Campaign Finance Reform
Price of Paradise · Hawaii Public Radio · aired 1998-06-14
Guests: Bob Watada (Executive Director, Campaign Spending Commission); Janet Mason (Vice President, League of Women Voters); Ken Schoolland (Professor of Economics and Political Science, Hawaii Pacific University)
Duration: 1:09:04

[00:00:03] Randall Roth: Aloha, this is Randy Roth, host of the Price of Paradise radio show. Our goal is to provide intelligent conversations about issues of local interest, and to do so in a way that gives listeners an opportunity to participate. We believe such lively and informed dialogue is an important ingredient to a functional democracy and a healthy community. Our sponsor is the Hawaii Community Foundation, an organization that supports grassroot efforts to improve the quality of life in Hawaii, and that administers charitable funds with efficiency and compassion. Today's topic has to do with the financing of political campaigns. It's an area where just about everybody seems to be critical of the status quo, and yet effective reform seems elusive.
[00:00:49] Randall Roth: With me in the studio to discuss campaign finance reform is Janet Mason, Ken Schoolland, and Bob Watada. Actually, Bob's with us by phone. He's the executive director of the Campaign Spending Commission. Janet is the vice president of the League of Women Voters of Honolulu, and Ken is an associate professor of economics and political science at HPU. I think we'll start this by going to Bob Watada and asking him to real briefly summarize just what the law is today so far as restrictions on campaign contributions and campaign spending is concerned. Good morning, Bob.
[00:01:29] Bob Watada: Good morning, Randy.
[00:01:31] Randall Roth: Bob, before you even answer that question, can you in a couple of seconds tell listeners what the Campaign Spending Commission is?
[00:01:40] Bob Watada: Okay, the Campaign Spending Commission is made up of five volunteers that are nominated by the judicial council and names are referred to the governor and the governor appoints five members to serve for fixed terms. They serve, as I said, as volunteers, they don't get paid anything.
[00:01:59] Randall Roth: And you are a paid executive director of that commission?
[00:02:04] Bob Watada: And the commission hires a staff, and I am the one of five persons that's hired on the staff to do the work of the commission.
[00:02:11] Randall Roth: Okay, how about in one minute or less, what in the world is the law today here in Hawaii?
[00:02:17] Bob Watada: Okay, the Hawaii law, in terms of, first of all, I'm talking about contribution limits, how much can you give to a candidate. The law says you can give $6,000 to a statewide candidate, that's the governor, Lieutenant Governor, and OHA candidates. $4,000 to all other four-year candidates, that will be mayor, prosecuting attorney, senators, and $2,000 to any two-year candidate. So that's house and some county council members. The law also says that there are limits that you can give to what we call political action committees, they're called non-candidate committees in our law, and that's $1,000 per election, so that would be $2,000 in an election cycle.
[00:03:03] Bob Watada: Going back to the contribution limits, they're for the election cycle. These are all for the election cycle.
[00:03:09] Randall Roth: Okay.
[00:03:10] Bob Watada: There are no spending limits. In other words, the law basically does not say how much you can, as far as expenditure side, there are no limits, but on the contribution side, there are these limits. One other limit we have is $50,000 is the maximum what you can give to a political party. A candidate can spend up to $50,000 of his or her own her own money, but there are no limits as to how much they can loan their campaign. The most that you can loan to any candidate is $10,000, that has to be repaid within one year.
[00:03:46] Randall Roth: Okay. Bob, I'm going to come back to you in just a little bit. Um, stay on the line. I next want to go to Janet Mason, who's the Vice President of the League of Women Voters here in Honolulu. Janet, you have an article in this morning's advertiser on page B3. And before I ask you to more or less summarize that article, real general question, um, does money rule? In other words, is money a problem right now? Is it having more of an impact than what you and other members of your organization feel that it should have?
[00:04:20] Janet Mason: Without a doubt, money is a major factor in our political campaigns. In fact, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that in addition to the primary and general elections, we effectively have a money primary, a wealth primary, which takes place in the period before the primary election begins. Um, where large money donors are effectively choosing who will receive the contributions and who will succeed in winning the primaries. Um, from the league study of the 1995-96 races, we know that if a legislative candidate was outspent by more than a two-to-one differential, they had only a 2% chance of winning. Sam Sloan was the, um, exception, the spending underdog, if you will.
[00:05:16] Janet Mason: But, um, if you plan to outspend your opponent by more than two-to-one, you have a 98% chance of winning. At least that's what we found in the legislative election.
[00:05:26] Randall Roth: So, the the system is broken, I think that's an expression you used in your article.
[00:05:30] Janet Mason: Right.
[00:05:31] Randall Roth: And you and the League of Women Voters of Honolulu along with a a number of other organizations that are part of what's called the Clean Money, Clean Elections Alliance, or just clean for short, uh, you've come up with what you feel is a solution.
[00:05:44] Janet Mason: Right.
[00:05:45] Randall Roth: Can you describe that for us?
[00:05:46] Janet Mason: Our solution is first of all to limit campaign, um, spending, uh, to have a process whereby candidates would declare themselves clean money candidates. They would, uh, qualify as clean money candidates by raising a large number of small contributions, say $5 a piece, from voters, and then they would agree to forego all private contributions to their campaigns in exchange for receiving a strict spending limit and complying with a strict spending limit of public funds.
[00:06:28] Randall Roth: Now, is it necessary that this be voluntary? I know in your article you comment that what you're proposing is voluntary. Is it necessary that it be voluntary because of the, the First Amendment protection for, for political speech?
[00:06:43] Janet Mason: Well, we recognize the, um, the Buckley ruling. We recognize that, um, the Supreme Court has found that, uh, you cannot impose, um, on all candidates, a spending limit. Um, however, we think the, so it is voluntary, yes, but we think the Buckley decision may be flawed because it ignores the access problems that challengers in a political campaign, people without money, experience, and trying to get into the campaign and get started.
[00:07:18] Randall Roth: So if, if we accept the, the current Supreme Court position as, as the law, and and certainly it's, it's technically the, the law of the land, and, and we have to accept it even though it could always be, be changed in a Supreme Court ruling down the road, could say, no, we we changed our mind on this issue. That being the law, then this program has to be voluntary or the Constitution has to be changed.
[00:07:41] Janet Mason: Right.
[00:07:42] Randall Roth: And your group at least for now is saying, don't fiddle with the Constitution, just make it voluntary.
[00:07:47] Janet Mason: Exactly.
[00:07:48] Randall Roth: But I guess you want it to be so attractive, you want so much free money if you will, available to each candidate, that each candidate will voluntarily participate.
[00:07:58] Janet Mason: Right, but, um, we're not talking about a lot of free money. The limits we have in mind for public funding are very modest. For instance, in the bill we introduced in the legislature last session, the limit which was proposing to fund the House and Senate legislative campaigns, the amount of money to be made available for the house campaign was, I think, $10,000 total out of public money and, uh, for each race, and the amount for the Senate races, I believe, was $20,000. So we are not talking about unlimited amounts of public money, that's very important. In fact, uh, the amounts we would propose would be less than the average spending right now for the public.
[00:08:45] Randall Roth: And I, I suppose, just listening to this, that, that part of the power of this would be the notion that the public would somehow think more highly of a candidate who has a, quote, clean campaign.
[00:08:57] Janet Mason: Hopefully. We want, uh, the election campaigns to be more about the, uh, qualifications and the issues and less about raising money so that you win.
[00:09:08] Randall Roth: Okay. Ken Schoolland, I know from your article in this morning's paper, you approach this very differently. You would agree with Janet that, that something is wrong, the status quo is untenable, but you called the proposal of of the clean Alliance, uh, the Tooth Fairy plan, I think. Uh, could you tell us just generally what you think is wrong with the system as it is today?
[00:09:33] Ken Schoolland: Well, certainly, I think that there's no question as Janet mentions that the that the politicians will always find, um, uh, they will sell favors that they have. They have very valuable favors to sell. They have taxing, spending, and regulatory powers at their disposal, uh, nationally, uh, nationally worth trillions of dollars and locally in in the state worth billions of dollars. And, um, they, uh, I think they they will always find ways to sell these favors so long as they have these valuable favors to sell. Um, the the ways that politicians have are very creative in terms of getting around the rules, and they always find ways around the rules that they make for themselves.
[00:10:13] Ken Schoolland: Um, they, uh, through lobbying and vote buying, essentially, uh, have a thousand disguises for these such as campaign contributions, consulting fees, legal fees, book advances, loans, stock options, travel vacations, uh, gifts or jobs for friends or relatives, deferred jobs till after they're out of office. Uh, they often even bypass money, uh, uh, with getting, uh, uh, favors for fame or, um, power or or supporters, uh, for their campaign. So there's a lot of ways, millions of ways for, um, politicians to get out around the rules. Now, the politicians, uh, usually are the first, uh, to, uh, call for reforms whenever there's a public outrage about this sort of thing.
[00:10:59] Ken Schoolland: And, uh, they, uh, then feign to be the ones, uh, in the fore forefront of wanting, uh, reform. And a lot of the form reforms, um, may appease the public, but a lot of times these reforms, uh, work to their favor. Um, the, uh, I would personally prefer, uh, some ideas to open up the democratic process, to make it a lot easier for newcomers to enter the race. Um, and I have no particular, uh, objection to the things that have been proposed by the Clean Elections, uh, Alliance and the program, uh, in, in so far as it was as it was voluntary.
[00:11:37] Ken Schoolland: Uh, of course, uh, I like the idea of the fact that they are, um, uh, enticing politicians to join their program by saying, well, this is a, a voluntary spending limit, and and you'll look good by the in front of the public by signing up with us and and, um, I have no problem with that. Uh, the problem that I have with it is then the people that you're supposedly doing this for, protecting, you're not letting be voluntary. You're, the the program itself requires compulsory, uh, funding through the tax system in order to fund it. And, um, I, I find this, uh, a bit of a, a contradiction.
[00:12:15] Randall Roth: Well, and let me just, uh, point out for our listeners who didn't read your article in this paper, you have a, a quote from Thomas Jefferson. Quote, to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves is sinful and tyrannical. Pretty strong statement.
[00:12:32] Ken Schoolland: Yeah, certainly. I think that if, uh, politicians have the freedom of speech in, in, uh, saying what they want on the campaign trail and, and contributors have the, um, recognized freedom of speech by the Supreme Court, uh, to, uh, contribute to who they want as a matter of freedom of expression, then certainly the taxpayer should have the freedom of non-expression, not supporting candidates that they oppose, or even may even loathe. And in fact, I I think that's one of the reasons why, um, a lot of people, uh, have declined to participate in this, uh, kind of process because they don't like supporting candidates that they don't like.
[00:13:05] Randall Roth: Let me ask you a couple questions. One, I get the impression listening to you, that you think, maybe not all, but most politicians are corrupt.
[00:13:17] Ken Schoolland: Well, the the word is strong but the action and behavior, uh, is there. It is unethical behavior, I believe, uh, to presume to, uh, uh, to control the lives of people throughout the, throughout the state, uh, and, um, and constantly, uh, promising to do favors for people in exchange for, uh, for support of all kinds.
[00:14:05] Randall Roth: Let me ask, is it a problem with the particular individuals who are in those positions now, or is it a systemic problem, and that we're always going to have a high percentage of the politicians that are, again, strong word, corrupt?
[00:14:15] Ken Schoolland: Oh, I think that, uh, it's systemic that, uh, um, politics and the political process attracts the people who are particularly adept at, at, uh, deceit and flattery.
[00:14:26] Ken Schoolland: Um, you ask, um, any group of people who is more likely to win an election? Somebody who, uh, uh, is dishonest, or a person who is honest? And my guess is, and every time I conduct these surveys, people will always say, well, the person who is more dishonest is more likely to win. No, not in every case, but Two more quick questions. One is why not just go for more disclosure. Janet mentioned in her piece that that would be something that the league would, would be in favor of. And if you feel that, uh, consulting fees, or legal fees, are a form of, uh, of bribery, uh, and if the public knows about, uh, Joe Suki's consulting fee on the Bishop Estate deal and Terrence Tom's legal fees from the Bishop Estate, for example, that with disclosure the voters can take that into account, and if they think that it's a form of corruption, then those guys are gone. If they think that it's okay, there's no problem with that, then those folks are going to have that held against them. What's wrong with just having full disclosure?
[00:15:06] Ken Schoolland: Well, it's very appealing, and I, and I like the idea of of of, um, exposing these things. Uh, the problems is twofold. Number one, what you are exposing, of course, um, people will hide in other ways. So they they will find other ways around the things if exposure is an embarrassment. And secondly, challengers have an especially difficult time, because people don't want to contribute to campaigns when they feel that the challenger has a good chance of losing and the incumbent has a good chance of retaliating.
[00:15:35] Ken Schoolland: Politicians, uh, who are in office, the incumbents have an enormous amount of power over their challengers by being able to retaliate against people who they see on lists of contributions, uh, to their opponents.
[00:15:47] Randall Roth: And in fact, maybe that's why a lot of people contribute to both sides. Uh, the, uh, the Democrat, the Republican, maybe other candidates as as well. They don't want not to have supported the the ultimate winner.
[00:15:57] Ken Schoolland: Exactly, and that points out the problem with politics. What they're really buying is protection. They're not buying, um, an idea that they want to favor, they're buying protection from the favor, from the politician who can use his power against them.
[00:16:25] Randall Roth: Janet, you've been listening patiently for, uh, I think it's six minutes now. I'm going to give you a couple minutes to comment on what you've heard from Ken or any additional thoughts you want to share. We're going to hear from Bob Watada and then we're going to open up the lines to our listeners.
[00:16:38] Janet Mason: Well, uh, the League of Women Voters completely rejects this passive idea that, um, you know, there's nothing that can be done about the present situation. Uh, democracy isn't a perfect system. Uh, we have to work at it to make it effective. Uh, and one thing, no, no single approach to campaign finance reform is perfect. But having campaigns financed out of public money, one thing it does with 100% effectiveness is remove the candidates dependence on large private money donors.
[00:17:20] Janet Mason: And our, the League's concern is essentially with the problem of equal protection, equal access for citizens who want to play more than just a voter role in democracy, who want to be more activists, either as a candidate or a political activist. Effectively, now they're precluded from participating in the process with in a meaningful way. At one one point in our history, we had poll taxes for anyone who wanted to vote. We had filing fees, substantial filing fees in some cases for people who wanted to appear on the ballot. We don't really think the Supreme Court has addressed this issue of equal protection for, uh, active citizens who want to be candidates yet.
[00:18:15] Randall Roth: And when you say that the league doesn't believe in in doing nothing, uh, in Ken's article this morning, he commented that that he would support ways of opening up the democratic process, and he specifically mentioned the initiative and recall and reform and term limits and those sorts of things. What's the league's position on on those possible changes?
[00:18:34] Janet Mason: We certainly support those possible changes, but we think the heart of the matter has to do with who pays for campaigns. And we do not think that we will succeed in changing the culture of, uh, campaign, uh, fundraising and the conduct of campaigns until there is are are limits, first of all, on how much can be spent in a campaign.
[00:18:59] Randall Roth: And when you say limits, I I think you mean, uh, what you mentioned before, and and you said, uh, in your article that it was actually voluntary, and the public would have to, uh, buy into the, the, uh, whole concept. who pays for it, I know in the last gubernatorial race there were something like 27 candidates in the primary or 24 I believe it was. Um can the public afford to support that many candidates?
[00:19:14] Janet Mason: Yes we can, um if we keep the limits uh to be spent in the campaign strict. And the league recognizes that this is an experiment, we haven't done this before in Hawaii, so we're not advocating that we start out immediately and fund every single public uh office with public funds, but we think that the current uh election campaign fund is relatively healthy. We think with experience people will learn what this idea is about, and they will continue to make voluntary contributions to the fund.
[00:19:56] Randall Roth: Okay, quick comment from Ken Schooland and then we're going to Bob Watada.
[00:19:59] Ken Schoolland: Yeah, well first of all, I think that these organizations don't need to go to the government, so this is another problem where when there's a problem in government people then go to the government again for a solution to that problem that was originated in government. These organizations, the League of Women Voters, the common cause Hawaii, price of Paradise, any organizations can set up a fund and start this sort of type of organization just as Alan Malcolm did with starting Emily's list which did a great deal of job of help, helped helping women get into the electoral process uh on the mainland especially. And um they can take contributions from donors in in any quantity not just one or $2 dollars, but they can take contributions from people who want to start this sort of thing and uh attract politicians to its um public appeal. It's sort of a united fund for the uh for politicians if you will. Um right now the voters don't particularly support this kind of concept, only 15% of the voters use the the voter check off on their tax forms and that's even being told that it won't affect the amount of money that they pay. Um and so there really isn't broad public support for this sort of thing because they're paying for politicians that they don't believe in.
[00:21:16] Randall Roth: Okay. Well, I've got to uh remind listeners or actually tell people who may have tuned in a little bit late that you're listening to the Price of Paradise radio show. My name is Randy Roth with me in the studio is Janat Mason the vice president of the League of Women Voters of Honolulu and Ken Schooland, an associate professor of economics and political science from Hawaii Pacific University. With us by phone and I'm going to go to him in a few seconds is Bob Watada, who's the executive uh director of the campaign spending commission here in Hawaii. If you'd like to get in line to ask a question or make a comment, why don't you give us a call at 955-8821. If you're on a neighbor island, it's the same number with 1800 in front of it. So that's 1800-955-8821. If you tuned in late, you want to hear the show in its entirety, tonight on KIFO, that's 1380 am. You can hear the show beginning at 8 o'clock. Again, we're talking about uh uh campaign finance reform and I'll go to Bob Watada, the executive director of the Campaign Spending Commission here in Hawaii. Bob, you've been listening uh very patiently to Janat and to Ken. Uh real quickly, your thoughts?
[00:22:24] Bob Watada: Thank you very much Randy. Uh just a couple thoughts here. One of course is in terms of uh spending, I I think if the issue is too much spending we have to look at our law and say that maybe we ought to lower the caps. Uh what I mean is the contribution limits that are given to candidates. Hawaii among all the 50 states probably has the highest or close to the highest contribution limits, $6,000 for a governor and Lieutenant Governor, $4,000 for other races and $2,000 for other races. Those are very, very high limits and I think what that allows is more money to get into the system. So if our concern is that there's too much money in the in the system then we have to look at those caps because that's that's what allows that to to happen. Uh another thought that of course I have uh is that um uh along with what Ken has to say you're going to have corruption regardless of whether or not you have public funding or whether you have private funding. Uh it's it's more I think in terms of human nature. If you're going to have people who are going to be corrupted by money, uh they're going to be corrupted by a number of other things and I don't think that uh saying that if we go entirely to public funding they won't be corrupt. Which they're going to have some corruption. Um and yeah, we just can't do anything about that. I would I would look more toward uh decreasing the overall limits of contributions and making certain that uh the there's more disclosure, talked about the more disclosure, a lot of a lot of states have what they call, for example, the last minute contributions under the current system for example, there's 15 days prior to the primary and the general election which we don't have any ideas to what contributions are being made. Many states, I think about 24 states have what they call last minute contributions that any contributions over a certain amount, let's say $1,000 have to be reported within 24 hours. We we can devise different ways to make them certain that uh uh there's more disclosure and better disclosure of contributions that come in.
[00:24:30] Randall Roth: Bob, what what's your response to the criticism that that your office and and you in particular I think on occasion have have received. Uh I've been out of town, but I'm told in the last week or so in the press uh candidate for governor Linda Lingle has been critical of some things that that your office has been doing. Uh what's your reaction to that criticism?
[00:24:33] Bob Watada: I don't agree with it at all. The um particular formula that's used for distributing public campaign has been uh out there, it was uh due to a law change in 1995, we uh apply that particular formula in formula 1996 and we're continuing to apply that formula 1998. It does mean less money for the uh governor's race in terms of public funding, but that is our interpretation of the law and uh a very clear reading of the law tells you that that's the way it should be interpreted. So, now attorneys can look at a law and say, well, you know, we interpreted another way and that's possible. People can interpret a different way, but um I think that we've interpreted it in a way that's fair, uh reflects the legislative intent.
[00:25:37] Randall Roth: So you obviously would would argue strongly that you and and your office is not partisan, that it's not biased, partial, that it's uh calling it the way it sees it.
[00:25:49] Bob Watada: We go out of our way to make certain that we don't get involved in the partisan political politics. We want to make certain that our only concern is to administer the law exactly as it's written.
[00:26:01] Randall Roth: Okay. Bob uh if you can stick around and and perhaps we'll we'll need to go back to you if a question is asked that relates to what your commission is doing, why uh we'll perhaps be getting back to you later in the in the hour.
[00:26:13] Bob Watada: Okay, I'll be here.
[00:26:14] Randall Roth: Thank you. Uh again you're listening to the Price of Paradise Radio show. If you'd like to get in line to ask a question or make a comment about campaign finance reform here in Hawaii, our number is 955-8821. We'll go to our first caller, it's Sam Slom from Hawaii Kai, who was mentioned earlier in the program. Good morning, Sam.
[00:26:31] Caller: Aloha Randy and uh Janet and uh Ken, a very interesting program and Bob Watada, too. Uh just a couple comments. Uh since I'm now involved in this process, I think I have a few things that I can comment on. Uh first of all I think that the whole idea of the source of money really is a symptom rather than the cause of the problem, and I think Ken put his finger on it. We're talking about the favors that governor that the government gives out the scope of uh those favors and the fact that people become dependent on government. And uh trying to reform that through initiative referendum recall and term limit is uh not a passive uh answer to it. The problem I think is is further uh uh exaggerated here by the fact that we have less than 50% of the people that are eligible to be registered to vote that don't even register and don't vote. So you've got a very small group of people that are doing that. Then you have the two major political parties making all of the rules, then you have the campaign spending commission that as Bob Watada just said, uh is subject to interpretation. Anybody that could have interpreted the anti linda lingle bill uh that made uh campaign uh spending retroactive to January 1st as originally proposed um uh knows that that was not just uh interpretation, that was to protect the incumbent to protect the status quo. Uh the latest uh change in the formula that was proposed, Mr. Watada said that that was the legislative intent and yet three legislators came out who were involved in drafting that legislation, they said very clearly that was not our intent. We made it clear in the can in the uh committee reports. So the whole process here, I think that if Janet got her way and of the uh the Green Party and the people that have championed this clean money from the beginning, it is a wonderful keep the incumbents in office bill and deflect the criticism from where it really belongs, and that is the idea that government is taking more and more of our money and spending it, or as they like to say, investing it, in areas and things that we would choose not to do, and that's why we're all having a hard time, harder time, you know, taking care of our families and our small businesses.
[00:28:35] Randall Roth: Let's uh give Janet Mason an opportunity to respond to that.
[00:28:39] Janet Mason: Well, first of all, um we know that people are already paying uh inter more indirectly for campaign uh costs through um not so hidden tax a not so hidden tax if you will on the cost of doing business here in Hawaii. We know that the Campaign Spending Commission receives complaints from businesses large and small about um this request for uh donations to different campaigns. We're simply uh strongly in favor of removing the candidates' dependence on such private contributions by by putting it into public financing. It's it's a little illogical that we don't pay for campaigns uh through public financing because primary and general elections are part of the Democratic process and if we have a system designed to give all voters an influence over who will run for office, then why not spread the cost of this among the public. Government pays for other functions, schools and and uh police protection and so forth. Is there really anything more important in a democracy than paying for elections designed to identify who should govern us? I don't think so.
[00:29:35] Ken Schoolland: Okay. Ken Schooland. I think Sam Slom is an excellent example of a of a politician who has turned down the campaign contributions and it can be done. People can can look for it. He I he not only rejected campaign contributions during his election but turned down the matching funds that he qualified for during the election. He was outspent uh 10 to 1 during that race and yet won by 2 to 1 uh even since then. He's refused to hold any fundraising dinners, so I uh any uh any and turns back all of the contributions that he receives. Uh here's a guy that has been that represents the kind of uh character that uh people will say that they want in elections and all they have to do is just do it. But that the current system has produced that particular example. In other words, you don't have to change anything in order for that to have happened once. Is there some reason why it doesn't happen more than once that somebody who's greatly outspent ends up winning.
[00:31:01] Bob Watada: Well, that happens a a a a lot, I think because people often aren't aware. I think that it's very valuable the kinds of things the League of Women Voters and Common Cause and uh Price of Paradise do in educating the voters and and informing them about the uh uh the role of politics uh the role of influence peddling in politics to make them more aware of it.
[00:34:35] Ken Schoolland: I I haven't been just advocating doing nothing. I've suggested it uh uh as Sam also mentioned uh these uh ideas of initiative referendum recall, uh increasing ballot access, for example. Uh things that were League of Women Voters and Price of Paradise and both will be and accused in the past of discriminating uh against third parties, new parties uh in favor of uh the Democrats and Republicans in their presidential debates or not presidential debates but in their campaign debates. Um these are the kinds of things that uh these are the kinds of things that could give us a uh uh considerably uh improved access uh for people. And you don't have to require the taxpayers to pay for this. Requiring the taxpayers to pay for it shows them disrespect rather than the respect they deserve as the ones you're trying to help.
[00:35:25] Randall Roth: Okay. Um, I think we may have lost Sam. No, I'm still here. You're still there. Sam you've got a matter of seconds to put a cap on this and then we'll go to another call. Okay, fine. You know it's harder to lose me than than you thought.
[00:35:38] Caller: uh just uh just a couple things, with all due respect to Janet, the government doesn't pay for anything, any of those services she was talking about. It appropriates the funds uh from the public and then appropriates uh things like Wahiawa softball stadiums and uh Orangutan Sanctuaries and Miss Universe Pageants and says it's all in our name. I think that the public that is smart enough to elect the kinds of people that they've elected, are even smarter to take care of themselves, and I think that's what we should be doing, and we should also require that people ask the right questions of candidates before they're elected, not how much money they're getting and certainly not where they went to high school, who they're related to or who they're married to or or what military unit or football team. Where do they stand on the issues that are important on education, on workers comp, on privatization and taxation, then we'll improve the system. Sam, thanks for your call. Appreciate it.
[00:36:28] Randall Roth: Brian on a cell phone. Brian, are you there? Yes, sir, I am. I thank you for waiting patiently. You're on.
[00:36:34] Caller: Thank you and it's another interesting uh program Randy. Um, I I tend to agree with both Ken and I and the previous caller who sounded suspicious of me like Sam Slom. Well, but anyway, I would like to first of all challenge a myth. Uh the myth that I believe the uh campaign spending reform movement is based on or one of them anyway, is that money buys votes. Uh a few weeks ago, you had a uh participant on your program by the name of John Lott from the University of Chicago. Uh John Lott has conducted a study uh I think it was about a year or a year and a half ago on this very issue and what they did is they they uh they studied the voting records of uh a fairly significant number of uh U.S senators and United States Congressmen, both before and after their announcement to retire. And the idea was that if the money made a difference in how they voted, then once they made their announcement that they were going to retire and identified themselves as lame duck office holders, that their voting then would reflect their true conscience because now they could be free to vote the way they really felt. What they found was that there was absolutely no difference and the conclusion of the John Lott study was
[00:38:00] Randall Roth: that money seeks out individuals and flows to individuals who are supportive of the donor's views rather than trying to convince people who have a philosophical difference to vote against their conscience. That's the first point I'd like to make. The second is, I think it would be worthwhile to take a look at where the the main support for the idea of campaign spending reform is coming from, and who the main supporters are, because those are the people that are most likely to benefit. For the from the change, if any. And my my contention is that the main supporters of this is the press.
[00:38:43] Randall Roth: And I believe that their motive is that the the print media has been stripped and deprived of a of a fair amount of its influence in the political process, particularly in the campaigns, because of the importance of television currently in television campaigning where that's where the money is going. That's where candidates go, particularly on the national level to spend their campaign money and the press would like to see that influence in the those funds returned to to the press.
[00:39:17] Ken Schoolland: Brian, uh, let me ask Janet Mason to to respond to that. And and Janet, I know I read something um some place a long time ago, and it's kind of fuzzy in my mind right now, but it was suggesting that if we do limit what can be contributed to candidates and and if we limit what candidates can spend, that somehow or another, uh, that gives a disproportionate amount of power to to the media in general and the and the press in particular, that uh they can have a bigger impact on an election than what they currently can have. Do you see merit to to what Brian is is suggesting?
[00:39:54] Janet Mason: I think Brian is correct in identifying the media as a critical influence in today's campaigns. But what I think uh isn't correct is that uh you you can remove the money issue as a difference between candidates. Our own uh research on the last legislative uh race indicated that if a candidate could stay within the two to one under the two to one spending differential, incumbent or challenger, the odds were virtually even that one or the other could prevail, meaning money was no longer a predetermining factor. This is the basic equality of opportunity that we're after.
[00:40:40] Janet Mason: We think right now, it's it's virtually impossible for somebody without money or access to private money to enter into say a primary campaign and win.
[00:40:54] Ken Schoolland: I'd say that the uh in if everybody has to uh spend just the same amount, of course, um I don't mind if they choose that that route through a voluntary system, but it does uh tend to give a tremendous advantage to incumbents because incumbents already have extraordinary name recognition. They already have an office that commands the public uh the the media attention daily uh with every pronouncement. They already have a staff at their disposal to do all their research. They have a a a campaign experienced campaign staff that already has a database for who the uh fundraisers are. They can very quickly adapt to that. They know the rules.
[00:41:30] Ken Schoolland: Challengers uh on the other hand don't know the rules. They're getting used to them. They don't have the uh the database, they don't have the the ready access to the media. In other words, the media does gain an extraordinary influence in this kind of system uh because they can decide who they focus on and they can decide uh what the issues are going to be through their news programs or through their editorial programs. And they don't then have to um give the the alternative to um to uh paid advertising.
[00:41:59] Ken Schoolland: Keep in mind that very often political movements from the grassroots have had to rely on very big money donations in order to challenge the incumbents as Eugene McCarthy did in 1968. He could not have mounted a campaign at all without about six uh major uh donors that contributed to his campaign and allowed him to show well against Lyndon Johnson and bring uh a challenge to the Vietnam War at the time. These kinds of challenges wouldn't be possible under the under the election laws today.
[00:42:29] Ken Schoolland: Okay. Well, you're listening to the Price of Paradise radio show. My name's Randy Roth. I'm with uh Janet Mason and Ken Schoolan in the studio, and Bob Watada has been with us by phone. We're talking about campaign finance reform in Hawaii. Um, if you'd like to get in line to ask a question or make a comment, our number is 955-8821. Our next caller is Tracy from McCully. Good morning, Tracy.
[00:42:52] Caller: Hi. Uh, yeah, it's Tracy Ryan. And I wanted to make four points and I will try to make them quickly. Um, first of all, I think that the the focus on the money that's involved in politics is actually looking at the wrong end of the problem. I think the actual problem is that the government has much too much power and I think it's the power that the government has which is the corrupting influence, not the money. The money is more of a a form of tribute almost to the power. And if you look at what happens with incumbents from the day they enter office, people start donating money to their next campaign.
[00:43:28] Ken Schoolland: Tracy, you're going to have to cover your other three points a little bit more quickly.
[00:43:31] Caller: Okay. Uh and I think that for that reason the incumbents have too much of a of an advantage. Uh challengers need to be able to raise money in large amounts. They need the bigger donors in order to have a chance if you're ordinary person running from the community. Uh this idea of the of the clean money or the the the large amounts of money that would be all available to challengers is probably a good uh alternative to that but in lieu of that, they need to have the the high limits in order to raise their money quickly.
[00:43:57] Caller: And the last point, of point four is that I think we really need to talk a lot more about having open elections so that all sorts of people from the community would have the same legal right to run for office as the current members of the Democrats and Republicans have. And we would do that by having ballot access for minority parties and for independent candidates which we do not have now.
[00:44:18] Caller: And we would do that by looking at changing the district residency requirements so that people might not have to be a resident of the district they were running for, so that we wouldn't have all these unopposed candidates running because there's no one in their district wants to run for that office.
[00:44:32] Ken Schoolland: Okay. Let me get a reaction to what Tracy has said from uh Janet Mason, who's the vice president of the League of Women Voters of Honolulu. Janet.
[00:44:39] Janet Mason: Well, it's it's um it's hard to imagine breaking the current way of doing business in elections without drastically limiting the amount spending spent on elections. We know pretty conclusively that the public is unhappy with the amount of money spent on elections. They don't want to spend that much money. And uh so so it is all the uh reform efforts Tracy mentioned are important, but uh a limit on the total amount spent is essential to reform.
[00:45:14] Ken Schoolland: If I could, I'd like to come in about the importance of ballot access. Currently in um across the country, it is easier uh for a party in Russia or in South Africa to get on the ballot in those newly democratized uh countries than it is in the United States. And Hawaii has one of the worst records of all according to Ballot Access News. Um, Hawaii has the most restrictive barriers to entry for new parties. It it is one of five states that doesn't even allow allow a write-in uh balloting which sometimes elects candidates.
[00:45:46] Ken Schoolland: Ken, what do you say to those people who insist that especially in a complex society such as ours, that you need uh major political parties to to help harmonize and mediate narrow interests, that if you didn't have these parties, you'd have many, many, many candidates, uh most of whom would be running just on abortion or just on gun control or just on whatever their key issue might happen to be. And wouldn't that be more chaotic than what we have now where major parties are forced to to harmonize and mediate the way, at least in theory, they do?
[00:46:19] Ken Schoolland: You know, in the Soviet Union they always talked about how important it was to harmonize the activities of the political interests by putting them through a single coordinating entity. I very much fear that kind of coordination. I would much more trust the the people to have wide open access to ideas and and challengers uh with all kinds of candidates running. I mean cur 100 years ago, on average, every congressional race in the country had at least two candidates. On average, they they had on average about four candidates per race. Now that's four candidates per race.
[00:46:53] Ken Schoolland: Now we have half as many people running, uh uh on average for congressional races and about 1/9th out of the races have no challengers whatsoever. And so we don't have a a shortage of access. We have uh I mean we don't have an an an abundance or overabundance of access. We have a a tremendous shortage of access.
[00:47:11] Janet Mason: Uh this this is an interesting point. Um with a system of uh reformed campaign financing, what would the role of the major political parties be? We think there's still a very important role for the parties in identifying and recruiting uh qualified candidates, especially in developing the party platform, their agenda. But uh we do not think it is appropriate that either political party continued to be used as a conduit for special interest money.
[00:47:47] Ken Schoolland: But under your proposal, the the soft money option for for parties is still there.
[00:47:53] Janet Mason: That that's true, but we we would like to work on specific on closing that gap. Well No No system is perfect. No nothing is going to take care of all the problems. What we are primarily trying to do is improve access to being a candidate for someone who does not have wealth. We want to remove the wealth barrier to being a participant in the political process. And we want to remove completely the situation where a candidate is dependent on special interest private money to launch a campaign.
[00:48:29] Ken Schoolland: That was the intention behind the Federal Election uh Act in 1974. Uh the stated intention and the claim of it was that it was going to eliminate uh uh this kind of control of special interest money but all it did was did it shifted it all through the political parties and they've used it on a much much greater scale. Uh people like George Bush used 200 million dollars of taxpayer funding uh to fund his career over the years.
[00:48:57] Ken Schoolland: Uh recently by Bill Clinton has been uh at the peak of a huge mountain of cash that came in uh not only was the the the taxpayer required to pay uh 60 million dollars for each of their campaigns and then 12 million dollars for their political parties, uh but on top of it, they got all of the money that was funneled indirectly through the through the um through the parties and soft money.
[00:49:19] Ken Schoolland: That isn't stopped by your your proposal, it's not going to stop the money. The money is still going to find ways to the politicians and they will just um use it in a way that it will help the parties to control the candidates rather than to allow them to be independent of the parties.
[00:49:35] Janet Mason: The soft money problem is real and it's very serious. Uh there's no perfect solution to uh the influence of voters in a democracy. But we don't think that means we shouldn't do anything about particular aspects of campaign finance ri that that can be addressed.
[00:49:53] Ken Schoolland: But the the problem with doing something that doesn't work gives people the illusion that something is being done. And secondly, it compels taxpayers to finance the promotion of candidates against their will that they don't believe on, it leaves them less resources to devote to the people that they do believe in, the people who can challenge the incumbents. This is Randy Roth and I've been fascinated by this exchange. This is what we like to call lively and inform uh dialogue.
[00:50:19] Ken Schoolland: Um we're going to go. We've got a couple more callers who have been waiting patiently, and I want to be sure to leave time for each of you to sum up your thoughts and we'll also hear from Bob Watada again. Dick from Iaea. Good morning, Dick.
[00:50:29] Caller: Yes, great show. Uh, they miss one basic thing and that is a tension between public service or being other centered and personal need or perhaps greed or self-centered. And in the old days, the business interest controlled the legislature through their staff, and then came lawyers who were elected and they got their great legal contracts. And nowadays, it's contributions or it's who you work for. And but I do think, first of all, every elected official initially is motivated to serve. They get tempted and perhaps corrupted as they move up the power ladder and attract better things, either jobs or contracts or commissions. I do think, however, most legislature are honest.
[00:51:17] Caller: They do have their needs, and I think the best solution is full disclosure, say stopping off any contribution two weeks say before election, and have it publicized who and what are their sources of fees and income and and power. And then let the voters decide because that is the beauty of democracy. The voters have the final say.
[00:51:41] Ken Schoolland: Okay. Keep it transparent, right?
[00:51:43] Caller: Right, above board.
[00:51:44] Ken Schoolland: Okay. Great. Thank you, Dick. Let's go to Julie in Diamond Head area. Good morning, Julie.
[00:51:49] Caller: Hello. Um, it's an interesting show. I just when I was listening to Sam Slom earlier and of course he's been lionized as his wonderful um ability to take very small amount of money and do the David and Goliath effect. Um, I always like to point out to audiences at large that um that Mr. Slom made out very well because there were quite a few people that put in advertising that were quote endorsements of him and his policy without being a paid for political endorsement per se. So he in actual fact got quite a bit of um unpaid for advertising at the time.
[00:52:24] Ken Schoolland: Julie, stay stay on the line. I want to broaden Julie's point out just a little bit. Some people say that that in non monetary ways, some candidates are are given a real big boost and and oftentimes the criticism is in the context of the impact that unions have that they can provide lots of individuals to to make lots of calls or whatever it might be that large numbers of people can be called upon to do. Whether it's the business community giving endorsements to a Sam Slom or it's uh members of a union uh pulling together behind a a Brian Connell or what have you. Uh what about this non monetary aspect, uh Janet Mason?
[00:53:04] Janet Mason: Well, um interestingly, the league is in favor of being able to provide in kind services as part of campaign financing things like uh donations of printing or time. But we do feel that say uh contributions of time should be valued in the same way that you would value a cash contribution. But we don't have any problem with the idea of indirect financing through uh means other than cash.
[00:53:32] Janet Mason: Uh once again, our our main concern is removing the undue influence of a small number of large private donors and leveling the playing field so that someone who is interest has is a good potential candidate can break into what is now a pretty chaotic and uh wealth barrier type system.
[00:53:56] Ken Schoolland: Yeah, I'm puzzled by what the accusation is here. Uh uh endorsements are a matter of um individuals right to free free speech to express opinions about who they like and dislike. And if it's suggesting that um that he benefited uh personally from this well, sure, of course anybody would benefit by an endorsement. But he's the uh president of Small Business Hawaii, an organization of some 3,000 uh small businesses in town. His salary doesn't change by these advertisements, so I don't understand where the benefit lies. Let's go back to Julie and get her reaction to that.
[00:54:29] Caller: Okay. Um the reason why I'm bringing this up though, is because I just like people to take into the full gamut of the questions to stop the idea of David and Goliath. In other words, to reduce it so that maybe the giant wasn't as big. And um the reason why I'm saying that is because I actually helped them do that. I'm not saying it in terms of being a criticism of it, I'm just pointing out that those things occur.
[00:54:50] Caller: Oh, yes, certainly I So so I'm not actually my point of view is not want to criticize per se, but to point out that those things occur in this particular mix that we have, and those are things to be aware of. And the other thing I wanted to say is hopefully people out there will all see Bullworth because quite frankly, I enjoyed it and it does say quite a bit of what's going on, regardless of that other uh quote poll that a Mr. was you say Watt or something like that said that that incumbents when they announce their retirement, uh they don't change their voting patterns.
[00:55:21] Caller: Um I'm not so sure that I'd really love to see how that particular uh uh data was really put together into what degree that they were um putting that over a period of time, etcetera. I mean that needs to be looked at closely. Thank you very much.
[00:55:37] Ken Schoolland: Thank you for your call. Uh you know when John Locke was doing that study, I talked to him just briefly about his uh sense of what's going on in Hawaii as compared to what's going on in the other 49 states. And he was just blown away by the amount of money that was contributed to the three major gubernatorial candidates uh in our last gubernatorial election. And the number of times people would contribute to uh more than just one candidate for the office compared to other states. He said that's that's not the norm.
[00:56:04] Ken Schoolland: We're down to the last uh eight or nine minutes and I want to give Bob Watada, who is the executive director of the Hawaii Campaign Spending Commission, uh a minute or two to share his thoughts about what he's listened to and then we're going to give our guests in the studio an opportunity to close um with some parting comments. First, Bob Watada.
[00:56:22] Bob Watada: Randy, thank you very much. Um, I've enjoyed this particular dialogue that you're having. I think that it's very important and I think that uh Hawaii Public Radio should be uh complimented on the fact that you're bringing campaign finance out in the open to try to get some dialogue on it. Um, one of the thoughts that uh strikes me bit, of course, what Dick said that that we have a democracy uh and in a democracy, things are not going to be perfect. But you know, we have to keep working at it to try to make it better. And um I don't think there's a perfect solution to campaign spending reform.
[00:57:00] Ken Schoolland: look at the various aspects that we've talked about today. Um, the most recent discussions are independent expenditures. The law doesn't provide for any limits on independent expenditures. Uh there's no limit on how much volunteers you can have, and maybe that's the way it should be. I'm not certain, but um you know, what's important, of course, is that we have this kind of public dialogue to talk about what is best and and work toward uh a better solution.
[00:57:29] Randall Roth: Okay. Bob, thank you for participating this morning.
[00:57:32] Ken Schoolland: You're very welcome.
[00:57:33] Randall Roth: We've got uh a couple minutes for each of you. Um, Janet, do you want to start and share any parting thoughts that haven't been mentioned yet or to emphasize some things that are so central to what this conversation's all about that they bear repeating?
[00:57:48] Janet Mason: Well, one thing that we we both seem to agree on actually is that campaigns are too expensive. Um, maybe there is a little less agree less agreement about uh the influence of special interest. From the League's point of view, special special interest, which which are providing most of the private money which finances uh campaigns, are are too great. We want uh good candidates without money or connections to special interests to have a fair chance of competing for office. And we think politicians who are in office spend too much time raising campaign money instead of devoting their full energies to the duties of public office.
[00:58:32] Janet Mason: What's at stake is making democracy work, whether election to office will be based on the views and the merits of the candidates and not on who's the best fundraiser.
[00:58:43] Randall Roth: Why is it, do you suppose, the law hasn't been changed in the right direction yet? In other words, as you mentioned, this has been a problem for many many many many years and there have been changes along the way that most people would recognize as as positive changes. What is it in the system that seems to prevent the kind of wholesale change? Because even you have described your proposal as a step in the right direction. What is it that's preventing us from achieving the best system possible?
[00:59:14] Janet Mason: The current players have become dependent on their source of financing their campaigns. I think if you had to pick out one reason, that's it. Uh let's cut it out. Let's uh break this cycle of, you know, enormous uh sums of money being spent on uh political campaigns when we have other more uh pressing problems facing us in Hawaii. We're not very optimistic at the league that the solution to campaign finance reform will come from Washington, D.C. We think the kind that it's going to take sustain kind of grassroots uh efforts on the part of groups like the league uh to to cause such a change. But we know that other important uh changes like uh women's suffrage or child labor laws, these things took time, but eventually uh groups were successful.
[01:00:14] Randall Roth: And here in Hawaii, change will come from the capital, I suppose you would say, only when the people make it so obvious that it's in the best self-interest of the legislators to do so.
[01:00:23] Janet Mason: Exactly. We don't think that uh most uh elected officials want to be doing their public duties under the uh cloud of uh being compromised.
[01:00:35] Randall Roth: Okay. Ken Skullen, you've got a couple minutes to close.
[01:00:37] Ken Schoolland: I I'm not uh particularly concerned about the total amount of money that's spent on campaigns. After all, you across the country, the total amount of money that is spent was spent in the last election was about the same as the actually less than the country's spent on potato potato chips. Um, but I am concerned about the way it is spent because it buys extraordinarily greater amount of money in terms of the tax spend and regulatory favors the government has to hand out, worth trillions. And that's what I uh is of course the the greatest concern to me. I want to see people turning to government less and less for uh for uh uh for and even the constituents asking government to do things for them as in this proposal. Uh and it's better they do things uh by themselves and for themselves in a free society, and then politicians won't have any power to sell. They won't be able to get any bribes because nobody will will find it worthwhile to pay them.
[01:01:34] Ken Schoolland: Now, with the regard to my most important point on on the uh campaign financing thing, uh I I look across the table here and see Janet as a very nice person, a very friendly person, and I know that she wouldn't personally go to her neighbor and try to use uh or threaten violence against the neighbor in order to get her neighbor to fund things that she believed in. And in the same regard, I I would find that it's um um I I I I find it sad that Janet would ask a politician to essentially do this for her. Um and uh that the people who are advocating compulsory financing through tax funding is actually asking again what Thomas Jefferson said to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves is sinful and tyrannical. And I even refer you to one more statement of Thomas Jefferson that that he's always recognized a solution for us, that government is best which governs least. When we can recognize that, uh the more likely we are to have a cleaner government.
[01:02:17] Randall Roth: to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves is sinful and tyrannical. And I even refer you to one more statement of Thomas Jefferson that what he's always recognized a solution for us, that government is best which governs least. When we can recognize that, uh, the more likely we are to have a cleaner government. He also said the price of liberty is eternal vigilance.
[01:02:40] Ken Schoolland: That's right.
[01:02:40] Randall Roth: We twisted that a little bit into the price of paradise is eternal vigilance. So I want to thank Janet Mason, the Vice President of the League of Women Voters of Honolulu and Ken Skoolen, Associate Professor of Economics and Political Science at HPU, along with Bob Watada, who's the Executive Director of the Hawaii Campaign Spending Commission for being with us this morning talking about campaign finance reform in Hawaii. Our sponsor is the Hawaii Community Foundation, our producer Suzy Roth, our technical wizard is Jeff Alardy. Next week we're going to be talking about the Civil Rights Commission here in Hawaii.
[01:03:13] Randall Roth: I think a lot of people know that, uh, a few weeks ago it hit the son of Riley Wallace and the University of Hawaii with some real big fines because of something that was said during a basketball game. That's one of a lot of controversial decisions that have come from our Civil Rights Commission over the last few years. We're looking forward to that conversation. You've been listening to the Price Paradise Radio Show. I'm Randy Roth. Aloha.