Senator Ihara’s floor speech on campaign financing

Senator Ihara yesterday delivered the following speech on the floor in opposition to HB 2003 Relating to Campaign Financing:

Madame President. I rise in opposition to HB 2003, with reservations.

I’d like to first thank the Judiciary Chair for responding positively to concerns that the previous draft did not have transparency requirements for corporate donations to candidates. The reporting requirement now in the bill will give the public access to information on corporate contributions made to candidates.

This information is critical for public understanding on the degree of influence corporations have with successful candidates who make policy-decisions for our state. This is good, but it creates a loophole by avoiding the $1,000 aggregate limit of corporate contributions to its own political action committee. Instead of using the existing corporate PAC reporting requirement, the new reporting requirement is designed to remove the $1,000 corporate aggregate limit and allow them to contribute directly to candidates to the same extent as people like you and me.

This raises the corporate personhood issue, where policy leaders believe corporations should have virtually the same rights as people like you and me. They believe that corporations should have the same right to participate in political campaigns as natural persons. I disagree, because corporations already have too much power in determining public policy. I believe that people, not corporations, should be the primary sponsors of candidates running for public office.

I must oppose this bill because it adds to the bill a significant public policy choice — to allow corporations to have the same campaign contribution limits as people. I strongly disagree with this position. While I appreciate the chair’s efforts to ensure transparency for corporate campaign contributions, it was done in a way that inserts a new policy decision abhorrent to democracy – that of providing for full political participation rights for corporations.

The corporate political rights provision was inserted in an important bill to re-codify the state’s jumbled and cumbersome campaign finance statutes. The corporate rights provision adds deadly poison to this worthy recodification bill, and unfortunately, I must therefore oppose the entire bill. For these reasons, I must state that a public policy decision to give corporations full political participation rights should have been made in a separate bill, rather than piggy-backing on an otherwise good bill. Public officials sometimes wonder why the public is turned off by politics in the legislature. Unfortunately, this bill may be entered as Exhibit #1. Inside a good bill is inserted a policy decision that forever alters the political landscape of Hawaii – in favor or corporations.

Madame President, I have many other concerns about this bill which are the same as those noted in my floor speech on SB2251. They include:
• Section 1’s misrepresentation of the bill as only updating, organizing, and clarifying current campaign financing laws, instead of mentioning significant changes made in the bill;
• Deleting from the purpose statement…the sentence “integrity is essential to promote the public’s confidence in government”;
• Doubling the amount of campaign funds that can be donated to charitable causes, including to public schools and libraries;
• Allowing $500 in anonymous donations made by ten people at a political event; and
• Allowing political party participation by Campaign Spending Commissioners.

I close by noting this bill is better now because of the new transparency provision for corporate campaign contributions. I’m grateful to the Judiciary chair for this. But the bill now also gives full political participation rights to corporations, and it is for this reason I must oppose the bill. It is my hope that the House will consider my objections to the bill and address them in conference committee deliberations. If the House passes the bill in its current form, I will ask the governor to veto it for the reasons I have stated today.

Thank you Madame President.

Senator Ihara’s floor speech on campaign finance

Senator Ihara gave the following speech on the floor on March 3, 2010:
Madame President. I rise in support of Senate Bill 2251, but with reservations.

First, I’d like to note that the bill description conceals what it actually does. The description says it “updates, organizes, and clarifies current campaign financing laws”, but the bill actually changes the current law in several important ways.

SB 2251 deletes an existing provision that limits corporate contributions to PACs at an aggregate amount of $1,000. The bill also deletes the requirement that all corporations must register as a political action committee.

While this bill is consistent with last year’s “Tavares” appeals court ruling. The ruling allows corporations to make direct contributions to candidates – but this bill does not provide for any reporting requirement.

The purpose of our campaign finance law is to provide transparency so the public can easily learn the funding sources of campaigns. For many years until the Tavares case, voters could conveniently see the expenditures corporations made to influence elections. But now there’s the cumbersome task of looking up dozens of candidate reports to tally how much a corporation contributes.

I’m also troubled by section 11-dd on page 50 that allows 10 donors to contribute up to $500 at a political event without having to record donor names and amounts donated. This would allow one donor to give $400 and 9 others $10 each – all anonymously. I believe allowing these anonymous donations can only cause unnecessary mischief.

My other concern is allowing Campaign Spending Commissioners to participate in political party activities. This would allow these commissioners to have ongoing political relationships with the people they regulate. I believe this is not acceptable.

Finally, I note that SB 2251 triples the amount of campaign funds that can be donated to charitable causes, in particular community groups and public schools and libraries. Currently—for senators, up to $4,000 in campaign funds can be contributed to community causes. This bill would increase this amount to $12,000. [note: current law actually allows senators up to $8,000 in donations to community groups]

A decade ago, there was no limit. Legislators and candidates could donate tens of thousands of dollars to community groups from their campaign war chests. But news stories reported on numerous donations to community groups made by well-funded and well-meaning public officials. The donations were perceived by many that they improperly influenced nonprofit groups to support the campaigns of these generous candidates. Public trust was harmed then, and I worry about – again allowing abuses that originally led to today’s current limit.

As this bill is considered in conference, I would like to request that the bill’s section 1 purpose statement be amended to include the above changes being made to current law. This would more accurately state what the bill actually does.

I also request that the original declaration of policy be reinserted in the bill as proposed by the Campaign Spending Commission. It states: “The purpose of this part is to ensure the integrity and transparency of the campaign finance process. Integrity is essential to promote the public’s confidence in government. Transparency provides disclosure of contributions and expenditures to assure the public is fully informed.” This language was deleted and I request that it be reinserted during conference.

Thank you Madame President.