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Posted: Monday, October 11th, 2004 12:33 PM HST

Tax issue emerges in Kauai Senate race

By Associated Press

HONOLULU (AP) _ The state Senate's leading Republican is taking on Kauai's incumbent Democratic senator over an old tax problem, injecting some drama into Senator Gary Hooser's race for re-election against former Kauai Mayor Maryanne Kusaka. Minority Leader Fred Hemmings says Hooser is advocating a state excise tax increase when he and a business partner allegedly failed to pay taxes on their own business for several years. Kusaka, former two-term Kauai mayor, says she's staying away from the issue, but Hemmings has been speaking out against Hooser. The Kauai Democrats says the issue goes back 20 years and he settled it with the state eight years ago, before he was elected to the Kauai County Council or the Senate. Hemmings has accused Hooser of hypocrisy for supporting a one-cent or 25 percent increase in the state excise tax to fund education while failing for several years to file state taxes for his own business. (Copyright 2004 by the Associated Press. All rights reserved.)