Legislators are aiming to expand the state’s partial public financing law this session by providing a means for House of Representative candidates to run completely taxpayer-funded campaigns.
Supporters of House Bill 1481 believe comprehensive public financing for elections would free candidates from fundraising and the pressure to please donors.
Rep. Karl Rhoads, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said, "The salient question is, ‘Who do voters want their representatives’ biggest donor to be: Do they want it to be the taxpayer themselves, or do they want it to be special interests?’"
Legislators plan to hash out the details of the bill in coming weeks during conference committee. If an agreement is made, it could go to the governor for consideration.
The current draft of the bill would make just more than $32,500 each available to House hopefuls in the 2016 election. Potential recipients would be required to collect 200 verifiable registered voter signatures from within their district, along with 250 $5 donations from registered voters.
Candidates would be prohibited from raising or spending additional money.
"You don’t want every crackpot to qualify and run, and then it really is a waste of taxpayers’ money," Rhoads (D, Chinatown-Iwilei-Kalihi) said. "So the bar that we have for the viability standard is very high."
The bill originally included Senate candidates, but the Senate Judiciary Committee removed that portion of the proposal.
KORY Payne, executive director of Voter Owned Hawaii, said it’s not easy to persuade some legislators to support the program.
"Because the old public funding program has become obsolete … the candidates who are currently sitting in office are candidates who were elected under our private financing model, and it’s the model they know," Payne said. "We are asking them to take a step back and rethink a better way to do it, and it’s a lot to ask."
Hawaii first approved publicly funded elections during the 1978 Constitutional Convention, but Payne said the system is in dire need of an upgrade.
House and Senate candidates can receive funding from the Hawaii Election Campaign Fund for up to 15 percent of prescribed expenditure limits if they first raise at least $1,500 on their own. The fund is made up of $3 donations from taxpayers who opt in on their income tax forms.
Of 10 candidates who utilized partial public funding in the 2012 election, only two were elected to office: Rep. Kaniela Ing (D, Kihei-Wailea-Makena), a Democratic freshman who beat three-time incumbent Republican Rep. George Fontaine; and Rep. Rida Cabanilla (D, Ewa Beach-West Loch Estates), a longtime incumbent. Ing used $1,895 in public funds during the primary election but said he did not need any to win the general race.
Arizona, Connecticut and Maine have taken on similar fully funded programs, and many jurisdictions, including Hawaii, offer partial funding.
Rep. Della Au Belatti (D, Tantalus-Makiki), sponsor of the bill before the Legislature, said there has been a bigger push for comprehensive public financing in light of landmark cases such as the 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission case, in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that government cannot restrict unions’ and corporations’ independent political donations to candidates.
The state in 2008 approved a comprehensive public financing option for Hawaii County Council candidates that played out in the 2010 and 2012 elections and is set to expire after 2014. Five out of nine Hawaii County Council members now serving won their campaigns using only public money.
Rep. Gene Ward (R, Kalama Valley-Queen’s Gate-Hawaii Kai) said he is not opposed to public financing, but would like to see more data-driven proof that it works before the state passes a more robust program.
"We should know that it’s (money) well spent, we know that we get good governance, we get quality candidates," Ward said. "But frankly I don’t think those questions have been asked, nor answered, and that’s why I’m disappointed in the public funding as just a knee-jerk reaction."
STATE election data show that the cost of running a winning campaign in Hawaii has increased little since 1994, the first year data were available.
According to the Campaign Spending Commission website, the 18-year average cost of a winning campaign is $37,238.65; a winning campaign cost $33,051.27 in 1994 and $36,468.57 in 2012.
The bill calls for public financing in each election cycle to be calculated by adding the costs of all winning House campaigns in the previous general election, subtracting the top three and bottom three spenders from that total and dividing by the number of House seats.
According to the commission, the cost to the state if all 51 House districts have one candidate who receives public funding would be $1.66 million, and $3.32 million if two candidates per district run a publicly funded campaign.
In written testimony to legislators, the commission has cautioned, "Unless the Legislature provides funding for this program and other commission expenses, this proposed comprehensive public funding program will not be implemented in 2016."
Ward said he thinks government money will likely dry up before it can be allotted to election financing.
"The budget is a big variable," he said. "If the governor’s early learning (program), sequestration, the ‘Inouye cliff,’ the unfunded liabilities and the collective bargaining come in at a big amount of money … that program is going to have to stand on its own merits when it comes to getting a piece of the pie."
