Dark Matter: Meet the newest fake name in Maui politics, Part One

Take a group of mainlanders with murky motives funneling big bucks into an organization with a catchy Hawaiian name. Turn it loose on Maui. What have you got?

No, not Mahi Pono (but good guess). This time it’s Hui O Maui, which, instead of buying a sizeable chunk of our island, is gunning for your votes in the upcoming election. Hui O Maui wants you to vote for county council incumbents Yuki Lei Sugimura, Alice Lee, Tasha Kama and Mike Molina (which is funny, more on that later). It wants you to elect challengers Stacy Crivello, Alberta de Jetley, Tom Cook, Rick Nava and Claire Kamalu Carroll. Hui O Maui also wants you to vote no on all seven proposed charter amendments.

What it absolutely does NOT want is for you to have any idea who is behind this operation. Like other organizations in its tax classification—Hui O Maui legally can spend unlimited amounts of cash without disclosing its donors. It’s running on “dark money,” the coronavirus of electoral politics. Dark money is virulent, uncontrollable and—unlike the COVID vaccine that is sure to someday emerge—unstoppable. That’s thanks to the 2010 U.S. Supreme Court Citizen’s United decision which drew a cloak of invisibility around these types of organizations.

“[Hui O Maui] is the darkest of dark money,” says Colin Moore, director of the Public Policy Center at the University of Hawai’i, Manoa. “It is totally opaque. It’s organized by professional lobbyists or influencers. And it has a name that makes it sound local, but it is not.”

Here’s how it works. Hui O Maui was incorporated in Hawai’i in February by a San Francisco attorney under a 501(c)(4) nonprofit tax designation. That permits it to spend unlimited amounts of money on politics without disclosing donors’ names, as long as politics is not the organization’s primary activity. Hui O Maui then donates that money to political action committees or super PACs (Hawai’i benignly calls them “independent expenditure committees”). Super PACs are forbidden to communicate with candidates or directly fund them, but they must disclose their donors.

Hui O Maui’s purpose, as described in incorporation papers filed with the state, is boilerplate and vague: “to conduct research…to collect data…to disseminate information,” etc. So far, Hui O Maui has given $120,000 to two dark money spawn: a super PAC called Hui O Maui Citizens for Change and the clumsily named ballot issue committee Vote No on Charter Amendments Hui O Maui We Can’t Afford It. In campaign spending disclosure documents filed so far, both groups list just one donor—Hui O Maui. Totally legit; totally impenetrable. The money is little more than pocket lint by mainland standards, but it’s catapulted Hui O Maui to big dog status in this local election.

Says Moore, “The power comes from the lack of transparency. It is clearly trying to represent itself as a real grassroots, citizens’ organization. That’s the trouble with these super PAC issues. It’s not money. The issue is the lack of transparency because citizens just have no ability to judge who’s really behind this and what their motivations are. That to me is the real ethical problem with these organizations. In many ways, it’s basically a lie.”

Other super PACs involved in this election are more transparent. For example, the National Association of Realtors Fund in Chicago spent $60,200 on ads supporting Stacy Crivello, who is challenging Keani Rawlins-Fernandez for Molokai’s county council seat. Given the organization’s name, it’s safe to assume it has interest in real estate matters such as property taxes. Similarly, the Sustainable Action Fund for the Environment (S.A.F.E.) and Maui’s Green Future Project are both chaired by longtime Maui progressive activist and Realtor Mark Sheehan, whose views on Maui politics have long been publicly expressed. Sheehan was happy to explain the difference between his groups and Hui O Maui when contacted: “We’re not hired guns coming in from the mainland trying to roll things back to a 1950’s Maui.”

Ballot issue committees such as Grow Maui Jobs in Local Food Production and Affordable Housing and the Holomua Ohana for Professional Management have each reported spending less than $10,000 on the election this far. They are chaired, respectively, by local residents Michael Williams and Mark Hyde, who, like Sheehan, are easily identifiable and whose progressive philosophies are well-known.

What is Hui O Maui’s philosophy? Who founded it? Who knows? Its Facebook page has two pictures on it: a sunset and a palm tree.

To accomplish its goals, Hui O Maui recently dropped $120,000 into its subsidiaries. Hui O Maui Citizens for Change was the prime beneficiary, receiving $100,000. It has a Honolulu address, a Washington, D.C. phone number (where messages left were never returned), and a Nevada-based chairman, longtime political strategist Grant David Gillham, who will be discussed in depth in the second part of this series. The super PAC spent that and almost $40,000 more to flood mailboxes and airwaves with ads supporting its candidate slate.

Hui O Maui donated another $20,000 to the ballot issue committee, Vote No on Charter Amendments Hui O Maui Nui We Can’t Afford It. Surprisingly, this committee does provide a glimmer of transparency with an actual Maui connection. Its chairman/treasurer/custodian of books and accounts is Roselani Ice Cream executive Buddy James Nobriga, 36, of the influential Nobriga ohana. But if you think he’ll shed some light on Hui O Maui’s mysterious origins, think again. Nobriga avoided phone calls and emails asking how he came to head the committee and who is behind its funding. Honolulu Civil Beat’s Blaze Lovell did track him down last week, reporting that Nobriga said he started the committee because he “worried the complicated language” in the proposed charter amendments “may not be clear to voters.” No information was forthcoming as to the identity of its funders; it’s unclear whether or not Lovell even asked the question.

Who directly benefits from this bountiful Hui O Maui cash? Media, design and mailing companies mainly. In recent filings with Hawaii’s Campaign Spending Commission, Hui O Maui Citizens for Change listed expenditures to Maui Now ($4,173.43), Pacific Media Group ($16,665), Hochman Hawaii Publishing ($5,208), Ray-Cel Broadcasting ($3,625), Sae Design Group ($15,150), and another $15,000-plus in mailing and postage costs.

Here’s another rather bizarre beneficiary: County councilmember Mike Molina, who represents the Makawao-Haiku-Paia area. Molina finds himself in the unusual position of being supported by the diametrically opposed Hui O Maui Citizens for Change and Maui’s Green Future Project super PACs. Molina really doesn’t need help from either; he received the most votes of any candidate in the primary and is a shoo-in to retain his seat. Molina was amused, kind of, in a recent interview.

“It was a surprise,” he said, emphasizing that he didn’t seek endorsements from either organization. “Over the years, I’ve supported both the environmental groups and the business community. So it puts me in an unusual position. The endorsements may be a reflection of my reputation for hearing all concerns and treating individual constituents and diverse community groups with respect.”

Meanwhile, the Hui O Maui identity guessing game continues in political circles. Given that Mayor Michael Victorino vehemently opposes all seven charter amendments (four of the seven impose limitations on various aspects of the mayor’s authority), it’s reasonable to consider him a beneficiary of efforts to oppose their passage. Victorino appointed Vote No’s chairman Nobriga to serve on the county’s Economic Recovery Task Force in July. Emails seeking a mayoral comment on Hui O Maui, Nobriga, or super PACs in general were ignored by county spokesman Brian Perry.

Lana’i owner Larry Ellison’s name surfaced because of his Pulama Lana’i company’s support of Alberta de Jetley, who is running against progressive candidate Gabe Johnson for the Lana’i county council seat vacated by Riki Hokama. For reasons that remain unclear, Pulama Lana’i purchased de Jetley’s Lanai Today newspaper—making Ellison one of very few billionaires to invest in a dying medium (I mean, Warren Buffet sold all his newspaper interests earlier this year). And, although Hui O Maui Citizens for Change reported spending equal amounts on each candidate in for its slate of candidates in radio ads and mailings, $15,351.28 was spent on a postcard devoted solely to de Jetley that recently arrived in local mailboxes.

Another $60,209.40 of Hui O Maui Citizens for Change money went to a Honolulu-based company called CommPac, described on its website as “Hawaii’s leading integrated communications company,” with strength in—among other things—“enculturation services.” (Like coming up with Hawaiian-y names for mainland companies?) Another CommPac client is Alexander & Baldwin, which led to tenuous and unproven assertions in some quarters that A&B is somehow involved.

The truth is that no one knows, and probably won’t know until the election is over—if ever.

“This is some high level operative stuff that we don’t often get in Hawai’i,” said Colin Moore. “This is real cloak and dagger politics.”

Next: Who is Grant David Gillham and why is he involved in Maui’s politics?