'Clean elections' bill deserves a good test

Hawai'i lawmakers will be on the edge of making history next week as they contemplate an unusual campaign financing bill that could serve as a national model.

The bill is modeled after experiments on the East Coast, in which elections were run entirely on public financing. It is in effect radical surgery for a tottering campaign financing system.

The proposal would test that idea here, with next year's Honolulu City Council elections. Because of term limits, seven of the seats on the council will be vacant.

This offers a relatively clean and level playing field to test the idea that universal, limited public financing of campaigns would eliminate the money chase and the advantage to those who can raise the most.

The proposal has its critics, including those who say public funds could much better be spent on other purposes. Others say it is an unreasonable, and perhaps even unconstitutional, restriction on the political process.

But candidates run today with partial public funding. This simply extends the idea further. Each qualified candidate would be entitled to the same rather modest amount of public money. The system would be voluntary, but the hope is that public sentiment would discourage a candidate from bucking the system.

This plan may not work, certainly. But the bill simply proposes to test this innovative new idea, not impose it on the entire Hawai'i political system.

The state House has revived the idea. Both the House and Senate should approve this "clean elections" plan. The alternative course is the status quo.