WAILUKU - The Campaign Spending Commission on Wednesday found that Don Couch, who ran unsuccessfully for the Maui County Council's South Maui seat last year, exceeded the limit for out-of-state donations for one of the election's reporting periods.
The commission dismissed additional allegations that Couch exceeded limits in other reporting periods. It also threw out a separate complaint accusing Couch and a donor of "bundling" contributions in order to skirt limits on campaign donations by a single individual.
The commission is expected to discuss fines for Couch's campaign at its meeting in June.
The two complaints against Couch were filed with the commission by Pukalani resident Sean Lester earlier this year. He said he was concerned about the influence of large corporations and nonresidents on local elections.
Under state law, no more than 20 percent of the political contributions a candidate receives may come from non-Hawaii residents.
Couch, who attended Wednesday's commission meeting in Honolulu, said two donors he had believed were Maui residents were found by the commission's investigation to actually be Mainland residents.
The donors were Stephen Goodfellow, who gave $1,000, and Kay Lloyd, who gave $500.
Couch said he was surprised by the finding, because he was acquainted with both Goodfellow and Lloyd and had believed they were Maui residents.
"Kay has been here forever," he said. "I've been to her house. I've run into her over and over again. She and her husband are on boards here. But apparently, she's registered to vote in Santa Barbara (Calif.) and I didn't know that."
Couch said his campaign had asked donors he didn't know personally where they were registered to vote, in order to determine which donors were nonresidents. But Couch said he didn't check Lloyd's registration because he knew her and thought she was a resident.
Couch said he would ask the Campaign Spending Commission to reconsider its finding on
Goodfellow, since Goodfellow is registered to vote in Hawaii, a key factor in determining a person's residency.
He said he was told that commission staff had spoken with one of Goodfellow's secretaries who said he was a resident of Washington state.
But Couch said he would be over the limit for nonresident contributions even if Goodfellow's donation were not counted.
He added that his campaign had cooperated fully with the investigation and would wait to hear from the commission what it should do next. He said he accepted the finding.
"If we were over, we were over," he said.
Campaign Spending Commission Director Barbara Wong said businesses or people can have mailing addresses on the Mainland, but that the commission uses the same criteria used to determine if a person is eligible to vote in Hawaii to determine if they are counted as a resident.
"It can be difficult for the candidate to determine, but if there's an out-of-state address, that should raise the flag to do a little more follow-up," she said.
The commission also dismissed additional allegations by Lester that Couch exceeded the out-of-state donor limits for the first preliminary primary reporting period and the preliminary general period.
Some of the reasons for the dismissal included the fact that Lester had not counted donations of less than $100, which are recorded separately, when he made the complaint, Wong said. When the small donations were counted, they increased the total contributions for the period, and out-of-state contributions made up a smaller percent of the whole.
Also, some of Couch's donors who listed out-of-state mailing addresses were actually Hawaii residents, she said.
In his second complaint, Lester alleged that a Couch donor tried to get around contribution limits by "bundling" his donations.
Businessman Michael Rosenfeld donated $1,000 personally to Couch on Nov. 6, 2008; on the same day, two businesses in which Rosenfeld is a partner, Honua'ula Partners LLC and Maui R&T Partners LLC, also donated $1,000 to Couch.
Donors are allowed to give up to $2,000 to candidates in Maui County Council races.
Wong said the commission investigated and found no evidence Rosenfeld "financed, maintained or controlled" either company - the criteria that would have made the donations illegal. Just being a partner or member of a corporation that also gives to a candidate doesn't make the donation bundling, she said.
Couch narrowly lost the race for the council's South Maui residency seat to returning Council Member Wayne Nishiki, getting 40.9 percent of the vote to Nishiki's 44.8 percent.
Couch outspent Nishiki by a wide margin, spending $87,558 on the race, to Nishiki's $3,181.
Lester said he filed his complaints because he was fed up with corporations and nonresidents trying to influence local elections.
He cited a Maui judge's ruling last year that struck down a Campaign Spending Commission rule limiting donations from corporations to $1,000 per election period, after Mayor Charmaine Tavares sued to challenge the limit.
Oral arguments on the commission's appeal of the ruling were scheduled to be heard in the Intermediate Court of Appeals on Wednesday, but were rescheduled by the court. No new date for the hearing has been set.
Lester said Thursday he was glad the commission heard his complaint.
"I feel they're doing the best they can within the constraints that they're given, and we need to go back and give them more tools to work with," he said.
* Ilima Loomis can be reached at iloomis@mauinews.com.
