Lt. Gov. Sylvia Luke says she did not take the notorious paper bag of $35,000 in cash from a campaign donor looking to buy influence in state government. She did receive close to that amount in checks from the donors in question at the time in question. Her explanations get more complicated the more she explains.

In case you need the background:

Former Hawaiʻi state Rep. Ty Cullen was busted for taking bribes and became an FBI informant. In that role, he taped a dinner meeting in January 2022 where a businessman gave what was described as an “influential state legislator” $35,000 in a paper bag. (It has never been clear if this was a literal paper bag or a metaphorical one, but there doesn’t seem to be much uncertainty about the reality of the money.)

After much speculation about who the recipient of the money could be, Luke came out and said federal investigators might think it’s her, but that there was never cash, never a paper bag, and that she later returned the checks she received from Cullen’s friends at that dinner when it became clear that Cullen was heading to prison.

The FBI and the Hawaiʻi attorney general are investigating Cullen’s story.

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What we do know for sure is that Aunty Sylvia was keeping messy financial records while busting on other people for keeping messy records. She was fine-tooth combing and tsk-tsking over other people’s accounting while her own wasn’t in proper order. That’s like a plumber with a leaky faucet at home, a chef who eats ketchup spaghetti for dinner, a dentist with puka teeth. The professional skills did not translate to personal responsibilities.

Luke shaped her political brand by busting on anyone who came before her during her 10 years as House Finance Committee chair, asking them tough questions, honing in on bad math and vague numbers. She was proud of the fear she struck in anyone who could not answer her pointed interrogations about their department’s budget.

In a 2019 Civil Beat piece by Stewart Yerton, Luke was called a “Budget Hawk” in the headline.

“You know why the departments hate me?” Luke asked Civil Beat.

“Because I keep everything,” she answered, holding an obscure 6-year-old document that she said raised questions about funding for one of Gov. David Ige’s homeless programs.

“And,” she added, “I try to know more than them.”

And now, look.

Luke’s campaign skipped logging thousands of dollars in donations over the years.

This situation is discouraging, to say the least, not only for Luke’s political aspirations and her career trajectory, but for Hawaiʻi voters.

There are politicians who get in trouble for campaign finance indiscretions, and you think, “No surprise. I coulda saw that coming from a mile way.” Luke was not on the list of “most likely to fail to report multiple campaign donations.” 

She seemed squeaky clean, fastidious, the kind of person who always turned in her homework on time and attempted all the bonus questions on tests. Her self-deprecating wit made her seem different from most of the self-promoting blowhards who run for political office. But if Sylvia Luke can be messy with money, it’s a reminder that, yes, anybody can.

Yes, her campaign finances were handled by campaign workers, probably volunteers. But that is not an excuse she would have accepted from anyone she questioned during her years chairing the House Finance Committee.

Luke tried to control the fallout by coming forward about the donation discrepancies and the recent results of an audit of her campaign filings. But the new revelations about how her campaign handled donations have generated coverage in two separate news cycles, and with auditors looking further into reports from other years, there may be more stories coming out.

The more she explains, the messier it sounds. Honesty is the best policy, but keeping clean financial records is an even better policy, particularly if one has made their mark as a fierce little stickler for precision and accuracy.

Does any of this disqualify her for reelection or end her hopes for higher office?

Who knows? All the rules of what is acceptable and what is not have been upended and people who should be hanging their heads in shame are instead promoting their unrepentant selves on social media (whassup Kaniela Ing!)

But it does mean that she can’t sit on her Ms. Perfect High Horse and lecture others about sloppy numbers and imprecise amounts when her own campaign finance records were not up to code. And it probably means that all those folks she grilled about their numbers are smiling quietly to themselves and whispering under their breaths, “Bachi!”