Hawaiis

July 25 (UPI) — The lieutenant governor of Hawaii was indicted this week for allegedly being bribed by a lobbyist aiming to help a company receive a contract for COVID-19 testing.

A grand jury on Friday indicted Hawaii Lt. Gov. Sylvia Luke, a former state representative and the lobbyist, among others, for setting up a scheme to contribute $70,000 to Luke’s campaign in exchange for the contract, the Aloha State Daily reported.

The lobbyist, Tobi Solidum, offered the to Luke to retain a contract with the state, and allegedly was looking to bribe her in the future after she accepted two $5,000 checks at the beginning of the scheme.

Hawaii Gov. Josh Green told Fox News that, in light of the indictment, Luke should depart from office.

“The attorney general announced significant developments in her department’s corruption investigation and has provided an update on their findings,” Green said.

“The lieutenant governor needs to consider formally resigning to address this matter and so that the state of Hawaii can move forward,” he said.

Luke, Solidum, former state Public Utilities Commission chair Leodoloff Asuncion Jr., and state Department of Transportation airports administrator Ford Fuchigami all were indicted for involvement in the scheme.

The indictment alleges that that Luke accepted two checks for $5,000 in January 2022 at a Morton’s Steakhouse, with the promise of two more payments of $35,000 each.

Although Luke has acknowledged accepting the $5,000 checks, she I miss that she never received additional money and never acted on what she was paid for.

June 25 (UPI) — The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday struck down a Hawaiian law that required people to ask permission to carry a concealed firearm onto a private property.

The Court’s majority, in a 6-3 ruling, said that Hawaii cannot block a properly licensed person from carrying a concealed weapon on private properties that are open to the public.

Hawaii was one of five states that enacted similar laws after the Court in a 2018 ruling said that states could not limit gun licenses to “exceptional cases” because it violated the 2nd Amendment right to carry a firearm.

The law required people who wanted to carry their firearm in places such as gas stations, restaurants, grocery and other stores, dry cleaners and other properties that are “open to the public” to get permission to carry their gun.

“Under the new Hawaii law, no one carrying a firearm may enter without the property owner’s express authorization,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the majority opinion.

“The effect of this new rule is to impose severe restrictions on the daily activities of residents who have satisfied the State’s rigorous requirements for the issuance of a carry permit,” Alito wrote.

In a dissenting opinion, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson disagreed with the majority that the Hawaii law is an “attempt to end-run our Second Amendment precedents,” suggesting instead that it applies the first principle of property law, the right to exclude.

In addition to noting that Hawaii has a long history of restrictive gun laws, Brown Jackson said it enacted the permission law in order to prevent confusion among property owners that federal law had affected traditional expectations in the state.

“The public might well have an implied license to enter private property open to the public, and such permission might generally include the ability to enter armed,” she wrote in the dissent.

“But,” she wrote, “any such license is not a matter of right — a license is a creature of state law and custom, and it can vary accordingly.”