In baseball, it’s three strikes and you’re out. In local politics, it’s three strikes and you get to circle the bases to re-election unopposed.

For Rep. Romy Cachola, the first strike was when he was accused of amassing votes for his 2012 election to the House by "helping" elderly voters in his nursing home-rich Kalihi district with their mail-in ballots.

His colleagues moved a measure informally known as the Romy Cachola Bill to bar the practice.

Strike two was when Cachola agreed to pay $2,496 in fines and reimburse his campaign $32,166 to settle Campaign Spending Commission charges that he bought a Nissan Pathfinder with campaign money and put the car to personal use.

Strike three was when Cachola, a city councilman from 2000 to 2012, agreed to pay a record $50,000 city Ethics Commission fine for accepting gifts of meals, wine and golf from lobbyists, and then failing to disclose the conflicts of interest when he voted on more than 100 bills and resolutions related to the lobbyists’ interests.

He also settled Ethics Commission charges that he collected $9,450 from the city to pay for his Nissan Pathfinder expenses, which were already being reimbursed from his campaign account.

Cachola continues to deny wrongdoing and is defending himself with claims that Council colleagues accepted similar gifts, calling into question the validity of dozens of measures they passed on rail and other issues.

Cachola’s lawyer, Michael Green, groused that the Ethics Commission "makes it look like he was walking around with a mask and a gun."

Who needs a mask when you can walk around with your hand out in broad daylight and be re-elected unopposed?

You’d think such a record would draw eager opponents, but they were evidently scared off by his remarkable good luck with the elderly vote and his $211,000 campaign fund — much of it from development interests like those that wined and dined him and nursing home providers.

So we’re left with a legislator being re-elected unopposed despite the questionable circumstances of his original election and an official finding that he engaged in a long pattern of unethical behavior.

The question becomes, what will be done about it?

The House recently got Rep. Calvin Say off the hook from a lawsuit challenging his district residency by persuading the court that the House alone has authority to judge the qualifications of its members.

OK then, let’s see the House exercise that authority in the case of Romy Cachola: Judge him by House ethical standards, if there are any, and then stick him with hard sanctions to discourage such arrogant abuse of power.

House members have an obligation to stand in for his constituents, who weren’t given the opportunity to vote him out.

Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com or blog.volcanicash.net.