Supreme Court Ruling Could End Public Financing Pilot in Hawaii
06/30/2011Candidates running for the Hawaii County Council next year likely won't be able to tap into "equalizing" public funds for their campaigns in light of this week's U.S. Supreme Court ruling on a similar Arizona law.
In a 5-4 ruling [pdf], the high court found that "Arizona’s matching funds scheme substantially burdens protected political speech without serving a compelling state interest and therefore violates the First Amendment."
Kristin Izumi-Nitao, executive director of the Hawaii Campaign Spending Commission, says the ruling will likely signal the end for a public financing pilot project approved by Hawaii lawmakers in 2008. That pilot program — separate from the 31-year-old statewide partial public funding program — offered full public financing to qualified candidates in the Hawaii County Council elections for 2010, 2012 and 2014.
Like Arizona's law, the idea was to provide extra public money to candidates who were being outspent by privately funded candidates and independent groups. The purpose was "to create a comprehensive public funding system that will offer a viable and competitive alternative to private funding sources, thereby substantially reducing or eliminating the deleterious effects of private financing," according to the 2008 measure, which became law without Gov. Linda Lingle's signature.
