Federal fixer: The Sunshine Blog was interested to read a press release from Gov. Josh Green’s office last week announcing the formation of a Medicaid Fraud Strike Force to help the state get a grip on what’s become a real problem, both in reality and politically.

The Blog did a bit of a double take to see that Mike Purpura, a lawyer who defended Donald Trump during impeachment hearings in 2020, is now going to be helping defend the state against Trump administration allegations that Hawaiʻi hasn’t been taking Medicaid fraud seriously.

Purpura is a California-based litigator with deep ties to the islands. He’ll be part of the new “strike force” that was formed after the Trump administration announced it was cutting off millions of dollars in federal funding to the program because the state hasn’t brought enough criminal cases targeting bad actors.

“The strike force will be supported by Mike Purpura, an experienced legal professional with significant Hawaiʻi experience, a former federal prosecutor and former White House Deputy Counsel,” the press release says. “He brings extensive expertise in complex investigations, fraud enforcement and coordination with federal law enforcement agencies and federal partners.”

Indeed. Not to mention a good relationship with the Trump folks which Hawaiʻi seems to need right about now.

Purpura is a former federal prosecutor and White House counsel (we’ve written about him before, when he was one of Team Trump’s impeachment defenders.)

He’s been involved in some of Hawaiʻi’s more high-profile legal cases, including defending the man who duped the University of Hawaiʻi into giving him $250,000 to bring Stevie Wonder to the islands for a concert that never happened. (Yes, the infamous Wonder Blunder.) 

But he’s also worked closely with Green, including after the 2023 wildfires on Maui. Purpura was a key adviser to the governor when negotiating a $4 billion settlement with survivors. 

The governor’s decision to launch the anti-fraud task force is just the latest in a weeks-long tit for tat that started when Vice President JD Vance said during a May press conference that Hawaiʻi’s Medicaid fraud enforcement was a “complete disgrace.” 

Hawaiʻi Attorney General Anne Lopez immediately rejected that characterization and issued her own press release in response saying that since 2021 its fraud unit has received more than $14 million in settlement, judgments and recoveries. 

“Political attacks do not change the facts,” she declared. 

The pushback clearly didn’t work because just this week T. March Bell, the inspector general for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, clapped back saying in a letter that the state had failed to root out fraud because it had not obtained a single indictment or conviction between 2022 and 2025, which was described as baffling. As a result, Bell said the state’s fraud unit would lose its certification and put its Medicaid funding at risk. 

“Enough is enough,” Bell wrote.

It seems like Green might agree.

Now what?: Good-government advocates were all abuzz last week after a state Circuit Court judge ruled that the state House of Representatives had violated the constitution when it held a secret Rules Committee meeting at the start of the 2025 legislative session in which members decided how they were going to vote on the session’s rules.

The judge said the state constitution requires a committee’s decision-making process to be open — lawmakers aren’t supposed to go into recess, decide what to do and then just come back out and announce it publicly.

So does this mean legislative committees will now have to let the public in on their deliberations rather than just let a committee chair summarize what’s going to happen when they come into open session to vote?

Unfortunately, nope.

Legislative observers say the ruling is good, for sure. But it’s unlikely to change anything in the near future. That’s because Judge James Ashford, who got the case belatedly, was only asked by the plaintiffs to consider what happened at that specific Rules Committee hearing.

“A final word on what this Order decides, and what it does not,” the judge wrote. “The Court holds that the closure of the January 2, 2025, meeting of the Advisory Committee on Rules and Procedures violated Article III, section 12 of the Hawaiʻi Constitution, and Plaintiffs are entitled to a declaratory judgment to that effect. The Court does not enjoin any future legislative meeting, declare any House rule invalid, or disturb the validity of the House Resolution or any provision adopted under it. The ruling is confined to the meeting before the Court.”

The judge also notes that the plaintiffs didn’t ask for anything beyond a declaration that the meeting was unconstitutional. No rules to be overturned, for instance, no do-over of what was decided.

Still, plaintiffs and their attorneys called it “a landmark ruling for government transparency.” The case was based on an effort that came out of the 1978 constitutional convention to make legislative committees more transparent. Hawaiʻi voters agreed and amended the state constitution to require decision making to be done openly.

Lance Collins, one of the attorneys who brought the case, tells The Blog he thinks the ruling will make a difference in how the Legislature conducts business and that people won’t need to litigate every instance of closed-door governance.

“Well, hopefully they take heed, and that won’t be necessary, but yes, this will serve as a precedent that they can’t be so cavalier with the open meeting requirement of the constitution,” he says.

The plaintiffs are former state Sen. Laura Acasio, Kaʻapunialiʻiona Lanikiʻekiʻe Kanaloa Aiwohi, Sergio Josephus Alcubilla III, Tanya Aynessazian, Douglas L. Cobeen, Karen K. Cobeen, Michaela Ilikeamoana Ikeuchi and Robert Hale Pahia.

You won’t be surprised to hear that House Speaker Nadine Nakamura had no comment and referred questions to the Attorney General’s Office.

And again, no surprise, the AG’s office also had nothing to say based on the standard fallback: The AG “is reviewing the court’s order.”

Blue crush: Looks like Honolulu residents won’t get the chance to weigh in on whether the mayor should be the one to hire the police chief. The Honolulu Charter Commission on Monday fell a couple votes short of advancing the proposal and so it’s dead.

This after dozens of people submitted written testimony right before the meeting giving it a unanimous thumbs down. It seems the citizenry, or at least the ones who spoke up, do not want to give the mayor “excessive and unchecked authority” when it comes to hiring and firing the chief, as many of the testimonies phrased it.

Mayor Rick Blangiardi’s proposal hit a roadblock last week when some commissioners wanted to give the City Council the power to confirm the mayor’s choice, which he (or more likely a future mayor) would pick from a list of three names submitted by the Police Commission. The mayor’s staff told charter commissioners that was not a workable idea.

On Monday, some commissioners agreed with the mayor, saying the city’s chief executive should be where the buck stops when it comes to the police chief.

“I want to hold the mayor responsible,” Commissoner Diane Kawauchi said, pointing out that it’s never the Police Commission or the City Council that takes the public heat for crime or corruption.

But other commissioners — enough to kill the proposal — argued that the goal should be to improve the police department overall, not just the chief hiring process. And that is best done, they said, through the proposal to reform the Police Commission itself that has already been tentatively approved by the Charter Commission.

The Blog totally agrees that it’s the Police Commission that needs to be reformed and hopes Proposal 232 survives the rest of the Charter Commission’s process, which requires a final supermajority vote of the commission — nine of the 13 members — to get something across the finish line and onto the ballot where voters will have the final say. Hopefully the organized police reform advocacy movement that surfaced in time to help kill the mayor’s proposal will stay on top of this and make sure Police Commission reform doesn’t end up with the mayor’s proposal in the trash can.

New Land Board boss: Dawn Chang, who has been on extended medical leave, will retire as chair and director of the Department of Land and Natural Resources effective July 1.

Gov. Josh Green has appointed Ryan Kanakaʻole to replace Chang and David Day to serve as first deputy, effective July 7.

It’s a huge kuleana. The department’s jurisdiction covers nearly 1.3 million acres of state lands, beaches and coastal waters and 750 miles of coastline.

Kanakaʻole has been acting chair and director of DLNR since December. He previously served as first deputy and also is on the Advisory Committee for Military Leased Lands to provide guidance and advise the governor on cultural, natural and economic strategies.

From 2017 to 2023, Kanakaʻole was a deputy attorney general for the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands.

Day has been special assistant to the state attorney general and was a hearings officer in the emergency contested case regarding the release of fuel from the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility.

The doctor is in: They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery but The Blog thinks in this case it might also just be an easy political score. Many thanks to University of Hawaiʻi political scientist Colin Moore for flagging the two campaign signs below.

Gov. Josh Green does indeed hold a medical degree, as we all know.

As for Rep. Elijah Pierick (he’s now running for Senate), his official legislative bio says he holds a “2022 Doctor of Ministry: Pastoral Counseling, Liberty University, Lynchburg, VA.”