“It is the policy of this State that the formation and conduct of public policy—the discussions, deliberations, decisions and action of government agencies—shall be conducted as openly as possible.” —Hawaii Uniform Information Practices Act
All we know is that the transaction was recorded by the FBI—a strong indication that it was criminal—and that the money was received by “an influential [Hawaiian] state lawmaker,” according to reporting on the case.
The timing of the handoff, just one day after the legislative session began, suggests the possibility of bribery in exchange for a favor—but that remains unconfirmed.
Among those present were lobbyist Tobi Solidum and former Hawaii State Rep. Ty Cullen, who had already been arrested after accepting bribes from a wastewater executive and was now acting as an FBI informant.
So who was the “influential state lawmaker” who took the bag?
Guilty governments, like guilty children, get creative at hiding the truth.
The obvious next step was a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. Civil Beat, a local paper, filed one for emails between Cullen and Solidum, hoping to identify the “influential state lawmaker.”
But no emails were found.
The House Chief Clerk’s office said it did not have the requested records. Under what it described as standard procedure, the Hawaii House had wiped Cullen’s email account, deleting years of messages as soon as he left office.
That means the public may never know what conversations Cullen had with Solidum—and we’re left to speculate while the guilty parties remain at large.
Then there’s this: That same January in 2022, Solidum, Cullen and then-State Representative Sylvia Luke sat down to dinner. On that day, Luke accepted two $5,000 checks from Solidum—a fact she disclosed earlier this year.
If Luke accepted $10,000 from the same lobbyist tied to the $35,000 payoff, was she the “influential state lawmaker” who took the bag?
Civil Beat’s FOIA requests also asked for Luke’s email exchanges with Solidum from her time as a state representative. But those records were also wiped once she, too, left the House before heading to the lieutenant governor’s office.
“It does not help anything in this situation not to have those emails,” said Camron Hurt, state director of Common Cause Hawaii, a government accountability organization. “It’s another roadblock to the transparency that people are craving.”
Hawaii isn’t alone—it sits at one end of a broader spectrum.
In Michigan and Massachusetts, the state legislature and the governor are exempt from FOIA, effectively granting them carte blanche to obscure their conduct from public scrutiny. Michigan Speaker of the House Matt Hall made his position on government accountability clear last year when asked whether two bills expanding FOIA would be taken up. “We’re just not going to do FOIA,” he said.
But restricting FOIA’s scope is only one part of the problem. Even when records are technically accessible, the cost can put them out of reach.
A Maryland nonprofit requesting records of police misconduct was told it would cost them $245,000. An advocacy group seeking sheriff’s records on predictive policing was told it would cost them $1.2 million. And a Michigan parent requesting transparency on school social media monitoring was quoted a fee of $18 million.
Guilty governments, like guilty children, get creative at hiding the truth.
With no alternative, Civil Beat asked every person who occupied a seat in the Hawaii House or Senate at the time of the bag transaction whether they had taken the $35,000. All respondents, including Lt. Governor Luke, denied it.
Even Governor Josh Green said he doesn’t know who took the $35,000 and urged whoever did to “humble themselves” and come clean.
“Whoever did that should own it and then really face the consequences,” Green said. “It’s tough because if you have one bad apple, it really kind of messes everybody else up. I’m kind of upset and sad that that ever occurred.”
So are we, Governor.
Scientology Founder L. Ron Hubbard wrote: “Democracy depends exclusively on the informedness of the individual citizen.”
Without informed citizens, our nation is left holding the bag.
