Political muscle: Hawaiʻi political heavyweights Andy Winer and John White have teamed up with veteran Washington, D.C., lobbyist Jesse McCollum in a new venture that aims to advocate for island-based clients in D.C. and D.C.-based clients in Hawaiʻi. The Wayfinder Group includes several refugees from Strategies 360, a once influential lobbying firm that has dwindled since filing for bankruptcy protection a couple years ago.

The Sunshine Blog couldn’t help but notice that the political path runs through Hawaiʻi U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz’s office at a time when Schatz is gaining more and more power in national Democratic circles.

Winer was Schatz’s chief of staff for six years before leaving to join Strategies 360. Arguably one of Hawaiʻi’s most effective political operatives, Winer has recently played a lead role as a consultant to Gov. Josh Green.

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Winer isn’t shy about acknowledging the connection to Hawaiʻi’s senior senator. In fact a press release announcing the new company points out that it includes two senior alumni from Schatz’s office. He told The Blog that The Wayfinder Group is in a great position to rep clients who might have some interest in seeking Schatz’s ear.

In fact, Winer says, when he worked for Schatz, “we often saw people coming to D.C. and doing advocacy for Hawaiʻi who didn’t understand the politics and the culture” of Congress. Likewise, he said, mainland companies with an interest in Hawaiʻi often don’t understand local culture and politics.

The Wayfinder Group aims to be the bridge between the two worlds. Winer says it’s something he’s had his mind set on doing since he went to work for Strategies 360 in 2019.

White has long been considered something of a Winer protege since he ascended to the leadership of Pacific Resource Partnership, an advocacy arm for the Carpenters Union. Winer was a longtime consultant and strategist for PRP. White followed him to Strategies 360, where he has been head of the firm’s Hawaiʻi office.

McCollum spent more than a decade as Nike’s lead advocate in Washington before founding Tidal Basin Advisors in 2023. He has been around the halls of the nation’s capitol for more than 30 years, as chief of staff for Rep. Ron Klein of Florida and other legislative positions.

Winer didn’t want to name any clients the new group might have lined up. “We’re still working on that,” he said.

Courting candidates: The state Judicial Selection Commission has finally received enough applicants for the chief justice of the Hawaiʻi Supreme Court to legally send their names to Gov. Josh Green so he can pick one. Chief Justice Mark Recktenwald was forced into retirement when he turned 70 earlier this year.

But it seems many of the state’s judges and lawyers turned their noses up at the lofty job, which comes with quite a few administrative to-dos. So much more than just hearing cases and writing opinions.

The commission needs at least four solid candidates and as many as six names to send to Green. The commission has had to solicit candidates a couple different times since the vacancy was announced in November 2024 in order to meet that threshold.

Justice Sabrina McKenna has been in an acting CJ capacity for a few months and has applied to take the job on permanently. So has Justice Vladimir Devens, and their candidacies have been widely known.

On Friday, the Judicial Selection Commission released a list of the final five applicants. Besides McKenna and Devens, they are Maui attorney Lance Collins, University of Hawaiʻi law professor David Forman and Ben Lowenthal, a former Maui public defender (and Civil Beat columnist).

People can submit written comments on the applicants to the commission. Deadline is Jan. 5.

Local motion: It was another marathon Hawaiʻi Elections Commission meeting Wednesday, coming in at just under eight hours. And it was a lot of more of the same as in past meetings — endless testimony, complaints, motions and PIG reports. (It stands for Permitted Interaction Group.) Blah, blah, blah.

There were two newsworthy items, however. The first is that Commissioner Clare McAdam resigned Nov. 28, the third resignation of a commissioner in three months. No reason was provided, but that means Senate President Ron Kouchi will have to hunt for a replacement. Good luck with that.

The second newsy item was House Speaker Nadine Nakamura’s Nov. 18 memo to commissioners responding to their request to have the state auditor audit the 2024 general election. Some commissioners, you may have heard, think there was something fishy about the ballot counting.

Nakamura effectively shot the request down, explaining that an auditor’s work is authorized by statute, concurrent resolution or at the auditor’s own discretion. “The Legislature does not initiate audits directly by letter or correspondence,” she wrote.

Nakamura did say that the Elections Commission could ask a legislator to introduce a bill or concurrent resolution for the 2026 session, which begins next month, or for the Office of Elections to make the request as part of its legislative package.

That prompted a majority of the eight remaining commissioners to vote to have their PIG reports on the Kauaʻi and Hawaiʻi county elections sent to State Auditor Les Kondo “and to ask that he conduct an audit of the 2024 General Election as soon as possible.”

Commissioner Jeffrey Osterkamp and Chair Mike Curtis voted against the motion. Osterkamp and Curtis, along with Commissioner Kimo Apana, also opposed another motion that carried, this one asking Kondo to take up the commission’s investigation of the Big Island election before they take up the investigation of the Kauaʻi election.

And the eight commissioners split evenly on a third motion, which did not pass, this one calling for sending the PIG reports to the U.S. Department of Justice and asking it to conduct a federal investigation “into possible mail fraud and related irregularities in the handling of ballot envelopes” during the 2024 election. The idea came from Commissioner Ralph Cushnie, who has led the hunt on allegations of electoral shenanigans.

Saw that one coming: As expected, Gov. Josh Green last week picked Rep. Rachele Lamosao to fill the state Senate seat of Henry Aquino, who stepped down last month to go to work as a lobbyist. House incumbents are often favored when an area Senate seat opens up — a common pattern at the Hawaiʻi Legislature.

Lamosao was first elected to represent House District 36 in 2022 and now represents Pearl City, Waipahu, West Loch, Honouliuli and Ho‘opili for Senate District 19. While she won’t be sworn in until Jan. 2, she is officially a senator now and will serve through the general election in November. Word is that she intends to run to keep the seat in the August primary.

Lamosao’s Waipahu House seat, of course, is now vacant, and Green will get to fill it, too. The Democratic Party has until the end of this month to select three candidates to choose from, and Green then has another month to pick the new representative. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Fair treatment: The Hawaiʻi State Ethics Commission has fined state Sen. Brenton Awa, a Republican who is running for Congress, $999.99 for violating a section of the state’s Fair Treatment law and a part of Hawaiʻi Administrative Rules.

Awa was found to have used his official position and state time, equipment and facilities in 2024 to advocate over social media for the state Senate candidacy of Samantha DeCorte (a race that she won, The Blog notes). At the time she was Awa’s office manager. The rules forbid state legislators and public employees from using state resources for political campaign activities.

“In our view, the facts indicated that the legislator had overstepped the bounds set by the ethics code,” the commission wrote in a contested case finding last week. “Whether it had been intended or not, in reality, campaign material had been produced by the legislator’s legislative staff while on state time. The Commission realized that a conscientious legislator must make an effort to communicate with his or her constituents. We stated, however, that there was a difference between communicating with one’s constituents and campaigning for office.”

In a statement, Awa said, “We’ve walked the straightest line of anyone at the capitol since we got into office — no gifts, no donations, and no backdoor paper bag bribes. We disagree with the ruling — but given how the government works — I’m not surprised. At the end of the day, there is no fine that is going to stop us from being transparent to the people.”

The Blog loved his Instagram post on the fine (and that aloha shirt, too.) The video shows him pushing a shopping cart through the aisles of a store, putting back items as he goes along, and showing what’s purportedly his bank account that doesn’t have enough money to cover the fine — “that’s half of my paycheck.” Now he has 10 days to come up with the cash.

The “real story,” he says is that people just like him have been getting hit with fines and fees “just for stepping outside the lines drawn by the people in power.” Hmm, like state law maybe?

“When residents like us don’t fit in, government finds a way to get us out.”