New bipartisan group
pushes ‘clean’ politics

CORRECTION Saturday, September 11, 2004 » Randy Roth, a member of the Clean Campaigns Project, is no longer an adviser to Gov. Linda Lingle. A Page A4 article in Thursday's early edition incorrectly said he still held the post. The Honolulu Star-Bulletin strives to make its news report fair and accurate. If you have a question or comment about news coverage, call Editor Frank Bridgewater at 529-4791 or email him at corrections@starbulletin.com.

A newly formed bipartisan watchdog committee has pledged to monitor this election season's attack ads, watching for inaccuracies and speaking out against dirty campaigns.

The group's members say they hope to deter negative campaigning while also providing a venue for voters to have their complaints about mudslinging politics heard.

"If something really dirty happens, we'll be there," said Warren Iwasa, a member of the committee and former chairman of the Honolulu Community-Media Council.

The committee -- brainchild of state Sen. Les Ihara (D, Kapahulu-Palolo) and House Minority Leader Galen Fox (R, Waikiki-Ala Moana) -- calls itself the Clean Campaigns Project. Ihara and Fox are not voting members of the committee, but did choose who sits on the panel.

Members had their first meeting last week, and are already gearing up for the primary elections on Sept. 18.

"I think we're going to create this as we go," said Marilyn Bornhorst, a former Democratic Party of Hawaii chairwoman and City Council chairwoman. "There's no doubt this is going to be difficult."

The committee has agreed that it would publicly oppose a political ad after all four members agree its contents "have crossed that line," said Randy Roth, a committee member and adviser to Gov. Linda Lingle.

Bornhorst said the group hopes to get tips from "outraged citizens" but will also be looking at ads in newspapers and on television, radio and the Internet.

And it was important that the committee be bipartisan, Ihara said.

"They have credibility that way," he said. "It needs to have a balance."

The committee's Democrats are Iwasa and Bornhorst. Roth and UH political science professor Kate Zhou are the committee's Republicans.

Ihara said the project was dreamed up after Ihara and Fox started talking about a round of attack ads -- paid for by the Democratic Party of Hawaii during the 2002 election season -- that accused Republicans in key races of "selling Hawaii off to the gas and oil companies."

Some of those Republicans had not gotten any campaign donations from oil companies or even voted on gas-related issues, Fox said.

"We don't want to see this kind of campaigning," he said. "We were both a little concerned about clean campaigns."

The committee says it does not want to stifle politicians, but members do want to see more honest campaigning.

"I don't think our goal is to constrain people or hard-hitting political speech," Roth said. "We're hopeful that someone who would be inclined to do something outrageous wouldn't."

To alert the group to a negative ad, call or fax Bornhorst at 941-1845. An e-mail address for the committee has not yet been set up, but is expected to be released soon.