Small Business News
March 2005 | Online Edition
Bill Mandating Taxpayers
Subsidize Campaigns Passes Judiciary
A bill that would mandate taxpayers heavily subsidize the political campaigns of candidates who apply and qualify for millions of dollars in public funding is making its way quickly through the Hawaii State Senate.
SB 1689, introduced by Judiciary Chair Colleen Hanabusa, Sens. Gary Hooser, D-Kauai, Suzanne Chun Oakland, D-Nuuanu, Kalani English, D-Maui, David Ige, D-Pearl City, and Carol Fukunaga, D-Makiki, passed out of the Senate Judiciary Committee Feb. 15, 2005, and next must clear the Senate Ways and Means committee and full Senate.
The legislation says gubernatorial candidates who qualify would receive between $4 million and $12 million for the primary election, an amount that would then double in the general election.
Lieutenant governor candidates who qualify would get between $600,000 and $1.8 million for the primary election, an amount that doubles in the general election.
Legislators did not leave themselves out of the bill and opted to potentially fund their campaigns with taxpayer dollars. House candidates who qualify will get between $32,000 to $96,000 in the primary — an amount that doubles in the general. Senate candidates can acquire between $58,000 and $174,000 in the primary and the same again in the general.
Critics of the legislation say Hawaii Democrats are pushing for this bill specifically because it provides up to $24 million in public funds for a gubernatorial candidate.
Democrats will challenge Republican Gov. Linda Lingle in the 2006 election in hopes of unseating her. Lingle, who raised $5.5 million for the 2002 election, already has more than $1.5 million on hand, and Democrats would have to find a way to compete with that.
Competing has been made more difficult for Hawaii’s Democrats in recent years because the state’s law enforcement and campaign spending commission has agressively gone after company officials who launder money to Democrat leaders in hopes of obtaining a government contract, concession rights, zoning changes or permits.
One prominent opponent, Bob Watada, executive director of the state Campaign Spending Commission and a major imputus behind the recent break up in Hawaii’s pay to play system, is strongly opposed to the bill.
Calling the legislation “outrageous,” Watada says, “The state cannot afford this.”
State Budget Director Georgina Kawamura agreed with Watada and says the governor’s administration has “serious concerns about financing the program.”
Watada added public financing already is available but that requires the candidate get matching funds and agree to campaign spending limits. The monies for that public financing come from voters who volunteer to give money to the Hawaii Election Campaign Fund when they check the box on their state tax forms. Around 15 percent of Hawaii’s taxpayers opt for that, Watada says, showing limited support for public financing.
Meanwhile, the authors of the “clean elections” bill and dozens of proponents who testified in support say this legislation is necessary to weed out special interest influence over elections and clean up Hawaii’s campaign spending troubles
Sen. Les Ihara, D-Kaimuki, who voted for the bill, says he is in favor of public financing because he believes accepting taxpayer dollars in favor of refusing private donations will help lawmakers avoid a conflict of interest they inevitably face when voting on a bill put forth by a contributor.
“Judges have to recuse themselves if they have a financial tie to someone in their courtroom, but lawmakers don’t have to abide by the same rules,” Ihara says.
Among other supporters were Big Island Mayor Harry Kim, Big Island County Council Vice Chair Bob Jacobson, Maui County Council Vice Chair Robert Carroll, the AARP, the Sierra Club, Hawaii Clean Elections, the Interfaith Alliance Hawaii, the Kokua Council, The League of Women Voters, Life of the Land and Sestak Rehabilitation Services.
The only Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Paul Whalen, R-Big Island, voted in favor of the measure with his Democrat collegues, ignoring warnings from the governor’s budget director and the campaign spending director.
Mainland Lobbyists Pushing for Hawaii to Join Maine, Arizona in Subsidizing Elections
Mainland lobbyists pushing for what they call “clean elections” have flocked to Hawaii in recent years during the legislative sessions touting the benefits of such programs in the states of Maine and Arizona. The Hawaii Clean Elections branch has spent an estimated $20,000 to $30,000 a year to help their effort, an irony that has not gone unnoticed by those opposing such legislation who note Hawaii Clean Elections purports to be opposed to “special interest influence.”
Ira Rohter, president of Hawaii Clean Elections, says in Maine, 75 percent of the sitting lawmakers were elected with full public funding while 30 percent of the members of the Arizona Legislature were elected with public funds.
Rohter, his supporters and the mainland lobbyists were successful in getting a bill passed in the Senate in 2004 that gave House candidates up to $90,000 in taxpayer funds.
Watada of the state Campaign Spending Commission says this is an amount far and above what the average winning House candidate spent in 2002 ($17,000 in the primary and $17,000 in the general). The bill died in the final days of the 2004 session during the conference committee after some local media brought attention to the bill.
See more about this 2004 proposal: “They Did It - Lawmakers Voted to Put Funds in Their Own Pockets Come Election Time”
Massachusetts: Election Subsidy Program Tried and Failed; Brings Unintended Consequences to Voters, Lawmakers
The mainland “clean elections” lobbyists do not mention the state of Massachusetts, however, where the voters opted through a 1998 ballot initiative to support what was termed on the ballot as “clean elections.”
That is because after the law passed, Massachusetts legislators and the governor told candidates who qualified for the subsidies that there was not enough money in the state coffers to fund their campaigns.
The candidates took the state all the way to the Massachusetts Supreme Court where the justices ruled in January 2002, the state government must fund the campaigns. When the governor refused, citing lack of funds, the court ordered millions of dollars in state assets be seized and sold at auction.
While the candidates demanded the office furniture of lawmakers be auctioned first, the courts opted to instead auction state Department of Transportation road repair equipment and other state vehicles, and public lands along with a building that once housed a state mental institution.
In 2002, voters in Massachusetts seemingly changed their minds about public financial mandates to support candidates and overwhelmingly voted to prevent candidates from subsidizing their campaigns with taxpayer funds. The state Legislature used that vote to justify revoking the law.
Brad Balzer, the deputy director for the Massachusetts Office of Campaign Finance, told Hawaii Reporter that whether or not the public supports subsiding candidates depends a great deal on how the question is asked of them.
“If you ask me if voters support taxpayer subsidized campaigns, I would have to say it depends on how the question is worded. In 1998, when the initiative was for ‘clean elections,’ the voters supported the law. In 2002, when voters were asked to approve using taxpayer money to fund campaigns of candidates, they overwhelmingly said ‘no’ with three-fourths of the votes,” Balzer says.
Fraud Rampant Where Clean Elections Programs Exist
Balzer says one of the major challenges when the law was in place was to combat the massive fraud that came with the offer of millions of dollars to candidates who qualify. “With that kind of money, we needed to have quite a bit of oversight,” Balzer says.
Some of the problems: To qualify for government funds, candidates used false names of supporters, signed names illegally to petitions and illegally funded their campaigns with the required series of $5 contributions to qualify.
“We are still chasing one candidate who owes us back money,” says Balzer, who estimates his state spent $4.3 million in subsidies in the election after the law passed, including $4 million on just one Democrat gubernatorial candidate who lost in the primary.
Dorothy Cornell, a former resident of Maine where such a program is in place, warned in her testimony at the Hawaii State Legislature of “unintended consequences,” which Maine experienced once the “clean elections” bill passed, including “nepotism, fraud and unethical behavior.”
Watada of Hawaii’s state Campaign Spending Commission says his office costs around $436,000 annually to operate, but if this law went into effect, he’d need about $1 million more to ensure the proper oversight and fight fraud.
Critics of the bill say another problem with this type of legislation is typically that incumbents or those tied to large unions or activists groups can easily qualify under this proposal, which mandates 2,500 signatures and 2,500 $5 donations from Hawaii voters plus $25,000 in contributions of $100 or less.
Both Houses must agree to a draft before final passage, at which time the bill would be sent to the governor for her approval or veto. However, even a governor’s veto could be overridden by a two-thirds majority in the House and Senate.
Watada of the state Campaign Spending Commission says he will continue to lob
by enthusiastically against the bill and hopes it will not be passed.
“Unless lawmakers can prove spending this kind of money will get better lawmakers elected or get better laws passed, spending this kind of taxpayer money is not justified,” he says. And being able to prove that is doubtful, Watada says.
VOTING RECORD ON 2005 SENATE CAMPAIGN FINANCE BILL
No committee member opposed the bill. Votes in favor of SB 1689 in the Senate Judiciary Committee, Feb. 15, 2005:
• Senate Judiciary Chair Colleen Hanabusa, D-Waianae
• Sen. Suzanne Chun Oakland, D-Nuuanu
• Sen. J. Kalani English, D-Maui
• Sen. Les Ihara, D-Kaimuki
• Sen. Paul Whalen, R-Big Island
• Absent for the vote: Sen. Clayton Hee, D-Kahaluu
|
