[ OUR OPINION ]
Legislature must end
campaign corruptionCOMPANIES lined up at the state trough have launched a frantic effort to defeat legislation aimed at disrupting the cozy relationship between government contractors and politicians. The letter-writing campaign punctuates the feeding frenzy that has corrupted Hawaii politics and caused distrust of the state's political process. Legislators who cave in to the companies' plea will identify themselves as present or hopeful beneficiaries of a rotten system.
Government contractors have launched a vigorous letter-writing effort against state campaign-finance reform. THE ISSUE
The state House has approved a campaign-finance bill that would ban political contributions to state candidates by companies that receive city or state contracts. A Senate version would exempt legislative candidates, limiting the ban to candidates for governor, lieutenant governor and governor, but the weakened version still has state trough-feeders gasping. Federal contractors are prohibited from contributing to federal candidates, including those running for Congress.
A few Hawaii contractors who find the present system lucrative have begun to inundate legislators with faxes and letters whining that they should not be deprived of their generosity to politicians. The texts of the letters are "very, very similar, suggesting they were all written from the same model," Larry Meacham of Common Cause Hawaii said in a memorandum to legislators. Most of the faxes came from three numbers, and several of the letters were mailed with the same postage-meter stamp, he added.
Seven of the letters were from officers of Anbe Aruga Ishizu Architects Inc., a major city and state contractor. "We were asked by someone in the company to write this letter," Anbe Aruga director and vice-president Clarence Izuo acknowledged to the Star-Bulletin's Rick Daysog.
The letters put forth the absurd suggestion that the proposed ban would infringe on companies' constitutional right to free speech, an argument that the U.S. Supreme Court has rejected in upholding the federal ban. Their real objection obviously is that it would prevent them from being rewarded government contracts in return for political contributions.
"Most contractors are sick and tired of the current situation," Meacham said in his memo. "In private, they complain of having to kick in money in order to be considered for government work and of seeing big contributors get fat contracts. Some of the best contractors refuse to play the game at all. Most would prefer a level playing field with decisions made on merit."
The proposal before the Legislature would significantly reduce political corruption in Hawaii, especially if legislators were to include themselves in the cleansing benefits.
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