Will he or won’t he?: Well, you knew this was bound to happen. Sounds like someone is already jumping into the lieutenant governor’s race as incumbent Sylvia Luke tries to stop the political bleeding she’s been suffering since revealing that federal investigators might think she is the mysterious lawmaker that everyone is talking about. That would be the one who the FBI won’t name, but says it recorded the unnamed legislator accepting $35,000 from a bribery suspect way back in January 2022.

Except Luke says she didn’t get $35,000, only $10,000. And that her staff accidentally didn’t report it as a campaign contribution. And that she gave it back once she found out Rep. Ty Cullen, who was an FBI snitch at the time, was in trouble. And that she plans to run for reelection anyway.

On Saturday, Kauaʻi Mayor Derek Kawakami, who is term-limited, put out a press release saying he’ll make an announcement about his political future on Tuesday.

Drum roll, please.

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But lest the suspense keep you awake the next couple days, here are a couple clues.

The national firm Public Policy Polling is currently conducting a poll that asks: “If the candidates for Lieutenant Governor in the Democratic primary election were Sylvia Luke and Derek Kawakami, who would you vote for?”

The poll also asks whether Luke deserves to be reelected, “or do you think it’s time for someone new?”

Meanwhile, just two weeks ago on an episode of Hawaii News Now’s “Spotlight,” Gov. Josh Green had lovely things to say about Kawakami, of whom he is quite fond.

“Derek’s a good friend and has done great work as a mayor,” Green said. “We worked very closely together during Covid. He’s been someone that I meet with regularly as governor to mayor. So he’s a terrific human being and would make a good candidate, but I’m not going to endorse him, and I’m not going to endorse Sylvia.”

The primary is Aug. 8, and in Hawaiʻi LGs run separately from govs. So Green, who is also running for a second term, has to live with whatever hand the voters deal him.

Still, as astute political observers already know, Green is close with the Carpenters Union and its political offshoots, Pacific Resource Partnership and Be Change Now, the PRP PAC. The union has no love for Luke and spent a lot of money trying to defeat her four years ago. The Blog hears PRP has been looking for someone to run against her for a while now.

The PPP poll also asks about favorable/unfavorable feelings toward Green, state Sen. Donovan Dela Cruz, who is also up for reelection this year but is sitting on more than $1 million in campaign cash sparking speculation he may be eyeing bigger things, and Rep. Della Au Belatti, who is leaving the House in a bid for the 1st Congressional District seat held by Ed Case. State Sen. Jarrett Keohokalole is also in the running for that CD1 seat.

The poll hasn’t produced any results yet that The Blog has seen. But stay tuned, we’re sure someone will leak them.

Big Oil scores a win: Sen. Jarrett Keohokalole had high ambitions when he passed Senate Bill 3000 out of his Commerce and Consumer Protection Committee earlier this year. It would give the Attorney General’s Office the power go after big oil and gas corporations so that they fork over their fair share of property insurance costs after major weather disasters worsened by climate change. (See: Lahaina, Maui.)

“This would hold Big Oil accountable for their decades of deception and the costs they’re imposing on the public, the same way Big Tobacco was held legally liable in the 1990s, and Big Pharma more recently following the opioid crisis,” the senator argued in a Civil Beat Community Voice earlier this month.

But the oil industry rallied its considerable lobbying forces to defeat SB 3000, and Keohokalole (who is running for Congress this year) has fingered the culprit: the American Petroleum Institute. He and other legislators had met with API officials about the institute’s objections, Politico reported last week.

“The measure singles out one industry, which violates equal protection and due process rights,” API complained in testimony.

API appeared to have persuaded at least two of the bill’s co-sponsors, Tim Richards and Troy Hashimoto, to flip. They ended up switching their support for their own bill in an awkward joint committee vote March 4. (You can watch the video here at around the 11-minute mark.)

The Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously approved the vote — even GOP Sen. Brenton “Dr. No” Awa voted in favor. But the Ways and Means Committee rejected the bill 9-4.

Asked about the bill’s demise at a Senate presser Thursday, Keohokalole said he will keep working on the concepts behind the legislation, perhaps in other bills or resolutions. SB 3000 received over 150 pages of testimony in support but only three pages in opposition — the American Petroleum Institute and Chamber of Commerce Hawaiʻi.

“I think it’s a worthy conversation to have when you have taxpayer dollars invested in the hurricane fund program that now over 91 condominium associations across the state have been using to cover their hurricane insurance because they could not … access a private insurance option,” said Keohokalole. “The average savings for condominium owners from that program is $100,000 a year per association. There’s now a tremendous amount of demand from other segments of the housing market for more state support. And if another climate-induced disaster were to ever hit Hawaiʻi, it will be taxpayer dollars utilized to pay claims to those victims.”

Centenarian celebration: Several House lawmakers at the Capitol on Thursday celebrated the 100th birthday of George Ariyoshi, Hawaiʻi’s third and longest-serving governor (1974-1986) and the first Asian American to be elected governor of a U.S. state or territory. The office was later limited to two four-year terms.

The cake shared between offices was a chocolate dobash cake from Liliha Bakery’s Kuakini location. The Blog thanks Nikos Leverenz for the picture.

Meantime, the eighth governor of Hawaiʻi, Josh Green, gave a shout out to Ariyoshi during a press conference that same day up on the fifth floor.

“I just got off the phone with him,” Green told reporters. “What a wonderful human being, one of our mentors, the people we love most. Congratulations to George and to the First Lady, Jean. They were having lunch, and they wanted me to tell the whole state thank you for your well wishes and for being so supportive of them over the years.”

Honu-lulu: Sure, it rained a lot last week, but no, that is not a giant turtle swimming across the Capitol Rotunda. “Aquarius,” the iconic 36-foot circular glass mosaic floor created by Hawaiʻi artist Tadashi Sato, was transformed for a few precious hours Tuesday into a honu in celebration of 2026 Pilina Kanaloa: Ocean Day at the Capitol.

It’s the fourth annual Ocean Day, intended to inspire the public to learn about our ocean, “the issues, the solutions, and the community leaders working on them,” according to organizers.

Lawmakers are listening: Bills this session include one (still alive) to ban aquarium fishing and another to improve the “green fee” passed last year that skims hotel tax money to pay for preservation of the ʻāina, the wai and the kai.