Media scrum: In case you hadn’t noticed, there’s a new daily news operation in town. The Aloha State Daily, an online-only news publication, that a scroll back through its website shows launched in late December. For weeks it appears to have been largely entertainment and lifestyle features but picked up a solid news report particularly as the legislative session rolled out.

It’s owned by a Wyoming billionaire who has not been stingy with his political contributions to conservative candidates including President Donald Trump. The guy, B. Wayne Hughes Jr., also owns a flourishing online news site in Wyoming, the Cowboy State Daily, that has generated some recent controversy.

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Before he began dabbling in journalism, Hughes contributed a half-million dollars to Donald Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign and $117,000 in 2016 to Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson. (You can search the Federal Election Commission’s individual donor data to scroll through page after page of Hughes’ contributions.)

While Aloha State Daily may not have had much of an impact on Hawaiʻi’s media landscape in its first few months of operation, Hughes appears to be serious about his Wyoming site.

He bought the Cowboy State Daily in February 2022. With a staff of 15 journalists plus six columnists listed on its website, it’s called “one of Wyoming’s largest news outlets” by another online publication, Honor Wyoming. By comparison, Aloha State Daily lists six journalists on its website, covering news, food and dining, arts and entertainment, and sports.

Honor Wyoming, which keep in mind is a competitor, has been raising a red flag about whether Cowboy State Daily is really an unbiased news site. In a recent report it calls Hughes “a major player in state politics” who contributed nearly $600,000 to political campaigns during the 2020 and 2022 election cycles.

Honor Wyoming analyzed 562 articles published by Cowboy State Daily and found them to heavily favor lawmakers and candidates who Hughes has financially supported — “an average 100% more positive coverage than those he did not support.”

The Blog reached out to Honor Wyoming to check out the methodology it used in that review and did not get a response.

This doesn’t seem to be your classic finger-pointing by liberals at conservatives. It’s hard to find the former in Wyoming anyway. In addition to Hughes’ well-right-of-center bonafides, Honor Wyoming calls itself “a conservative lens on crucial political issues shaping Wyoming’s future.”

Regardless, it’ll be interesting to see how a red state activist develops his new blue state news site here.

Hughes is no stranger to these islands. In 2005 he founded American Commercial Equities, which acquires and manages properties in Hawaiʻi and California. It owns ʻĀina Haina Shopping Center in east Oʻahu.

The Blog only found one Hawaiʻi political contribution by Hughes — he gave $4,000 to Trevor Ozawa’s successful campaign for the Honolulu City Council in 2014.

The Aloha State Daily newsroom is run by A. Kam Napier, former editor-in-chief of Pacific Business News who was also a longtime editor at Honolulu Magazine. He brought along his former associate editor at PBN, Kelsey Kukaua Medeiros, now a “senior editor reporting on community news.”

You’ll be able to judge for yourself whether the new kid in town leans right.

And before you start pounding too heavily on the comment button, yes, we know, Civil Beat’s billionaire founders, Pierre and Pam Omidyar have donated pretty heavily to Democrat candidates and PACs especially in recent years, our own scroll through the FEC data site shows. Although they did donate to George Bush in 1999. Civil Beat has been a nonprofit for more than 13 years and their donor-advised fund currently provides about a third of our funding.

Just to be clear, the Omidyars have always steered strictly clear of Civil Beat’s news decisions and, despite what we hear from time to time (civil comments always welcome), we have always strived for independent, unbiased investigative, watchdog and explanatory news coverage.

The idea of a year-round Legislature is on life support: New House Speaker Nadine Nakamura was so convincing when she said at a recent Civil Cafe that lawmakers should at least study the idea of a year-round Legislature.

She wasn’t suggesting an increase in the maximum number of floor session days — 60 — but rather that legislative committees could spread out their hearings over the course of the year instead of cramming their business into about three and a half months from mid-January to early May.

Nakamura introduced House Bill 1425 to form a study group to “look at what are the different issues, what are the costs,” and twisted the arm of her fellow Kauaʻi legislator, Senate President Ron Kouchi, to propose a companion measure in his chamber.

And even on Friday, she told The Blog “it would be good for the state” if the legislative session wasn’t so rushed.

And yet …

Both bills died this week when they weren’t given hearings in the House and Senate money committees. The Blog thinks that likely wouldn’t have happened if the speaker was pushing hard to get it done this session.

But the issue isn’t quite dead yet. Nakamura said Friday that instead of immediately ordering up a full-fledged study of what it would take to convert to a 12-month Legislature, lawmakers will wait for the completion of a more modest report on the topic that they requested last session from the Legislative Reference Bureau.

That may be awhile.

“We have been working very diligently on this effort but are still awaiting vital information from outside sources,” LRB Director Charlotte Carter-Yamauchi told The Blog in January. “Moreover, our ability to devote time to this study will now necessarily be sporadic until after the 2025 regular session adjourns.”

So to summarize, first finish a report, then maybe form a task force.

Reefer sadness Part I: First it was alive, then it was dead. Then it was alive, and now it is dead yet again.

A bill to allow for legal adult use of marijuana beginning in 2026 did not meet a Friday deadline to advance. Senate Bill 1613 passed two Senate committees Feb. 13 and was set for decision-making in two more Wednesday. But the Senate Ways and Means Committee and the Commerce and Consumer Protection Committee deleted it from their agendas Monday.

The Blog hears there was some question about whether the Senate had enough votes to pass the measure, and whether it was even worth it to send it over to the House since the House had killed its version of recreational pot legislation earlier this month, saying it needed more work and was not a major priority.

Sen. Jarrett Keohokalole, the CBC chair who introduced the Senate’s rec-pot bill with Sen. Joy San Buenaventura, says his colleagues will now focus on Senate Bill 1064. It aims to expand medical cannabis dispensaries in Hawaiʻi and crack down on the med-pot black market, which Keohokalole said is substantial.

Reefer sadness Part 2: On Friday, the Senate snuffed a bill from Sen. Joy San Buenaventura that would have raised the allowable level for possession of decriminalized marijuana from 3 grams to 15 grams. Possession of marijuana up to the 15-gram limit would have been classified as a civil violation, punishable by a fine of $130.

Voting no were 12 senators — Tim Richards, Brandon Elefante, Troy Hashimoto, Samantha DeCorte, Kurt Fevella, Henry Aquino, Lorraine Inouye, Donna Kim, Mike Gabbard, Glenn Wakai, Sharon Moriwaki and Donovan Dela Cruz. There were 11 yes votes and no discussion or debate prior to the floor vote. Sens. Carol Fukunaga and Michelle Kidani were excused.

The Hawai’i Alliance for Cannabis Reform was disappointed in the vote on SB 319.

“Recent data from the state Department of the Attorney General show that hundreds of Hawai’i residents are still being brought into the criminal legal system for cannabis possession,” the alliance said in a press release. “Even without a conviction, an arrest can have serious and lasting consequences, including a criminal record that stands in the way of employment and career opportunities and securing adequate housing.”

Want to learn more about pot policy in Hawaiʻi? Watch Civil Beat’s recent forum:

No secret: Open Secrets, a nonprofit organization in Washington, D.C., that tracks and publishes data on campaign finance and lobbying, has been profiling members of the Trump administration. Out this week is a report on Tulsi Gabbard, the former Hawaiʻi congresswoman who is now director of national intelligence.

Here’s a few takeaways from the report, which adds to Civil Beat’s extensive reporting on Gabbard over the years:

• “Gabbard has run for public office seven times since 2002, raising a total of over $21 million. Her biggest contributors were members of the U.S. Army, followed by Defense Department employees, Hawaii civil servants, Boeing employees and the company’s political action committee.”
• “Gabbard has established multiple PACs since 2023, some of which have raised questions about donor documentation and financial management after they raised millions of dollars but spent only a small fraction of that money on candidates, all of whom were MAGA-aligned Republicans.”
• “Gabbard is also the founder of We Must Protect, a nonprofit focused on disaster relief in Maui. Despite promising “every dollar” would go to fire relief, the organization spent only about 34% of funds raised, with nearly half the money remaining in its bank account at year’s end.”

Ethically minded: Earlier this month The Blog reported that some state boards, agencies and departments were falling short in terms of getting their staff to complete mandatory ethics training. That included the Department of Accounting and General Services, according to the annual report from the Hawaiʻi State Ethics Commission.

Diane Ako, DAGS’ communications wiz, tells The Blog that the department’s compliance rate was almost 95% as of Feb. 20, something confirmed by the Ethics Commission. That’s an improvement over the 75% compliance rate reported earlier.

House and home: Elle Cochran, the Democrat who represents Lahaina and other parts of Maui in the state House of Representatives, has missed most of the 2025 session, which hits the halfway mark next week.

Her office confirmed that Cochran has been absent due to a family illness, which was first reported by Maui Now.