city appointees ordered not to answer my questions.

Last week, federal Judge Timothy Kelly ruled in favor of CNN’s request to restore Acosta’s press credentials. Decades ago, it was federal Judge Sam King’s ruling on a temporary restraining order that stopped Fasi’s ban, although Fasi’s attacks on the press continued throughout his career.

Fasi, like Trump, was the news media’s squeaky wheel that they jumped to cover. When he was on the City Council, Fasi was the loudest showman in opposition; he was master of the well-timed publicity stunt and, like Trump, he always knew how to pick a fight.

In 1970, Fasi banned Honolulu Star-Bulletin reporter Toni Withington, saying “she has made unfounded statements about my administration.”

The Star-Bulletin warned in its editorial that, “What the Mayor can do to one newspaper today he can do other media tomorrow.” The ACLU called it “a step away from formal censorship.”

Fasi dropped that ban against the newspaper after the Honolulu Media Council was formed, but by 1973, Fasi had made the press his favorite whipping boy.

“This mayor has not and will not have his administration run by the editors of two newspapers who have been and are operating in violation of state and federal antitrust laws for the past seven years,” Fasi said inaccurately, ignoring that the federal failing newspaper act allowed the Star-Bulletin and The Honolulu Advertiser to share printing and distribution in order to maintain two distinct newspapers.

In my case, Fasi falsely said I had told reporters I was out to get him. My denials, just like Withington’s, did not stop Fasi from ginning up a media fight for his own purpose. What probably upset Fasi were reports that I and colleague David Shapiro had written about Fasi campaign supporters arranging for city inspectors to sell fundraising tickets while they were inspecting their properties.

After I was formally escorted out of a pre-Thanksgiving news conference, the paper’s attorneys and editors decided to sue in federal court.

Then-Executive Editor Hobert Duncan said the Fasi case was like Washington, D.C.

“Watergate has made many politicians squeamish about reporters. Mayor Fasi, President Nixon and Spiro Agnew are all angry with us. I guess it’s a way of life,” he said.

An Advertiser editorial the next day continued the comparison, saying, “There are distressing parallels between the attitudes of mayor Fasi toward the media and those of President Nixon.”

The motion for a temporary restraining order was heard here by Judge King, who, ironically when he lost his race for governor in 1970, had said the press was partially to blame for his defeat.

In his ruling, King was dead-on accurate.

He called Fasi’s actions a “form of censorship” and wrote that “requiring a newspaper reporter to pass a subjective compatibility-accuracy test as a condition precedent to the right of that reporter to gather news is no different than requiring a newspaper to submit its proposed news stories as a condition … to the right of that newspaper to have a reporter cover the news.”

King added: “A free press is not necessarily an angelic press.”

“Borreca v. Fasi” was one of the first federal decisions regarding rights of reporters to attend public news conferences, and was cited in last week’s CNN ruling. Since the Hawaii decision, there have been more definitive statements, all showing that politicians are never above the First Amendment.

Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays. Reach him at 808onpolitics@gmail.com.