Posted on: Monday, April 1, 2002

Inouye's out-of-state fund-raising not needed

Over the years, it's a good bet that Senior Hawai'i Sen. Dan Inouye would have been elected and re-elected to office even if he didn't spend a dime more than the filing fee.

After all, he is by most accounts our most visible, one of our most popular and clearly one of the most important elected officials we have. There's a joke that Inouye is, next to tourism, probably our most important "industry" in the money and attention he draws to Hawai'i.

Over the years, Inouye's victory margins have frequently pushed into the high 70 percent range and occasionally even higher, a record most politicians would kill to achieve.

So on a realistic basis, there is relatively little need for Inouye to conduct major fund-raising efforts in the state.

But a recent report from the research group Center for Responsive Politics says that while Inouye may not have been beating the bushes heavily in Hawai'i, he's been plenty busy elsewhere.

In fact, the center says, between 1997 and 2001, Inouye raised an astounding 98 percent of his $2 million-plus campaign war chest from sources outside of Hawai'i. Major "outside Hawai'i" contributors included Indian tribes with gambling interests (Inouye is a ranking member of the special committee on Indian Affairs) and the Washington lobbying and consulting firm Cassidy and Associates (where his longtime aide, Henry Giugni, is a top official).

Inouye's spokesperson said the huge tilt away from Hawai'i is in part the result of a deliberate decision not to compete with other candidates for local money until 2004, when he is next up for re-election.

Local candidates are no doubt grateful; the prospect of going mano-a-mano with Dan Inouye for a potential contributor's dollars is scary, indeed.

Defenders of such nationwide fundraising (not necessarily Inouye, but others who have been successful in this field) say it is more typical of senators from low-population states such as Delaware, North Dakota or Hawai'i, where there isn't the population base to support big-time fundraising efforts.

What that means is that the senators need to arm themselves with lots of cash, no matter what the source, because an opponent might ride into town well-supported by fat-cat outside supporters.

It seems that a simpler cure would be to simply restrict fund-raising to individuals and groups within the boundaries of the geographic district served. If both Inouye and his potential opponents had to raise all their money within Hawai'i, the playing field would be even.