PDHblog
This is a place for members of Progressive Democrats of Hawai‘i to express their thoughts
and exasperations about political happenings. The opinions and views are not necessarily
those of PDH's steering committee or membership as a whole.

When crap like this happens, I wonder why I ever bother to submit testimony on bills. What is the point when legislators can and will change bills to suit their interests no matter what the public says?? A bill that would enact public financing of elections was amended, after all public hearings, to included a provision that would lift the corporate contribution cap to $25,000!!

Here is the deal: HB661 seemed to be the best chance yet for for Hawai‘i to get some sort of comprehensive public financing of elections enacted. From the official description:

Creates a pilot comprehensive public funding program for elections to the Hawaii county council in 2010, 2012, and 2014.

This bill had been left over from last year, when it passed in the House but wasn’t heard by the Senate. This year, the bill was revived and amended to apply only to Hawai‘i County Council races and passed both the JDL and WAM committees of the State Senate. It seemed that all was left was for it to go to conference committee, iron out a few minor differences between the House and Senate versions and then pass it on to the Governor’s desk. I was really hopeful that it was actually going to have a chance this time. Until this.

Yesterday, a “floor amendment” was offered and adopted by the Senate. The most significant part of this amendment comes in section 27 (amended text is underlined):

SECTION 27. Section 11-204, Hawaii Revised Statutes, is amended by amending subsection (b) to read as follows:

“(b) No person or any other entity shall make contributions to a noncandidate committee, in an aggregate amount greater than $1,000 in an election[.]; except that, in the case of a corporation or company using funds from its own treasury, a contribution by the corporation or company to its noncandidate committee shall not exceed $25,000 in an election. A corporation or company shall not contribute any funds directly to a candidate, candidate committee, or party.“

Anyone remember the “corporate cap” bill (SB2204) that lawmakers were trying to repeal? Well, after a significant amount of coverage and negative public sentiment , that bill failed to pass (StarBull: 2/27, 2/29, 3/1, 3/5; HonAd: 4/1). So rather than let the issue go for another year, they decided to just insert the language into another bill when the public wasn’t paying attention. That is just wrong.

So now we are left with a bill that would enact comprehensive public financing of elections, which I think is good, yet at the same time would lift the cap on corporate contributions to $25,000, which I think is bad. Beyond just the good/bad aspect… the original intent of the public financing bill was to create a system where a candidate doesn’t have to seek out large contributions at all, corporate or otherwise. So this amendment goes completely against the intent of the original bill. The bill that I thought merited enough importance that I actually took a vacation day from work so that I could go down to the capitol to testify on it.

Why should normal citizens like myself bother interrupting their normal work days to comment on legislation when legislators can do whatever they please with the bills anyway? It is very frustrating.

Larry Geller adds his thoughts on this matter on his blog here.

let me start by first saying that i don’t currently support, nor subscribe to, either of the remaining democratic presidential campaigns.  the candidate i supported was forced to drop out prior to super tuesday and since then i’ve been a man without a candidate.  however, given the groundswell of support from progressives countrywide, i do tend to lean ever so slightly toward senator obama.

given that, i still have problems with both candidates and their apparent attitude of ‘do what it takes to win’ whether it might actually be right or fair.  there is no doubt that campaign politics are not for the faint of heart.

i read this morning an opinion article from salon titled, why hillary clinton should be winning.  if you’ve never visited salon before, let me tell you my impression is they are a open-minded, fair, and progressive news source.

the author raises a question which, having not asked it myself, i thought was interesting.  why don’t the democratic primaries function under the principle of ‘winner take all’ as do the general elections?  the author lays out his case that, if the democratic primaries functioned more like the general election, it would be hillary, not obama, that would be winning.  and not just winning; she’d have a commanding lead and would likely and easily clinch the nomination months prior to the national convention in august. (more…)