![]() Lancaster said Maine has “a really strong” commission for ethics and campaign spending. Not everyone can run a big, expensive election.” One of its main purposes is to help expand the number and types of people who can actually run for office, because we consider it a citizens legislature. Jen Lancaster, communications director for Maine Citizens for Clean Elections, said the state’s system has been “very positive and successful among candidates. Connecticut’s system came from its legislature, as did New Mexico’s. Like Arizona, Maine’s system was set up by popular referendum - a mechanism that does not exist at the state level in Hawaii. Hawaii’s proposed legislation cites the Arizona “clean elections” program of 1998, the one in Maine created in 1996 - the first in the nation - and programs later adopted in Connecticut and New Mexico. ![]() The NCSL reported added, “Whether, and how, states regulate campaign finance varies greatly.” The National Conference of State Legislatures reported that after George Washington bought hard cider for friends in 1757, the Virginia House of Burgesses - the colonial legislature - enacted a law that prohibited candidates from giving voters refreshments or gifts - “most likely the first such regulation ever.” Long HistoryĬampaign finance reform is not new. In her testimony in support of SB 1543, Izumi-Nitao said that the balance in the Hawaii Election Campaign Fund as of June 30 was just $1.6 million. The amounts of funds available under Hawaii’s partial funding system have not been adjusted since 1995, according to Kristin Izumi-Nitao, executive director of the Campaign Spending Commission. “Generous public financing for campaigns in Hawaii would likely create more political competition by leveling the playing field and could be supported by a relatively modest appropriation from general funds,” Moore wrote. The experience of Arizona and other states suggests several takeaways for Hawaii: The system must be legally sound and properly regulated, and candidates who enroll in the system must receive enough money to make them competitive against opponents taking private money.Īs Colin Moore, a political science professor at the University of Hawaii Manoa, wrote in his February analysis on publicly financed campaigns, Hawaii has had a system of partial public funding for more than four decades yet few candidates participate because the program doesn’t provide them with “sufficient resources.”Īny proposed system of public financing, he argues, should provide the funding needed to match privately financed candidates. ![]() Under Senate Bill 1543, candidates who obtain a minimum number of $5 donations from voters would be barred from taking contributions from any other source but the state. This week the Hawaii Legislature faces a deadline to hear a bill that would establish a comprehensive, publicly financed system for all qualifying candidates for state and county offices. He said that there has been little community or political will since then to pressure the Arizona Legislature to amend the law to provide more funding. But the extra infusion of public money, the court decided, “unconstitutionally infringed the rights of large independent donors.”Ĭollins said the court ruling resulted in a cut of about two-thirds of the funding that had been available to candidates. The provision was intended “to offset large infusions of private donations” to candidates operating outside the system. (Colin Moore/UHERO/2023)Īccording to Reclaim the American Dream - a nonpartisan nonprofit focused on political and economic reform - the court zeroed in on a provision in Arizona’s system that offered an increase in matching funds to publicly funded candidates. Supreme Court 5-4 ruling that found that part of the program’s funding formula was unconstitutional. “At one point, if my memory is right, we had a very high percentage - 60% - of the Legislature elected with clean funding,” he said.Įstablished by a ballot initiative narrowly approved in 1998, Collins said the funding system helped elect two governors - Democrat Janet Napolitano and Republican Jan Brewer - and many other officials across a range of offices.Ĭurrently, however, Collins said that “only literally a handful” of sitting legislators in Arizona use public funding for their campaigns. Tom Collins, executive director of the Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission, says the state’s public financing of campaigns was initially “incredibly successful.” The system needs to be legally sound, properly regulated and substantially funded so candidates can compete with private money.
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