New bill would limit ‘revolving door’ for lobbyists

A bill that would limit the ability of state lawmakers and top state officials to leave their government jobs and then quickly go to work lobbying the state Legislature is advancing in the state Senate.

Lawmakers aren’t naming names, but some recent high-profile state officials who quickly made the jump from government positions to lobbying include former Lt. Gov. Douglas Chin and former Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism Director Luis Salaveria.

Another example was Bruce Coppa, former chief of staff to Gov. Neil Abercrombie, who registered to lobby for more than two dozen businesses within weeks of the end of the Abercrombie administration.

Senate Bill 2114 was proposed by the Hawaii State Ethics Commission, and would require that the governor and lieutenant governor, the heads of state departments in the governor’s Cabinet, the governor’s chief of staff and other key state officials wait at least a year before going to work lobbying the Legislature.

The existing ethics law requires former state employees to wait for one year before lobbying the departments where they worked or lobbying on issues they handled as state workers, but allows them to lobby the Legislature on other issues immediately.

Senate Government Operations Committee Chairwoman Laura Thielen, who served as a Cabinet member during Gov. Linda Lingle’s administration, said she wasn’t thinking of any particular case when she scheduled a hearing for the bill, but said the measure “seems to make sense.”

Thielen is a former chairwoman of the state Board of Land and Natural Resources, and said, “As a Cabinet member, you will have established relationships with a lot of high-level employees across the state. Do you then turn around and monetize those relationships, or do you need to give it some time?”

“What they’re trying to do is to make sure that we have a law that is going to promote ethical behavior and promote trust in government,” she said of the Ethics Commission’s bill.

The bill addresses a scenario that actually played out several times in state government in recent years.

Chin, a former state attorney general and lieutenant governor, left office as lieutenant governor in December 2018 after an unsuccessful run for Congress. By the following April he had registered with the state Ethics Commission to lobby for clients ranging from the Blue Planet Foundation to Park Hotels &Resorts and Hilton Worldwide.

Chin explained in an interview that while he actively lobbied lawmakers and the Ige administration for Blue Planet last year, he did not lobby for the other clients listed on his ethics disclosures. Chin said he was required by his law firm Starn, O’Toole, Marcus &Fisher to register to lobby for the firm’s other lobbying clients, just in case his services were needed.

Salaveria served as DBEDT director for Gov. David Ige’s administration until December 2018, when he left and joined the law firm Ashford &Wriston the same month. Within three months Salaveria had registered to lobby for more than two dozen companies that included clients ranging from T-Mobile and Shell Oil to Costco Wholesale and private prison operator CoreCivic.

Salaveria declined to answer specific questions about his lobbying work or the proposed bill, but said in a written statement, “I have coordinated with the state Ethics Commission on matters I was involved with since my separation from state government. I would refer you to them in regards to any questions regarding my post-government employment.”

He also declined to comment on SB 2114, saying that “I defer to the legislature on the intent of the measure.”

Another example of what some have called the “revolving door” of state lobbying is Coppa, who left his old job as administrative director or governor’s chief of staff at the end of the Abercrombie administration, and joined the Hawaii lobbying firm Capitol Consultants of Hawaii.

Less than four months later Coppa was registered to lobby for more than two dozen firms including Monsanto Co., the Motion Picture Association Inc. and AT&T.

“I have always strived to hold myself and my firm to the highest ethical standards,” Coppa said in a written statement in response to questions. “When I left the previous administration, I was very careful about following the law and clear with my clients that I was not allowed to directly lobby the governor’s office.”

As for the proposed changes in SB 2114, “I support the legislature’s desire to revisit the ethics laws,” Coppa wrote. “As government affairs professionals, we want to ensure that the public and policy makers have confidence in the rules we must follow.”

Dan Gluck, executive director of the state Ethics Commission, described the one-year restriction as “a cooling-off period.”

“People have knowledge about how their agencies are operating, they have the relationships, and it’s designed to prevent a revolving door between government and the private sector,” he said.

The Senate government operations committee unanimously approved SB 2114 on Tuesday. The measure now goes to the Senate Judiciary Committee for further consideration.