Richard Wiens: using excess budget funds to finance overdue government reform

Those who still oppose major reforms to state government just lost one of their favorite excuses: We can’t afford it.

It turns out we can.

In a general fund financial plan obtained by Civil Beat and expected to be released later this month, Gov. Josh Green’s administration projects surpluses of $1 billion for the next four fiscal years and surpluses even more important subsequently.

This is despite the largest income tax cut in state history and ongoing costs from the Maui wildfire disaster.

Large surpluses are no excuse for spending public money recklessly, but they certainly shed new light on the financial feasibility of much-needed measures to improve government in Hawaii.

Simply put: if you oppose these reforms, state your real reasons and stop pretending that the budget is just too tight.

We’re talking about revolutionary changes, like full public funding of viable political campaigns and converting the Legislature into a permanent body.

The costs of these changes could run into tens of millions of dollars. The reward: a state government run by the will of the people rather than special interests and a legislature that makes its decisions in public rather than behind closed doors.

But we’re also talking about adequately funding the commissions that oversee election spending and ethics laws. The additional spending required here is much lower, but still crucial in terms of good governance.

Stop starving the commission on campaign expenses

Let’s start with the little guys. Unfortunately, this description applies to the Hawaii Campaign Spending Commission, even though it plays a major role in political transparency.

The commission’s workforce, made up of five full-time employees, is the same as when it was created in 1973, despite an ever-increasing workload. It currently tracks 751 active campaign committees, including 488 candidate committees and 263 non-candidate committees (PACS, super PACs, and ballot measure groups).

Last year, the CSC failed to convince the Green administration to include $200,000 in its supplemental budget proposal, and it is asking for it again this year.

The money would allow him to hire two additional employees, including an investigator.

“Like many other regulatory bodies, as part of our statutory functions we have a duty to investigate and we do not have an investigator. It’s pretty ridiculous,” says Kristin Izumi-Nitao, executive director of the SCC.

Another such agency, the National Ethics Commission, strongly supports CSC’s budget request.

“I see a critical need to increase the budget of the State Campaign Spending Commission,” said Robert Harris, executive director of the Ethics Commission.

His agency is also facing an increased workload with two new laws taking effect on January 1. One requires lobbyists to specifically describe the legislative or administrative action they are working on. The other requires lawmakers to report the names of lobbyists from whom they receive income.

But unlike the CSC, the Ethics Commission was recently authorized to increase its staff to 12 full-time people by appointing a full-time investigator and hiring a new analyst.

“This is sufficient to meet our current obligations, including new mandatory lobbying ethics and training requirements,” Harris says.

The Campaign Spending Commission is also making a larger financial request from the governor this year: $2 million for a new electronic filing system designed to make it easier for political committees to report their income and expenses, and for voters to see who receives money. Who.

The current system dates from 1980 and relies on “bandages,” explains Izumi-Nitao. Even though her staff can still operate the system, it would make sense to move to a modern system while the current staff is still there to ease the transition, she said.

“We really want to make it better and more user-friendly,” she says. “This is our commitment. And I think we’re seeing that become more and more difficult with the current infrastructure.

Making campaign finance information easy to provide and inspect by the public is at the heart of government transparency.

The governor has repeatedly said he supports reform. Making smart investments to improve the already strong work of the Campaign Spending Commission is a good way to prove it.

More expensive items

One of the key reforms needed to reduce the power of special interests and level the political playing field is a public campaign finance option for candidates who accept the spending cap. Incumbent lawmakers almost always win re-election, and that’s largely because they typically have far more campaign cash than their challengers.

Sen. Karl Rhoads said he would reintroduce a bill to do just that for the third straight session in January after it nearly passed in 2023 and was ambushed by a House committee in 2024.

Estimated price: $30 million per election cycle.

Many people have pointed out this cost and said Hawaii simply cannot afford a “clean elections” bill. In 2025, this will not be a valid reason to oppose it.

However, Rhoads says he also plans to introduce a less expensive measure for partial expansion of the public campaign finance system, which is so underfunded that only four candidates used it this year.

The CSC is also bringing back a partial expansion proposal next session, and Izumi-Nitao says the commission could handle the additional work related to its administration if it gets that $200,000 for staff increases.

Another major reform proposal includes converting to a full-time legislature. Leaders of the Senate and House of Representatives often cite tight deadlines to justify operating behind closed doors for the sake of expediency.

Rhoads co-sponsored a 2023 bill introduced by Sen. Stanley Chang, who described the Legislature’s current schedule as “four months of chaos.”

This would have required Parliament to meet at least once a month and would also have prohibited lawmakers from holding other positions, reducing potential conflicts of interest. Rhoads’ Judiciary Committee even amended the measure so that the Legislature would finally be subject to the Sunshine Law, which guarantees open discussion of the people’s business.

The next step was the Ways and Means Committee, which ignored the measure to the death.

Although the bill would have proposed a constitutional amendment to allow voters to decide their fate, Rhoads says it’s also possible that the Legislature could dramatically change its timeline by changing the rules under which committees could be required to meet monthly, but in-person sessions would maintain the current limit. of 60 per year.

Whichever method is used, a year-round legislature would not necessarily be that costly, said Colin Moore, a political scientist at the University of Hawaii.

“Our legislators receive some of the most generous salaries in the country and enjoy relatively good staff support,” Moore wrote last year. “Additionally, most Hawaii lawmakers work year-round and relatively few have full-time careers outside of the Capitol.”

Moore’s conclusion: “Let’s get our money’s worth by asking them to meet monthly, rather than cram a year’s worth of work into 60 days of chaos.”

In reality, the conversion to run a legislature year-round will always cost more.

But a government that operates cleaner and more efficiently through these reforms will save us money in the long run.