Corporate campaign limits will cleanse politics

THE ISSUE The state Legislature left intact a $2,000 limit on political contributions by a corporation, union or other organization.

WHEN Governor Lingle signed into law amendments to Hawaii's campaign spending rules a year ago, she praised them for prohibiting contributions from government contractors and other features, but the new restrictions went much further than many had thought. When legislators tried to backtrack in this year's session, citizen activists applied pressure and saved the day. The strict limits are intact.

The law, which took effect in January, prevents any corporation, labor union or other organization from giving political candidates a total of more than $2,000 in any election year. Senate Judiciary Chairwoman Colleen Hanabusa, who authored the law, says that was not her intention, but Barbara Wong, the Campaign Spending Commission executive director, says the law is clear.

"The total amount a corporation or other entity can give is $1,000 in the primary and then another $1,000 in the general election," Wong told the Star-Bulletin's Richard Borreca.

The restriction is perfectly constitutional. The First Amendment allows individuals to give as much as they like to political candidates, while limitations can be placed on how much a candidate may receive from one person. However, Congress began prohibiting corporations from influencing elections nearly a century ago and extended the ban to labor unions in the 1940s. The U.S. Supreme Court has affirmed such restrictions.

House Speaker Calvin Say supported changing the 2005 law to allow corporations and unions to give unlimited amounts to candidates, but Jeff Mikulina, the Sierra Club executive director, and other activists rose to the occasion.

Election reform groups began holding roadside signs early in the session in some districts telling voters that House members had been accepting donations from Big Tobacco. The Senate approved a bill to eliminate the cap, but it failed in the House during the session's final week. Say acknowledged that the lobbying turned the House's Democratic majority against removing the limits.

The 2005 law allows corporations and unions to make unlimited contributions from "old money" -- that collected before it took effect -- and hefty amounts were shoveled into their political action committees last year. Say reckons the law "means the faucet is turned off," but the old-money loophole could result in much more than a dribble in this year's election. Incumbents who are accustomed to large contributions are likely to feel the full effect in 2008.

Hawaii politicians received more than two-thirds of their $10 million campaign money in 2004 from corporate or labor interests, according to Scott Foster of Voter Owned Elections, which advocates full public funding options for candidates. Once the old money is spent, political candidates will be forced to go door to door asking for support.