Gov. Linda Lingle said yesterday that her recent appointee to the Legislature, Bev Harbin, should resign immediately for failing to disclose misdemeanor criminal convictions nearly two decades ago.

Harbin, D-28th (Iwilei, downtown, Makiki), who also did not tell Lingle about $125,000 in unpaid state taxes, apologized for embarrassing the governor but said she would not resign.

"I apologize profusely," Harbin said. "I can't believe I embarrassed her. I've made mistakes in the past. But I will not resign."

Harbin was convicted in 1987 of three misdemeanor counts of writing bad checks and was given a suspended six-month sentence, according to records at the Hawai'i Criminal Justice Data Center. She also was found guilty in 1989 of two misdemeanor counts of inattentive driving and reckless driving and fined $100 for each offense, records show.

The governor's staff conducted a criminal background check on Harbin but did not find the check-related convictions, which were listed under Beverly Endrizal, her married name at the time. Both Lingle and her chief of staff, Bob Awana, have said that Harbin was asked during interviews if there was anything in her past that might embarrass the administration but she did not disclose the convictions or her tax problems. The Star-Bulletin reported the bad checks in a story yesterday.

Last week, Lingle said Harbin would not have been appointed if her tax debts had been known but would not discuss whether she should resign. "However, in light of additional information which was recently uncovered on her background, I now believe she should resign her seat," the governor, who was returning from a trip to visit family in California, said in a statement yesterday.

"I am asking Bev to do the right thing for the integrity of the legislative process and the good of the residents of the 28th House District."

Democrats have attacked the appointment because Lingle passed over four of the party's recommended candidates in favor of Harbin, a small-business advocate who joined the Democratic Party only days after former Rep. Ken Hiraki announced his resignation. Lingle was bound by state law to pick a Democrat for the seat, since Hiraki is a Democrat, and some Democrats thought the Republican governor chose Harbin because she would be critical of the Democratic Party, as she had been in the past.

"This is the kind of problem you run into when you put politics above the community," said House Majority Leader Marcus Oshiro, D-39th (Wahiawa), who last week was willing to give Harbin the benefit of the doubt. "We can stomach her picking the weakest nominee, but this goes beyond the pale of fair play."

Misdemeanor convictions do not disqualify people from public office — unlike felonies — and many Democratic leaders had earlier been careful not to publicly demand that Harbin resign over her tax debts. Oshiro said the problem was that Harbin did not disclose her troubles to the governor or to Democrats before her appointment.

The state constitution allows either house of the Legislature to punish a member "for misconduct, disorderly behavior or neglect of duty" by censure, or, by a two-thirds vote of all members, by suspension or expulsion. The language is broad and does not spell out what actions are punishable.

Hawai'i has no recall mechanism that would allow voters to remove a legislator at the ballot box. Such an option does exist at the city level, where recent efforts to remove council members Andy Mirikitani and Rene Mansho failed to gather enough signatures to place recall votes on the ballot.

Tom Brower, the communications director for the Democratic Party of Hawai'i, had said that Lingle needed to ask Harbin to step down, but others had not gone that far. "The Lingle-Aiona administration did a criminal background search on Harbin. It knew enough about her past and appointed her anyway," Brower said yesterday. "District voters were considered acceptable collateral damage in partisan politics."

Awana said staff from the state Department of Public Safety searched state criminal records using Harbin's name and her Social Security number. He said a search using just her Social Security number would likely have turned up the convictions under her former married name. He said potential appointees would now have to pass a more thorough background check.

Harbin said the bad checks involved a dispute with a landlord and that she "totally regrets" the incidents. She said she had been caught up in a troubled marriage and was struggling to care for two children. The convictions occurred before she was involved in a Kaka'ako auto-repair business that failed and led to her tax debts.

But she said she did not realize her past would be so exposed by the appointment and that she believes other Democrats have treated her badly. She said she might consider becoming an independent, which would likely force the House leadership to rule on her credentials, since being a Democrat was a requirement for the appointment.

Harbin said she even might entertain resigning if every other lawmaker who ever had a tax debt or a misdemeanor conviction agreed to resign with her. Her contribution, she said, could be "the Bev bar" — a new standard for what is considered the acceptable background for someone in public office.

"I'm a perpetual scrapper," Harbin said. "I'm going to keep going."

Reach Derrick DePledge at ddepledge@honoluluadvertiser.com.