HONOLULU — Legislation that would radically reshape how state and local elections are funded cleared a critical hurdle last week, as the state Senate Judiciary Committee expressed unanimous support for the proposal.
If passed into law, Senate Bill 1543 would create an opt-in system for state and local electoral candidates to receive full public financing for campaigns. Its supporters see the bill as a means of promoting “clean elections” free from financial corruption.
Ten state senators and 20 state representatives introduced the bill and its companion, House Bill 967, respectively — constituting approximately 40 percent of each legislative chamber.
On Thursday, all present members of the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to approve the measure with minor amendments.
Additionally, former Kaua‘i Mayor JoAnn Yukimura provided written testimony to the committee in strong support of the bill.
“SB 1543 addresses good governance at its core. Providing sufficient public monies to candidates will enable them to conduct viable campaigns without being dependent on private monies that are often tied to special interests,” her testimony read.
“It will change the nature of elections by removing money as an obstacle for those who want to run for office and by minimizing the influence of money in subsequent decision making.”
The bill is, by design, not straightforward. When first proposing the legislation last month, state Sen. Karl Rhoads, Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, said the legislation would be intentionally complex to stop unfit candidates from entering the program.
“If you’re going to run for the Legislature, where we’re dealing with the most complicated issues, you need to be able to figure out how to get through the rules even if they are somewhat complicated,” he said. “We would be giving you, if you qualify, a pretty large sum of money. We don’t want incompetent people running for office.”
To qualify for the program, candidates would need to receive $5 contributions from a certain number of people, depending on what position they’re campaigning for in an election cycle. The higher the position, the more donations required, and more funds received. If a candidate opts into the program and reaches the contribution threshold, they’re no longer allowed to use or accept any private campaign funds.
For example, if a candidate for Kaua‘i County Council opts in and obtains 75 contributions, the candidate would receive $30,000 from the program to spend on a campaign. In contrast, a candidate for Hawai‘i governor would need at least 6,250 contributions to qualify, but would receive $2.5 million in campaign funds.
Instead of directly going toward the candidate who received the money, the $5 contributions would go into the program fund, where they would be distributed to applicable candidates.
In addition to contributions, the program would receive $30 million from the state’s general revenues to fund candidates’ campaigns for the 2024 election.
SB1543 is modeled after both Hawai‘i County’s 2010-12 pilot program for fully-funded public elections, as well as Maine’s 1996 Clean Election Act.
Evan Weber, co-founder of progressive super PAC Our Hawai‘i and supporter of SB 1543, paints comprehensive public funding of campaigns as integral to protecting democratic elections.
“It’s really impossible for working-class candidates to compete when you have these sort of established candidates who built up war chests over cycle after cycle, and are often doing so by basically reaching out to the rich and powerful — and consequently, may end up basically doing favors for them and their bidding in the Legislature,” he said after Rhoads first proposed the bill.
After passing the Senate Judiciary Committee, the bill now moves to the Committee on Ways and Means for consideration before it can reach the full Senate floor.
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Jackson Healy, reporter, can be reached at 808-245-0427 or jhealy@thegardenisland.com.
