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Honolulu Councilman Augie Tulba’s starring role in a commercial for a rental car company is raising questions about the rules for elected officials in advertisements.
According to the Revised Charter of the City and County of Honolulu, no elected officer or employee can engage in a business transaction or have a financial interest that would conflict with their duty as an elected official or impair their judgement.
Using this portion of the City Charter, in 1995 the
Honolulu Ethics Commission issued guidance for elected officials appearing in advertisements. According to the guidance, if the elected official is appearing in an advertisement but they are not being identified as an elected official, it may be allowed.
“The bottom line is that the question is, Are they misusing their official city position to give a benefit to a particular organization through the use of their positions?” said Honolulu Ethics Commission Assistant Executive Director Laurie A. Wong-Nowinski. The commission does not comment on specific cases, but can offer general guidance.
“The question becomes, if someone is so popular … you’re known for something else besides being a politician.”
Before being elected in 2020, Tulba, known as “Augie T,” was a successful and well-known Hawaii radio personality and comedian.
“Serving on the Honolulu City Council is a part-time job, and because of the cost of living in Hawaii, many lawmakers, including me, work more than one job to make ends meet,” Tulba said.
“I shot a commercial for that company before I ran for office, and it is still airing on television. The company does not have any business with the city. In addition to acting in commercials, I still do comedy tours here and in the mainland, and I act in movies and do a radio show.”
Wong-Nowinski noted that former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a superstar for his role in the “Terminator” movies, appeared in a commercial while he was in office.
“Is the benefit coming because of the political aspect of it? Or is it just because that’s who they are, famous already?” she asked. “Are they really abusing their power? Or is it based off of their own merit, their own fame that they had ahead of time?”
Elected officials are required to file disclosure of interest when voting on bills related to what they are advertising.
“If they were going to vote on something that may affect their business activity, which would be whatever industry it is that’s the business activity, they really should be disclosing that,” said Wong-
Nowinski. “There’s nothing saying that they can’t vote on it, but they need they should be disclosing.”
In Tulba’s most recent commercial for Lucky Owl Rental Car published online on Oct. 20, he drives over potholes and says, “Maybe somebody’s elected officials can fix some of these problems,” and looks at the camera.
Sandy Ma, executive director of Common Cause Hawaii, a government watchdog group, said elected city officials participating in advertisements is a gray area.
“It’s not in good form for him to make that crack about if there’s some elected official who can fix the roads,” she said. “He needs to divest from all interests that impact not just this company, the Owl Rental Car, but would seem all rental cars, because any legislation that impacts rental cars could benefit Owl and benefit him.”
Tulba said he does his best to be transparent about potential conflicts of interest.
“If there is ever any legislation or vote where there could be a conflict of interest, I must disclose that potential conflict of interest, or actual conflict of interest, before the Council and then vote, or abstain from voting, accordingly,” he said.
“I do my best as a newly elected official to follow the laws, to use common sense and my own sense of ethics to ensure that I continue to be overly cautious in protecting the public’s trust and confidence in me and in government.”
Wong-Nowinski explained that elected officials who plan to participate in advertisements can ask the Ethics Commission for guidance, to ensure that their second job does not violate any rules.
“We could give them advice,” she said.
“In the past when we’ve had situations like this, where we want to just make sure that they’re not representing … an official endorsement from the city, sometimes what we would tell them to do is put something on the bottom of a flyer saying this does not constitute any kind of official endorsement by the City and County of Honolulu or something to that effect to try to mitigate.”
However, Wong-Nowinski emphasized that these types of issues are taken on a case-by-case basis as the specific details of each circumstance are crucial to understanding the situation.
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