Republican Gov. Linda Lingle said Sept. 21, 2005, on KHVH’s The Rick Hamada Show, that she would not have selected Harbin as a replacement for Democrat Rep. Kenneth Hiraki of Kakaako last week if she’d known Harbin had more than $123,000 in business tax liens.

The first question is why -- when the state is the keeper of tax records and virtually all public records in the state -- did the governor not have this kind of background information at her disposal?

A simple check at the Bureau of Conveyances just yards from the Capitol where the governor’s office sits would have revealed Harbin’s state tax problems.

A call to the state tax director appointed by Lingle would have exposed such a potential problem.

But even if the governor’s staff opted not to take the elevator down from the fifth floor and walk across the street to the Bureau, they could have searched the Internet and found Harbin’s financial trouble was the topic of media reports previous to her appointment.

The staff also could have asked virtually anyone in the small business community about Harbin and her financial history surely would have come up -- it is a well-known fact.

The second question is why wasn’t the candidate for such an important position held to the same standards as companies seeking business with the state or Hawaii’s four counties? Businesses seeking to obtain contracts or concessions with the state or counties must present a tax clearance as a part of their bid. Harbin and others who apply for positions with the state should be required to do so as well.

But the most important question is why didn’t Harbin disclose her financial trouble to the governor during her interview for the position?

By not being forthright, Harbin did a great disservice to Gov. Lingle and her administration, the Democratic Party of Hawaii, the business community and her new constituents.

Harbin told the media she did not think it was important enough to tell the governor because she thought is was a "dead issue," and in fact she goes as far to say that her experience, her "pain" will make her a better representative because she can understand how difficult it is to make it in Hawaii’s business climate.

The Democrats aren’t buying Harbin or her story, and who can blame them?

The Democratic Party of Hawaii has been plagued with politicians who have lacked integrity. This includes felons who have gone to prison for everything from campaign spending violations, to theft, to money laundering, to accepting kickbacks, to misuse of government funds, to illegal drug use.

The Democratic Party’s donors to politicians such as former Gov. Benjamin Cayetano and former Honolulu Mayor Jeremy Harris have been fined hundreds of thousands of dollars for making false name contributions and money laundering an estimated $1.5 million to Harris alone. The press on the Democrats being indicted, convicted and shipped off to prison, along with some of their donors, has been devastating.

In fact, that is one of the reasons Gov. Linda Lingle was elected in the first place in 2002 as the first Republican governor in 40 years -- she promised to clean up corruption in government.

So from the Democrats’ perspective, Harbin is a tremendous liability they did not ask for, and certainly do not want.

Hawaii does not have recall on the state level, but if Harbin had pride in herself or respect for the governor, the Democrats and the constituents she’s supposed to represent, she’d resign from the position she was just sworn into and was initially asked to remain in until December 2006.

She says she won’t -- and her constituents should raise a whole lot of heck about it and demand better from their government.

Reach Malia Zimmerman, editor and president of Hawaii Reporter, via email at mailto:Malia@hawaiireporter.com

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