Upset About The Corruption Charges? What Are You Going To Do About It? … Democrats have such a complete lock on power in Hawaii — and Republicans are so marginalized — that there may be little political fallout from even these egregious cases.
House Speaker Scott Saiki was blunt Wednesday when he spoke with reporters about the indictments of two former leading state lawmakers earlier this week.
“This is really bad,” he said. “This is public corruption. I’m not sure how much worse it could get.”
The federal wire fraud charges against former Senate Majority Leader J. Kalani English and former House Finance Committee Vice Chairman Ty Cullen, both Democrats, for allegedly accepting cash bribes and financial benefits in exchange for influencing legislation has put the entire Legislature “under a cloud,” as one lawmaker put it.
But the new charges are just the latest in a string of investigations that have tarred Hawaii’s ruling Democratic Party. As the accusations pile up, it becomes ever more difficult for Democrats to credibly claim that each new mess is an “isolated incident.”
