honoluluadvertiser.com

Sponsored by:

Comment, blog & share photos

Log in | Become a member
The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Friday, February 29, 2008

House kills bill to allow corporate political gifts

 •  Legislature 2008
Read up on the latest happenings in the Legislature, find out how to contact your lawmakers, and explore other resources.

By Derrick DePledge
Advertiser Government Writer

The state House yesterday unexpectedly killed a bill that would have allowed corporations to use corporate money to make campaign donations directly to political candidates.

Activists from the League of Women Voters, the Sierra Club Hawai'i Chapter, Common Cause Hawai'i and other groups had fought the bill because they believe it would have expanded the influence of corporate money in politics and government. The state Campaign Spending Commission also opposed the bill because it would have codified a Maui court ruling last year that rejected the commission's interpretation of state campaign-finance law.

The commission has appealed the Maui ruling and has suspended enforcement of the law's limits on corporate contributions while the appeal is pending.

But both House and Senate leaders want to clarify the law this session instead of waiting for the appeal to be heard. A Senate bill remains alive and will likely cross over to the House next week.

House Democrats thought they had the votes for their version of the bill yesterday but, after meeting in private caucus, opted to send it back to committee, which means it will not meet the deadline for crossover to the Senate next week.

State Rep. Scott Saiki, D-22nd (Mo'ili'ili, McCully, Kaimuki), who was among a group of House dissidents and Republicans behind the opposition to the bill, said it went beyond clarifying the law.

"I think this is one of the worst bills of this session, because it will take us back to that whole system of pay to play," Saiki said. "It will give corporations undue influence over policy decisions."

State House Minority Leader Lynn Finnegan, R-32nd (Lower Pearlridge, 'Aiea, Halawa), said Republicans were also concerned about a provision of the bill that would have allowed retiring lawmakers to give up to $25,000 of their surplus campaign money to political parties without filing an organizational report. A second bill sent back to committee yesterday also would have increased the threshold for naming individual contributors in campaign-finance reports to $250, up from $100.

"There was a variety of things that moved us away from campaign-spending reform," Finn-egan said.

State House Majority Leader Kirk Caldwell, D-24th (Manoa), said the House would likely consider the Senate's version of the corporate contributions bill. "I don't think there is a clear sense of how to approach the issue," he said.

The issue has a convoluted history.

Between 1997 and 2006, corporations had been able to put unlimited amounts of money from corporate treasuries into corporate political action committees.

The corporate PACs would then make donations to political candidates.

In 2005, lawmakers made several changes to the campaign-finance law, including limiting corporations to giving only $1,000 from corporate treasuries each election to corporate PACs.

House and Senate leaders involved with the change say it was mistake and that they never intended to set a $1,000 limit, a view shared by the state attorney general's office. But that is how the law was interpreted by the Campaign Spending Commission and it was challenged by Maui Mayor Charmaine Tavares' campaign, which led to the Maui court ruling last year.

The Maui court found that corporations — like individual donors — could make contributions directly to the mayor's campaign without forming a corporate PAC.

Jeff Mikulina, the director of the Sierra Club Hawai'i Chapter, said — intentional or not — the limit on corporate contributions was the right move. Corporations are prohibited from making direct contributions to federal candidates, he said, and 22 states also ban direct corporate contributions.

"That was really ratcheting down corporate influence," Mikulina said of the state's limit.

Nikki Love, a spokeswoman for Common Cause Hawai'i, said in a statement that the House action shows lawmakers have taken citizens' concerns seriously.

"We feel so strongly about this issue because we are seeking ways to increase trust in government and promote greater citizen participation," she said.

The Senate version of the bill would clarify that corporations can use unlimited amounts of money from corporate treasuries for corporate PACs, basically reverting back to how the law was applied between 1997 and 2006.

State Senate President Colleen Hanabusa, D-21st (Nanakuli, Makaha), said requiring corporate campaign donations to flow through corporate PACs makes for more transparency because of the state's campaign-finance reporting requirements. The public can track corporate PAC reports instead of having to look up individual candidate reports to see how much corporations have donated.

"Our position has been that we basically have to clarify the intent of the law that we amended," Hanabusa said.

Reach Derrick DePledge at ddepledge@honoluluadvertiser.com.