{"id":2095,"date":"2026-07-02T07:36:17","date_gmt":"2026-07-02T07:36:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hawaiimovinginsider.com\/?p=2095"},"modified":"2026-07-02T07:36:17","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T07:36:17","slug":"campaign-spending-commission-files-civil-complaint-against-luke-campaign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hawaiimovinginsider.com\/?p=2095","title":{"rendered":"Campaign Spending Commission files civil complaint against Luke campaign"},"content":{"rendered":"
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HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – The State Campaign Spending Commission has filed a civil complaint against Sylvia Luke and her 2022 campaign for lieutenant governor, alleging mishandling of campaign funds and failing to accurately report contributions and expenditures.<\/p>\n

Read more Operation Shine the Light leads to record recovery of 14 missing children on Oahu<\/a><\/p>\n

The complaint comes as Luke is already wrapped up in the state Attorney General\u2019s public corruption bribery probe. Luke dropped her re-election campaign and put herself on leave after receiving a letter saying she was suspected of criminal conduct.<\/p>\n

The commission complaint alleges eight counts of false reports and four counts of mishandling campaign funds in 2021 and 2022 by \u201cFriends of Sylvia Luke.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was an expectation that there was going to be a finding that there was quite a bit of sloppy record-keeping, although this to me seems like it goes a bit farther than what we were anticipating,\u201d said HNN political analyst Colin Moore.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt doesn\u2019t look good overall because of who Sylvia Luke was, which is that she was head of the House Finance Committee and she was a numbers cruncher, and she would jump on people if they got their numbers wrong,\u201d said retired federal public defender Alexander Silvert.<\/p>\n

Silvert said political candidates are allowed to amend campaign spending reports to fix errors, adding that this is a common practice. However, it appears to go beyond that in the complaint.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis recalls where these reports were inaccurate over time, and even though they were amended, they continued to be inaccurate,\u201d said Silvert.<\/p>\n

The commission said people who were not designated as the campaign treasurer handled funds and signed more than 200 checks.<\/p>\n

Read more Shake Shack coming to Ala Moana Center<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just a sustained failure of campaign finance controls, authorized signers, payments approved by people who may not have had authorization, multiple errors, and a lot of amendments that didn\u2019t reconcile with the bank records,\u201d said Moore.<\/p>\n

The complaint does not say whether Luke was the influential lawmaker who accepted $35,000 as a bribe, which is under investigation by the state Attorney General.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe A.G.\u2019s investigation, which is ongoing, is completely different, although related to this. And that has to do with whether there was any criminal activity involved,\u201d said Silvert.<\/p>\n

The commission staff is recommending that Luke\u2019s campaign pay $28,300 in fines. But if the commission finds the campaign acted knowingly or intentionally, it could decide to refer the complaint to the Attorney General for possible criminal prosecution.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThere just doesn\u2019t seem to have been a lot of careful management of the lieutenant governor\u2019s campaign finance receipts, which is pretty shocking, given how many times the lieutenant governor had run for office,\u201d said Moore.<\/p>\n

The commission is scheduled to take up the matter at its meeting next week Wednesday, but attorneys for Luke and her campaign are asking for a postponement until the A.G.\u2019s investigation is resolved.<\/p>\n

Read more Suspect in Kailua road rage shooting indicted<\/a><\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The commission says the campaign failed to properly handle campaign funds and failed to accurately report contributions and expenditures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2094,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nCampaign Spending Commission files civil complaint against Luke campaign - Hawaii Moving Insider<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/hawaiimovinginsider.com\/?p=2095\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Campaign Spending Commission files civil complaint against Luke campaign - 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