Moving on up: Daniel Holt, who has represented Sand Island, Iwilei and Chinatown in the Hawaiʻi House of Representatives since 2016, has his eye on filling the soon-to-be empty seat of Sen. Karl Rhoads. Rhoads says he won’t seek another term representing Senate District 13 (Nu‘uanu, Pacific Heights, Pauoa, Pālama, Liliha, Iwilei, Chinatown and downtown).

“With deep roots in our community and a passion for building a stronger future, I’m ready to continue serving the people of Hawaiʻi with integrity, transparency, and aloha,” Holt posted on Instagram this week, later confirming his intent to The Sunshine Blog.

Holt would be continuing to follow along in Rhoads’ footsteps. Holt won his House District 28 seat when Rhoads gave it up to run for Senate.

The political musical chairs is just one of several shifts coming in the Legislature next year.

The other open Senate seat we know about is Henry Aquino’s District 19 (Pearl City, Waipahu, West Loch Estates, Honouliuli, Ho‘opili). He’s giving up legislating for lobbying, his last day is Nov. 30. Rep. Rachele Lamosao (District 36: Waipahu) is one of three candidates on Gov. Josh Green’s short list to replace Aquino (he has until Jan. 29) but whoever gets the seat will need to run for it in a special election held Aug. 8, the same day as the 2026 primary.

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All told, 103 of Hawaii’s 123 elective seats are up in 2026. But it’s so far shaping up to be a fairly uncompetitive election year, says Tony Baldomero, the associate director of the Hawaiʻi Campaign Spending Commission.

The top offices — governor and lieutenant governor — have yet to draw notable Democrats to challenge Josh Green and Sylvia Luke, and Baldomero told the commission Wednesday that both candidates have hefty campaign war chests and have been raising more money at multiple fundraisers.

The only gubernatorial contender on the Republican side so far — Gary Cordery — has also been holding fundraisers, though those receipts, like others, won’t be available for public view until Feb. 2. By chance, that’s also the first day that candidates can start filing with the Hawaiʻi Office of Elections. Strength in fundraising can be a strong deterrent to would be competitors.

Baldomero said the Kauaʻi mayor’s race, with two veteran lawmakers — Bernard Carvalho and Mel Rapozo — vying to be top dog will likely be one of the marquee races next year. The filing deadline is not until June 2, a lifetime away in politics.

One other note from Baldomero: Only the Democratic, Republican and Libertarian parties have qualified for the 2026 ballot so far, although there is still time (Feb. 19) for new political parties to file their petition, rules and officers to qualify to field candidates. The Blog hears that the Green Party of Hawaiʻi seems likely to do that.

Hot potato: More and more people are signing a petition urging the Legislature to investigate who among them took $35,000 in January 2022 from the subject of a federal bribery investigation. As of Saturday more than 800 people had signed on. Even the Honolulu Star-Advertiser is asking for lawmakers to do their own inquiry (although The Blog did get a laugh out of the first sentence of the editorial: “Political corruption is bad.” Ya think?)

And yet it’s looking more and more like legislative leaders are going to do nothing. The Senate — in particular Senate President Ron Kouchi — has maintained complete radio silence on the issue. Not a peep out of him despite a rash of news coverage the past two weeks over the petition that is being circulated by former federal public defender Alexander Silvert asking lawmakers to take it upon themselves to hold hearings and even subpoena convicted former Rep. Ty Cullen who the FBI observed meeting with a prominent lawmaker and another person who was the subject of a federal investigation. That person gave the mystery lawmaker $35,000 to be used for campaign purposes, the government has said in court documents.

Earlier this month House Speaker Nadine Nakamura asked the AG and the U.S. attorney to weigh in on the situation, which is a growing political quagmire for Nakamura and Kouchi. Their answers came last week in letters back to the speaker.

As predicted, the U.S. attorney continues to insist the federal investigation is still active even though it’s been three years since it came to light and that a state investigation would interfere with his case. And the Hawaiʻi attorney general said no way to getting involved, arguing that a parallel state investigation could have “catastrophic consequences.”

Nakamura circulated those letters to House members last week, with a note that concluded: “I continue to believe that we must act thoughtfully to protect the integrity of the federal investigation, while recognizing that the public and the Legislature deserve a full and accurate accounting of the facts as soon as it can be provided without jeopardizing that process.”

So in other words not until 2027 when the statute of limitations on the federal case has run out and the FBI finally has to concede its investigation is over.

Perhaps most interesting though, is two little bits of information that Acting U.S. Attorney Ken Sorenson shared with Nakamura in his letter. One is that the “influential state legislator” who took the $35,000 was not the person the court document referred to in the next paragraph as being involved in a “chargeable bribery offense.”

And that the $35,000 was in a paper bag.

“I can clear up some confusion generated by the partial unsealing of the Cullen filing,” Sorenson wrote. “The filing references a ‘chargeable bribery offense’ and many have erroneously arrived at the conclusion that this is a reference to the ‘approximately $35,000 in funds’ mentioned in previous paragraph of the motion. To clear up any misconception, the referenced ‘bribery offense’ is unrelated to the $35,000 in the paper bag. Put another way, the so named ‘influential state legislator’ was not
involved in the ‘bribery offense’ alluded to in the filing.”

All the more reason the Legislature should get to the bottom of this itself. Someone gave a lawmaker $35,000 stuffed in a paper bag for campaign purposes? Sounds like there is at least a serious violation of campaign finance laws going on here. But maybe a different bribery case too?

Read the most recent letters here:

Politics, island style: The Blog will be watching with interest when the Maui County Council meets this week to choose a replacement for the late council member Tasha Kama. A special meeting is slated for Thursday to fill the Kahului seat.

Three finalists have been named. They are

• Leo Agcolicol, who is self-nominated.

• Kauanoe Batangan, nominated by council member Nohelani Uʻu-Hodgins.

• Carol Lee Kamekona, nominated by council member Shane Sinenci.

The council has to pick someone by Nov. 25 or the mayor gets to do it, as set out by the Maui County Charter.

Batangan is the person Kama apparently told colleagues that she wanted to replace her. Kamekona ran against Kama for the seat in 2024 and lost but already plans to run again.

Agcolicol is a retired banker and Vietnam-era U.S. Army vet who is active in the Filipino community and other prominent community groups.

You can watch the meeting on Akakū Channel 53, at MauiCounty.us and on the council’s Facebook and YouTube pages. Or go in person to the council chamber in Wailuku.

Live, From Iwilei, It’s The Office of Hawaiian Affairs: ʻŌlelo Community Media has inked a five-year deal with OHA to broadcast and stream OHA’s Board of Trustees and standing committee meetings, “significantly expanding community access between OHA and the Native Hawaiian Communities it serves,” according to a press release last week.

All meetings covered will take place in the OHA boardroom at the agency’s home office on O‘ahu near downtown.

The agreement also allows for broadcast and streaming of meetings held across the islands, including recent sessions at the University of Hawai‘i-Hilo’s College of Hawaiian Language. OHA trustees hold statewide seats and represent all the islands.

OHA has been streaming its meetings from its website since well before the Covid pandemic, which forced the Legislature and others to go the Zoom and YouTube route. That’s a good thing for an island state, transparency and access. The ʻŌlelo broadcasts also provide a pretty sharp screen compared to the old streamings.