Rejecting a a href=”https://civilbeat.org/articles/2012/05/22/15908-hawaii-democrats-charge-candidates-500-a-minute-to-address-convention/”>policy to charge candidates/a> $500 a minute to address delegates, the strong>Democratic Party of Hawaii/strong> on Friday announced that it will allow the two top strong>U.S. Senate candidates/strong> to speak for free.

a class=”tumblr_blog” href=”http://hawaii.politics.government.blogs.civilbeat.com/post/23752188428/case-hirono-allowed-to-address-party-sans-fee”>Capitol Watch/a> reports:

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Statement from Party Chair strong>Dante Carpenter/strong>:
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p class=”p1″>span class=”s1″>There will be strong>no paid rally time/strong> at the Democratic Party of Hawai`i State Convention this year. We will offer our two excellent U.S. Senate candidates time to give speeches with no cost involved./span>/p>
p class=”p1″>span class=”s1″>strong>Ed Case/strong> and strong>Mazie Hirono/strong> will strong>each have five minutes/strong> to address the convention, strong>Ed on Saturday at  1:00 pm/strong> andstrong> Mazie on Sunday at 11:10 am./strong> Our delegates expect to hear from both of them and so that’s how we will go forward./span>/p>
p class=”p1″>span class=”s1″>The original strong>concept was to raise needed funds/strong> to help cover the cost of the State Convention. Important as that may be, it pales in comparison to giving these great candidates a chance to address our delegates./span>/p>
p class=”p1″>span class=”s1″>We thank Mazie Hirono’s campaign for their willingness to help with the rally time effort, but we will not ask them to contribute anything for time on Sunday./span>/p>
/blockquote>
p class=”p1″>span class=”s1″>img height=”183″ src=”https://pnn.s3.amazonaws.com/media_files/photos/15427-a9c56897c149cfaa1511d18af3bfe30f0af6345ccc70ad72f17521c3.jpg” width=”229″ />/span>/p>
p class=”p1″>em>span class=”s1″>Dante Carpenter/span>/em>/p>
/blockquote>