EDITORIAL
What happened to campaign reform?
After all that talk at the Legislature this year about restoring the public's faith in government, Gov. Ben Cayetano shot down the campaign finance reform bill.
The bill, which miraculously passed in both houses of the Legislature, would have prohibited direct political contributions by corporations, labor unions and government contractors to county and state elected officials who issue contracts.
But in the end, Cayetano says, he vetoed it because lawmakers amended the bill to exempt themselves from the provisions. Good point, but it's still a pity that this advance was lost.
Sure, the bill was flawed, but at least it was a start. It would have been far easier to come back next year and patch it up than start again from scratch, which is what now must happen.
Bob Watada, executive director of the state Campaign Spending Commission, was no fan of some of the ever-changing bill's pitfalls and weaknesses. But even Watada said the measure would have helped restore the public's confidence in government.
The main intent of this bill was to limit opportunities for politicians to award lucrative contracts to big donors as a reward for their generosity.
In government, the awarding of contracts is almost exclusively the kuleana of the executive branch top dogs — the governor, the mayor and department heads. Lawmakers don't have that particular authority, at least not directly.
That's not to say that lawmakers don't receive generous campaign donations from corporations, unions and others hoping to curry favor, as Cayetano suggests in his statement of objections to the bill.
Cayetano points out that the Hawai'i Legislature is a part-time body that allows lawmakers to hold other employment, run their own businesses and sit as directors on the boards of private corporations, among other entities.
Like other state legislators, he says, Hawai'i lawmakers "have a greater potential for acting on legislation that may have significant financial implications for their employers, their own businesses, or the corporations or businesses on which they hold directorships."
Committee chairs in particular wield great power in the passage of legislation, he says.
All true, but the power of one lawmaker is still nowhere near equal to the power of one governor or one mayor.
And as we've said before, tough restrictions on political contributions are necessary because campaign spending laws are too squishy and the penalties for breaking them too light.
It's tough to get politicians to approve limits on contributions to their own campaigns. It happened this year in the heat of an approaching election and a public demand for reform.
Is it too much to hope that the political will for campaign finance reform will return next year?
