#commoncausehawaii

[commoncausehawaii]

Action needed! WAM testimony needed on 3 democracy bills

ACTION NEEDED: Testimony for Friday, February 27 2015 9:00am Senate Ways and Means

Please support testimony on all three bills, which are among Common Cause Hawaii’s priorities!

SB 996, SD1 RELATING TO ETHICS. Appropriate funds to the state ethics commission to design and develop a system that allows filers to electronically file required statements and reports with the state ethics commission.  Effective 01/07/2059.  (SD1)

SB 1194, SD1 RELATING TO LOBBYISTS.

Requires the electronic filing of lobbyist disclosure statements.  Requires that the filed statements be posted online.  Effective 01/07/2059.  (SD1) SB 577, SD1 RELATING TO CAMPAIGN FINANCE. Requires any fees assessed by the campaign spending commission to be deposited into the Hawaii election campaign fund. Requires that general funds, rather than moneys from the Hawaii election campaign fund, be used for the operating expenses of the campaign spending commission. Authorizes the campaign spending commission to use moneys from the Hawaii election campaign fund for investigation expenses.  Effective 01/07/2059.  (SD1)

HEARING:         Senate Ways and Means Committee DATE:               Friday, February 27, 2015 TIME:                9:00 AM PLACE:             Conference Room 211

To submit testimony, sign in at capitol.hawaii.gov, click on Submit Testimony and enter the bill number (SB 996, SB 1194, and SB 577). To create an account, click here. You can submit full written testimony, fill out the web form with comments in support, or testify in person. Even just clicking "support" will help. Please submit by Thursday 09:00 AM if you can, but late testimony still helps!

[commoncausehawaii]

What's Happenin' at the Lege?

Bills you should know about

We are only two weeks into the 2015 Legislative Session, and it’s already been a whirlwind of activity! Bill-introduction deadline has just passed, and we are excited to share with you these recent developments: PRIORITY BILLS Common Cause Hawaii is pleased to share our priority bills for the 2015 Legislative Session:

Revamping of the Partial-Public Funding program (SB363, SB602)

Replenish the Hawaii Election Campaign Fund (SB577)

Electronic Filing for lobbyists and lobbying organizations (HB567)

Ranked Choice Voting (SB623)

Broadcasting of hearings (HB328)

Click here for more details on our priority bills.

WATCH DOGGING

Every year, roughly 3,000 bills are introduced at the legislature. This year was a record year in terms of how many democracy-related bills have been introduced. In all, we’re tracking about 4​04* democracy and short form/placeholder bills. For context: last year had the most democracy-related bills introduced – at only about 25​7 bills!

In addition to the record amount of democracy-related bills introduced this year, this is the first time SO MANY of them have been scheduled for hearings so early in session!

Click here for the full list of bills we are tracking. HEADS UP In addition to our priority bills, we have our eyes set on these significant bills: ·  7 public funding related bills ·  2 videoconferencing bills ·  3 automatic voter registration bills ·  5 shareholder disclosure bills ·  8 vote by mail bills We’re looking forward to another exciting legislative session. Connect with us via Twitter and Facebook for more frequent updates!

*This page previously stated that we are tracking 445 democracy-related and short form bills. We are tracking 404 democracy-related and short form bills.

[commoncausehawaii]

Unhappy Unbirthday to Citizens United

Wednesday, January 21, 2015 was a busy day in Hawaii Nei.  Besides it being Opening Day at the Hawaii State Legislature, it was also the 5th anniversary of the Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission decision. 

To acknowledge this horrendous decision that has opened the floodgates for unlimited spending by Super PACs we at Common Cause Hawaii (CCHI) hosted a screening of the film Pay 2 Play.  This film “follows filmmaker John Ennis’ quest to find a way out from under the Pay 2 Play System, where Politicians reward their donors with even larger sums from the public treasury -- through contracts, tax cuts, and deregulation”. (http://www.pay2play.tv/) 

Photo: CCHI Senior Organizer Corie Tanida, address the audience at the Pay 2 Play screening

The only remedy to the Citizens United decision is to pass a constitutional amendment. This is no small task, and will require everyone to lend a hand.  The Hawaii State Legislature, Honolulu County, and Hawaii County have already passed resolutions in support of an amendment.  Currently, CCHI is working on getting Kauai and Maui counties to pass similar resolutions. If you are interested in helping us with passing these resolutions (i.e. contacting councilmembers, writing testimony, etc.), or know someone who may be interested, please contact our coordinators:

Maui: Arianna Feinberg [email protected] 808-280-0988

Kauai: Sandra Herndon [email protected]

Mahalo and imua. 

[commoncausehawaii]

The best Democracy money can buy?

Photo Source: http://2bgr8stock.deviantart.com/art/Money-Cash-113445826          

By Robert Fread

As the January 21st anniversary of the United States Supreme Court decision in the Citizens United v. F.E.C has come and gone, one doesn't have to look far to see drastic changes in the political landscape that have resulted in the five years since this ruling which expanded the definition of free speech to include corporate donations. One of the most visible changes as a result of this U.S. Supreme Court decision has been the significant increase of the now infamous Super PACs (Political Action Committees), which although are forbidden from direct coordination with candidates, raise and spend unlimited funds from not only individual donors, but unions and corporations as well. With a majority of this money being used for often times one-sided media campaigns, this has shown to have a dual silencing effect on the voting process: not only does it limit information a voter may have access to on various issues, but it also has a direct effect of limiting the actual candidate pool.

For example, during the 2012 election cycle, Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein, as well as her running mate Cheri Honkala, were arrested and charged with disorderly conduct, for attempting to enter the Hofstra University hosted debate. Although the requirements for participation in such a debate has arguably reasonable standards, there is one benchmark that has a direct correlation to the Citizens United decision: a minimum 15% support in public opinion polls, a number determined by the Commission on Presidential Debates. In this instance, even though Jill Stein was an official candidate on ballots throughout the country, the legitimacy of her campaign was hindered by her inability to compete for media time against the untold millions of dollars being spent for or on behalf of “major” party candidates. Given the fact that even her high profile arrest had a very brief run in the national news cycle, the question must be asked as to whether this public opinion poll requirement is a realistic one.

The dangers of unlimited spending by super PACs not only increase the positive ads made in support of candidates, but also opens the floodgates for well-funded attack ads, further damaging the public opinion of a candidate who may not have the resources to counter those claims. Evidence of this shift in the political climate is also found here in Hawaii. During our most recent election cycle, two candidates, one Libertarian and the other non-party affiliated, found themselves in a similar predicament to that of Ms. Stein. Jeff Davis (Gubernatorial candidate – L) and Joy Allison (U.S. Senate Candidate – no party) , were unable to utilize one of the best methods of reaching the voting public in spite of their official status as candidates. What makes these cases more interesting is that money was a clear and determinate factor, with the debate host Hawaii News Now stating that Ms. Allison was denied airtime because, “she hadn’t raised enough money for her campaign.” Further evidence of silenced voices have come to light with last summer’s settlement arising out of  the libel lawsuit brought forth by former Governor and recent Mayoral candidate Ben Cayetano. In a story covered by the ‘Oahu based online news outlet Civil Beat, local super PAC Pacific Resource Partnership (PRP) offered a public apology regarding a 3.6 million dollar media campaign, in which they stated in part, “…these radio and television advertisements gave many the impression that Gov. Cayetano personally had broken the law or acted corruptly… To the extent any viewer or listener reached that conclusion, PRP apologizes to Gov. Cayetano.”            

With the First Amendment being the central issue from Citizens United, even these few instances provide clear evidence that the Citizens United v. F.E.C decision has not only enabled the suppression of speech for those who lack the financial support to have their voices heard, but have codified that silence into law, posing the risk of shaping our society to accept this practice as normal. At what point do we allow our political future to be dominated by unlimited sums of money before we realize that our system of government is not working as intended? The time for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that nullifies Citizens United v. FEC is now.

[joe-heaukulani]

Throwback Thursday - Citizen Challenge and Rotunda Roundups

With the opening of the 2015 Hawaii Legislative Session opening in less than two weeks, the energy in the air takes me back to my first look at the legislative process back in 2011. I was still a new member of Kanu Hawaii, looking to make more commitment-based changes. Having just following a commitment to vote in the 2010 election, I found the Citizen Challenge intriguing:

Follow one issue during the legislative session.

Contact your legislators at least once during the legislative session.

Fortunately we had some help to complete our commitments.

kanuhawaii.org

Kanu Hawaii and Common Cause Hawaii held a Legislature 101 Workshop at the State Capitol and it was led by the wonderful staff from the Public Access Room--the only one of its kind in the US. This was a process I wasn't familiar with at all, having never paid much attention to politics before.

kanuhawaii.org

I thought it was pretty cool that the room was packed and that there were so many people interested in what I thought for sure was a boring topic. This workshop was broken up into two parts, one part was learning the legislative process itself and the second part was learning the advocacy side of things, learning the ways that regular citizens can participate in this part of government.

After the workshops were over, I was hungry to get started and excited to learn more.

kanuhawaii.org

Once the session started, Kanu Hawaii and Common Cause Hawaii held these weekly Rotunda Roundups at the State Capitol after work. Each week they would explain where we were in the legislative process. They would also invite different groups to come in, and talk about the bills they were following, and some of the tactics they were employing. Often times we would have action steps that we could take immediately after the roundup. We would often go up to the offices of our legislators and make our voices heard.

With many new issues coming up this year, it gives me that feeling of 2011. It should be pretty fun, and I'm looking forward to participating in the legislative process this year. See you out there on the front lines.

[joe-heaukulani]

#CivicSunday - #CivicCelerator's #Hawaii Power Ballot App

source: civic.celerator.org

Civic*Celerator--a joint project from Common Cause Hawaii and Hawaii Open Data with funding from Voqal--was in the news last week highlighting two of their apps utilizing Hawaii Campaign Spending Commission data; one focusing on campaign fundraising and the other on campaign spending.  Now Civic*Celerator is working on an ambitious app from Citizen Developer and mapping guru, Royce Jones; the Hawaii Power Ballot.

Royce introduced his idea for the Hawaii Power Ballot last month at a Civic*Celerator workshop.  The basic goal of the app is to provide relevant candidate information to voters in a quick and simple way.  He is leveraging some tools that he already built and combining them with candidate data researched by volunteers to build an app to help voters make better-informed decisions.

Once completed, voters will be able to simply type in their address (or click on their home from a map) and find out their voting location and receive a sample ballot with links to the candidate's information and online presence.  Future iterations will be able to pull in data from other Civic*Celerator apps to provide a more complete view of the candidate.

source: github.com/codeforhawaii

This effort is being spearheaded by Royce, and fellow CitizenDev, Jason Axelson on Github.  Feel free to fork the project and help contribute.

To help research candidates and enter data please email: [email protected]

I'm awed by the resourcefulness of our citizens who build tools that empower all of us.

[commoncausehawaii]

Let's Get Ethical by Jess Glasser

I had the good fortune of participating in an ethics training on September 16.  I was in fabulous company: Corie from Common Cause Hawaii was there, as were a bunch of Common Cause Hawaii board members and Common Cause Hawaii’s most recent past Executive Director, Nikki Love.  Also in the mix were representatives from Sierra Club, League of Women Voters, and Life of the Land, as well as other community groups.  Of course, Senator Les Ihara was present (Senate District 10, put your hands up!), as was Representative Chris Lee (what up, House District 51?!), and, of course, Les Kondo, Executive Director and Chief Legal Counsel of the Hawaii State Ethics Commission (HSEC), who ran the training.  As an aside, HSEC’s new office space in the American Savings Bank Building, where I attended this training, is way swankier than the HSEC website, which is super web 1.0.  But that’s just an aside.

Mr. Kondo gave a thorough and engaging presentation covering the makeup of the Commission (5 Commissioners and a staff of 10 which includes 4 attorneys), the work with which the Commission is tasked (education, guidance, disclosures, enforcement), the bills the Commission introduced during this past year’s legislative session (here’s the list), and a little bit of what the Commission plans to do for the future.  The biggest takeaway for me were the big, gaping holes in the reporting statutes that govern lobbyists’ expenditure statements.  Check those out and you’ll see that almost all lobbyists report spending ZERO dollars for each of the organizations they represent, AND THAT’S TOTALLY LEGAL (I learned this in the ethics training).  My understanding of the justification for this is that the organizations hiring the lobbyists are already disclosing how much they are paying which lobbyists, and we would be counting the money twice if the lobbyists also reported their expenditures for each organization the lobbyists represent.  With the current configuration of the reporting mechanism, how lobbyists spend their money remains unknown.  Something about that just is not kosher.

Good news, folks.  A week after the training, Senator Ihara passed along a message of thanks and hope to the folks who attended the training from Mr. Kondo, “that one day we can have a much broader discussion about what types of provisions people would want in an ethics code and/or lobbying law, if they were starting from scratch, and then prioritizing that wish list.”  Maybe Mr. Kondo wanted to give us some time to digest all that we learned.  

Now, what do I put on my wish list?  Comment below with any suggestions you may have for the wish list or with suggestions on superstar ethics codes to check out for inspiration.  

About the author: Jess Glasser volunteers for Common Cause Hawaii, is a Kanu Hawaii Fellow, a Master of Social Work candidate, and the Director for Hillel Hawaii.  She loves government transparency, civic engagement, and social justice.

[joe-heaukulani]

AGENDA

REGULAR MEETING

COMMITTEE MEETING ROOM

TUESDAY, AUGUST 28, 2012

9:00 A.M.

  RESOLUTION 12-207 – CAMPAIGN SPENDING.  Urging Hawaii’s Congressional Delegation to address campaign spending issues by proposing amendments to clarify that corporations are not people with constitutional rights and that unlimited campaign spending is not free speech.