Lt. Gov. Sylvia Luke’s self-imposed audit of her campaign spending reports between January 2021 and July 2022 revealed some discrepancies.
Eleven contributions, each about $1,000 or less, were deposited into her campaign bank account but not reported to the Campaign Spending Commission.
The total amount that went unreported was about $7,800.
This comes as Luke became the center of a story involving allegations that an “influential lawmaker” accepted $35,000 in a paper bag during a January 2022. The claim came to light during the federal bribery investigation into former House Rep. Ty Cullen and Sen. Kalani English.
While she maintains that she did not take any money in a bag, in 2022, she reported returning two campaign donations from two lobbyists that totalled $10,000. She received the funds at a dinner in January 2022, which fit the description and time period of the $35,000 allegation.
Luke did not report receiving the funds, and then amended her campaign spending report after Honolulu Civil Beat alerted her of the missing contributions last month.
This led her to retain Common Cents Consulting, which is auditing her campaign spending reports from that time through 2025. In this first report, it found “no significant discrepancies,” which it defines as any single donation over $6,000.
“I am pleased to share that the national political compliance firm that my campaign hired to review our records has completed the first segment of work … It found ‘no significant discrepancies’,” Luke wrote in a statement on her website.
“The errors that CCC noted are reflected in an amended campaign spending report we filed Friday … CCC will now be reviewing our reports for the remainder of 2022 as well as 2023, 2024 and 2025, and has been retained by our campaign to provide ongoing services.”
A member of Luke’s campaign staff emphasized via text message that the unreported donations were deposited into a bank account that has records. They added that the campaign wants no discrepancies in Luke’s campaign spending reports, and that is why the records are being audited.
How did we get here? Read past HPR coverage:
- Hawaiʻi AG says 'no conflict' in investigation into alleged $35K lawmaker exchange (Feb. 23, 2026)
- Lt. Gov. Sylvia Luke says she did not take $35,000 in a paper bag (Feb. 10, 2026)
- $35,000 payment to unknown lawmaker in 2022 looms over state Capitol (Jan. 9, 2026)
- Former Rep. Ty Cullen gets 2 years in a corruption case that highlights Hawaiʻi's cesspool mess (April 2023)
- Former Maui County official sentenced to 10 years for taking $2M in bribes (February 2023)
- Former Senate Majority Leader J. Kalani English sentenced to 40 months for taking bribes (July 2022)
- Former lawmakers admit to taking bribes to steer legislation (February 2022)
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