Kauaʻi Mayor Derek Kawakami is running for Lieutenant Governor in 2026. But most TV and radio ads introducing him to voters this year aren't paid for by his campaign; they're paid for by a Super PAC called For A Better Tomorrow. Kawakami's own campaign donors are public record, but the people funding the PAC are not – at least not fully.
For A Better Tomorrow is the latest name for PRP, a group that has backed Hawai'i political campaigns under five different PAC names since 2012, always funded the same way: through a fund that isn't required to name the people behind it. Our explainer on dark money and Super PACs covers the general mechanics.
Here's who's actually behind that PAC, what they've done in past elections, and what it means for the 2026 race for Lieutenant Governor in Hawai'i.
Who is Pacific Resource Partnership (PRP)?
For A Better Tomorrow is funded by Pacific Resource Partnership (PRP): a consortium of the Hawaiʻi Regional Council of Carpenters (HRCC), a union of about 6,000 members, and more than 250 contractors who work with them.
PRP has been a major force in Hawaiʻi elections since at least 2012; its earliest and most controversial spending was tied to the Honolulu rail project. Since then, it has been a steady advocate for construction, labor, and development interests, backing candidates it sees as favorable to those priorities.
How the money moves without naming its source
PRP's political spending flows through the Hawaiʻi Carpenters Market Recovery Program Fund, a labor organization closely tied to the HRCC.
That fund is listed as the super PAC's contributor, which is enough to satisfy Hawaiʻi's disclosure law – but the fund itself isn't required to say which contractors, developers, or other employers actually supplied the money, or how much each one gave. So voters can see that the PAC exists, and roughly what it spends, but they can't see who’s actually paying for it.
Same funders, five PAC names in a decade
2012 attack ads, lawsuit, and apologies
In 2012, PRP put $3.6 million into a PAC to defeat Ben Cayetano's run for Honolulu mayor, after Cayetano pledged to block the rail project if elected. The ads accused him of knowingly accepting illegal campaign contributions.
Cayetano sued PRP for defamation on Oct. 22, 2012, and won; as part of the 2014 settlement, PRP published a public apology across two Sunday editions of the Honolulu Star-Advertiser and donated $125,000 to two charities Cayetano chose (the University of Hawaiʻi's John A. Burns School of Medicine and the Hawaiian Humane Society).
It was the first public apology of its kind in Hawaiʻi politics.
Failures in payment reporting
The case surfaced nearly 500 internal PRP emails, which showed the group had failed to report more than $100,000 in payments to political consultants, including Andrew Winer (who went on to become chief of staff to U.S. Senator Brian Schatz) and Texas-based strategist Jason Stanford.
The State Campaign Spending Commission fined PRP $1,250 for the omission, and PRP-related entities were later fined an additional $3,100 for other reporting violations. A separate complaint accused PRP of failing to disclose $86,000 spent on fliers supporting a different candidate in the same election.
Cayetano also asked the Federal Election Commission to investigate whether Winer's work for PRP overlapped improperly with his work on a U.S. Senate campaign that same year; the FEC found insufficient evidence to pursue it.
A PAC that keeps changing its name.
The original 2012 committee was called PRP PAC.
After the 2012 lawsuit, the PRP-funded PAC resurfaced as Forward Progress, active through the 2014 election and, to a smaller degree, in 2016.
In 2018, it reappeared as All Hawaii Stand Together, formed to back then-state Senator Josh Green's first run for Lieutenant Governor. One critic at the time called it "cynical" for a PRP-linked group to adopt a name so close to "Pave Oahu Ohana."
Within weeks after that name change, the group renamed itself again, to Be Change Now. Green said he only learned of the group's support when his mother called him after seeing its ad on CNN, and that he had "no idea" why it kept changing its name.
Be Change Now stayed active through 2022, when it spent more than $2 million backing Ikaika Anderson's run for Lieutenant Governor.
In September 2024, PRP registered yet another new committee, For A Better Tomorrow, which has led its spending ever since. Each rename makes it a little harder for voters to connect the group's spending across election cycles, even though the funding source behind it hasn't changed.
PRP's longtime executive director during this whole period, John White, left the organization in 2016 to help open the Hawaiʻi office of Strategies 360, a political consulting firm, where he remains a prominent player in the same political circles today.
PRP's $12 million bet on Kawakami
For A Better Tomorrow entered 2026 with $12.46 million on hand.
Within a week of Kawakami announcing his candidacy, the PAC was already running television ads on his behalf, which political observers describe as introducing a relatively unknown candidate to voters in a favorable light.
PRP's director of public affairs, Andrew Pereira, has publicly defended the support, saying it reflects Kawakami's record as mayor and the group's broader push for fair wages and more housing construction for its members and contractors.
A full accounting of how much the PAC has actually spent on Kawakami's behalf won't be public until its next campaign finance disclosure is filed.
A separate red flag: the Choy contributions
Kawakami's campaign also accepted $15,000 in contributions connected to Milton Choy, a businessman convicted in 2022 in Hawaiʻi's largest bribery scandal, which also brought down two state legislators.
When Choy's case became public, more than two dozen Hawaiʻi politicians returned money tied to him. Kawakami did not, and continued to defend the donations as legal even after the issue resurfaced this year.
It was only after renewed press attention that his campaign moved the money, in early July: $12,000 donated to Kauaʻi schools and $3,000 transferred to the state Campaign Spending Commission. Those transactions were not yet reflected in the campaign's report covering January 1 through June 30.
While this isn't a PRP tactic, it fits the same pattern: a candidate who has been slow to account for where his campaign's support actually comes from.
What this means for the race
None of this proves that Kawakami owes PRP any favors, and it doesn't mean anything illegal has happened. However, voters are being asked to trust a candidate whose public image has largely been built with millions of dollars that were funneled through a group that is making that money hard to trace. Years of fines and repeated scrutiny haven’t led to any criminal charges.
Hawaiʻi passed a law this year aimed at closing this kind of loophole: Act 11 treats unions and other organizations as "artificial entities" alongside corporations. If and when it takes effect (pending current legal challenges), this same funding structure would no longer be legal.
This is part of why Indivisible Hawaiʻi's endorsement in this race went to Della Au Belatti: she’s the only candidate who has refused this kind of outside support. Make sure you're registered and know your voting options before the Aug. 8 primary.
This piece draws on investigations and reporting from Honolulu Civil Beat, Hawaii News Now, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, and other sources – linked throughout.
