Frequent flyer: Hawaiʻi Gov. Josh Green was back in D.C. last week, but not to lobby against Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. We all know how well those prior two trips went: Despite his anti-vax background, RFK Jr. was confirmed by the Senate.

This time Hawaiʻi’s doctor-in-chief mingled with his colleagues at the National Governors Association Annual 2025 Winter Meeting. According to Green’s office, it was all about an effort to “foster bipartisan collaboration on critical policy issues affecting states and territories.”

But not too bipartisan apparently. Fox News reported this weekend that Green was one of the Democratic governors railing against GOP President Donald Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency, calling DOGE “pretty cruel” for its massive firing of federal workers all over the country and cutbacks to federal agencies.

“Let’s be blunt about that,” Green said at a press conference. “These are people in our states that have worked long careers, very dedicated servants, and they’re getting kicked out of their lives.”

Still, this makes for Green’s third D.C. jaunt in less than two months. The Blog asked the governor’s office to share details of the trips such as receipts and reimbursements, a full manifest and a list of participants.

On Wednesday the governor’s office reported back that it needs more time to fulfill the request because it “requires extensive agency efforts to search, review, or segregate the records, or otherwise prepare the records for inspection or copying.”

This too: “Agency requires additional time to respond to the request in order to avoid an unreasonable interference with its other statutory duties and functions.”

Lt. Gov. Sylvia Luke is in charge through Sunday afternoon, when Green is expected to return.

Hold my baby: Anyone who follows the Hawaiʻi Legislature knows that bills can die in many ways in the waning days of session, usually because they don’t get the sign-off from leadership.

That was the case for a bill last year that would have allowed political candidates to use campaign money for child care expenses and “vital” household dependent care.

The idea of the legislation was to encourage more young parents and primary caretakers of loved ones to run for state and county political offices where they are underrepresented.

Now the proposal has reawakened and wants to be fed. Last week the Senate Judiciary Committee passed Senate Bill 1202, which calls for pretty much what the 2024 bill proposed.

The Hawaiʻi Campaign Spending Commission recently issued an advisory opinion that candidates can use campaign donations to care for family. It just wasn’t aware of anyone ever doing so, and opined that a law clarifying the right would help.

Among those testifying in support of the measure was the Democratic Party of Hawaiʻi, which pointed out that women are 15 times more likely than men to be responsible for the majority of caregiving. SB 1202 would put Hawaii in line with 28 other states that have enacted similar legislation.

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Technical difficulties: As The Blog blogged last week, the Hawaiʻi State Ethics Commission is pushing lawmakers to disclose financial relationships they or their spouses might have with lobbyists. At least one legislator, Rep. Ikaika Hussey, said he tried to comply (his wife is Earthjustice lobbyist Marti Townsend) but the disclosure did not show up online for public view.

Robert Harris, the commission’s executive director, blamed a “backend software” issue for not displaying legislators’ reported connections to lobbyists. “That issue was resolved,” Harris tells The Blog.

As of late Thursday, three legislators had reported their financial lobbyist affiliations: Hussey, Rep. Rachele Lamosao (with Brian Miyamoto, executive director of the Hawaii Farm Bureau) and Rep. Scot Matayoshi (attorney Matt Matsunaga, who represents Automated HealthCare Solutions and American Express Travel Related Solutions).

Just say no to torture: Honolulu Prosecutor Steve Alm wants legislators to prohibit torture. At least half the states already have such a statute, but not Hawaiʻi.

In search of specifics, The Blog found a section of Alm’s bill that addresses knowingly subjecting minors and other vulnerable persons to:

• strangling, biting, branding, burning, cutting or electrocuting;
• suspending the person by the wrists, ankles, arms, legs, hair or other parts of the body;
• depriving the person of necessary food, water or clothing;
• restricting basic and necessary bodily functions required for personal hygiene;
• forcing the person to remain in an area unsuitable for human habitation such as where urine or feces are present;
• forcing the person to ingest mind-altering drugs, non-potable water, urine, excrement or poison; or
• exposing the person to extreme temperatures without adequate clothing.

Senate Bill 281, which has passed its only Senate committee and is waiting for a full Senate votes to send it over to the House, includes a number of other definitions of cruel and sadistic behavior.

Farm to Capitol: An always popular event, “Ag Day at the Capitol” was held Thursday on the fourth floor.

The Hawaiʻi Farm Bureau event was a chance to sample fresh local produce and coffee from beans grown in Wailua, among other examples of the state’s diverse ag industry.

Nearly 70 organizations and businesses participated including Mahi Pono, the Hawaiʻi Macadamia Nut Association, Bayer Hawaiʻi, Kauaʻi Coffee Co., Waiea Water Distribution and the UH Mānoa College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources.

Scorsese, the mob, and the islands: Legendary director Martin Scorsese wants to make a “star-studded” crime movie here, the Hollywood Reporter reported last week.

The “fact-based” untitled film, said to be along the lines of “Goodfellas” and “The Departed,” involves a mafia boss seeking control of the Hawaiian islands in the 1960s and 1970s. Possible cast members? Dwayne Johnson, Leonardo DiCaprio and Emily Blunt.

The Blog thanks former longtime Hawaiʻi journalist Jim Dooley for passing along the tip. Dooley knows a little something about the mob in the islands, having written the 2015 book, “Sunny Skies, Shady Characters: Cops, Killers, and Corruption in the Aloha State.”

Thin air: Rep. Gene Ward may have been laid up with a bad sciatic nerve but the feisty Hawaiʻi Kai Republican isn’t taking the threat of wind turbines off the Windward Oʻahu coast lying down.

Last week he sent a letter to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum urging him to remove the Kaiwi Channel in particular and Hawaiʻi in general from areas that could be leased for offshore wind projects.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management “has targeted Hawaii’s outer continental shelf for OSW industrialization for over a decade, facing strong opposition from residents, especially Native Hawaiians, every time,” Ward wrote. “During the Biden administration, BOEM was turbocharged to implement an arbitrary ’30 gigabyte by 2030′ offshore wind mandate across the country which includes the current proposed Kaiwi Channel area lease that has been overwhelmingly opposed by the Kaiwi Coast community that will be most affected by OSW exploitation.”

Ward noted that President Trump has already issued an executive order withdrawing outer continental shelf areas nationwide from consideration for offshore wind but he wants to make doubly sure Interior gets the message when it comes to Hawaiʻi. He even forwarded a letter expressing similar concerns from Hawaiʻi U.S. Rep Ed Case, a Democrat, and the Kaiwi Coalition, an advocacy group.