‘Pay to play’ remains a reality in isle politics, corrupting all involved

"Pay-to-play" is getting a lot of attention during this election year, with charges of "smears" and "lies" hurled between opposing camps.

But this shouldn’t be dismissed as a political attack by one group against another. Pay-to-play is real and has been part of Hawaii’s political culture for decades.

I know because I am a retired engineer who managed the Hawaii businesses of two different engineering companies. I hope my speaking out will in some way give voice to my fellow engineers who have been robbed of their dignity, integrity and honor.

Pay-to-play is a term used to describe the link between political contributions and government contracts. In an August 2002 Associated Press story, Bob Watada, the former executive director of the Campaign Spending Commission, described it as, "The more money you put on the table, the more contracts you are in line for."

The A&E industry —architects and engineers — are the most vulnerable because they go through a selection process based on subjective, as opposed to objective criteria. They are the ones who design the major infrastructure projects in the state, almost all of it funded by government.

I retired in May of 2010 and witnessed favoritism in the A&E selection process on numerous occasions, practiced by previous administrations in both the state and city governments. Few bothered to challenge the awarding of contracts to those who "paid to play" because speaking out would guarantee no future work on government projects.

In 2002, the Legislature passed a bill to ban direct political contributions from government contractors and corporations to county and state elected officials who issue contracts. It was vetoed, even though supporters said it was the most significant campaign finance reform bill in decades. Then-Gov. Ben Cayetano said he vetoed the bill — which was supported by Watada and the attorney general — because legislators were exempt from the ban. Legislative leaders said the reason for the exemption was because the legislators are considered part-time and have no role in selecting contractors. The ban would have been a good first step, but the veto stopped any chance to weaken the pay-to-play culture.

A year later, after a change in state leadership, there was a strong cry for reform of the state procurement system because there was widespread abuse in the preceding administration. I worked with a colleague on the steering committee of business professionals in making this reform happen. One of the most significant changes made in the law was to remove elected and appointed officials from the selection process. The reason is obvious. It was widely believed that elected and appointed officials abused the system, and gave contracts to those who contributed to their political campaigns.

Even with the procurement reform, we continued to see that major political donors were rewarded with government contracts. It was a commonly held belief within the engineering community that this happened because of the political activity of a certain group that continued to exercise influence over the selection process.

Everyone knows that if one wants to stay in business in Hawaii, one does not challenge the political leadership. As long as elected officials permit their campaign contributors to exercise influence, the "pay-to-play" system will continue.

I hope the people will finally wake up and refuse to elect such officials. We don’t need "pay-to-play" in Hawaii.