The URL can be used to link to this page

Home My WebLink AboutCOM 0248.017 2008-2010 Page 1 of 2 Murashige, Laura From: Toni Schattauer [etoni@hawaii.rr.com] 2009 APR 9 Aft TO 90 Sent: Thursday, April 09, 2009 9:41 AM To: counciltestimony@co.hawaii.hi.us Subject: Testimony on Res 98-09 Toni Worst Schattauer P.O. Box 2300, Kealakekua, H1 96750 Home: (808) 322-3284 TESTIMONY on HAWAII COUNTY COUNCIL RESOLUTION 98-09 April 9, 2009 c/o County Clerk To: County Councilmembers, County of Hawai'i, State of Hawai'i Thank you for this opportunity to submit testimony on Resolution 98-09. 1 am opposed to this Resolution, which asks the State Legislature to pass HB 345 and postpone the comprehensive public funding pilot program for the County of Hawai'i Council Elections. The merits of this pilot program have long been debated and it shouldn't be postponed any longer, because 2008's Act 244 was enacted into state law precisely for the purpose of exploring and answering through experience some of the questions that your own resolution raises. When the 2010 pilot runs, we'll see how the program is used, how much it could cost, and if it indeed improves candidate and voter participation (which are outcomes and results easily tallied by the community from news reports of election results and turnouts). Re: funding questions in Reso 98-09 the monies for the pilot have already been specifically collected and set aside via the State tax return check-off system which annually asks the question of "we, the people": do we the people want our money to go to the public financing of candidates? And, year after year, taxpayers check "Yes!" and continue to build the Hawaii Election Campaign Fund (HECF). That money is not available for elected officials to spend for roads, or police, or teachers, or bridges, so the economic recession and General Fund budgetary problems are irrelevant to it. The pilot program money is already there and it's already there for one purpose: Public Financing of Elections. Hawaii County Council: please honor the public's ongoing and consistently expressed desire for public campaign funding by supporting a pilot program to study it. We do not know all the specifics for HI; that is certainly why it's a good reason to run the pilot program, but it's not a good reason to postpone it! (Let me give you a medical analogy: we don't know how much it's going to finally cost to cure cancer, either; but, that doesn't mean we stop running scientific trials to cure it, not even during recessions.) If there are any funding considerations to be included with your reso, I would respectfully ask that you amend it to read: "We ask the Legislature to consider that as much as $760,000 could be spent in a pilot to test public funding; therefore, please allocate from the HECF an adequate amount to fully and successfully run this pilot." We know the money is already there, because we the people have allocated it to be there: there is currently $5.5 million in the dedicated Fund, so it is disingenuous to bring up the current economic recession as a reason to kill the pilot. Money for the pilot is a NON-ISSUE. And, experience in other states with public funding says that not every candidate can qualify in the program; statistics in Arizona indicate averages of just 1.17 qualified candidates per race, in primaries. In some of our races recently, we get ZERO candidates contesting the incumbent, which is a pretty poor imitation of democracy. One of the significant outcomes in other states with Clean Elections is that there is more candidate Comm. No. ;q 8 . 1 -1 Ref. To: Palcaawl 4/9/2009 Ref. Date APR 13 2U09 Page 2 of 2 participation. Voters deserve to have a REAL choice of candidates. Again: the pilot will test that for Hl. Regarding the abuses seen in other states with public funding, every system results in abuse. What is important to note about the abuses, is that they were identified, stopped, and punished. Again: the pilot would test for abuse, and provide important information how to prevent it. With voter skepticism at a continual all-time high, it will be hard for HI candidates who opt to use Public Funding to get voters to give $5 and sign their name, but when they do, we would actually have more engaged and involved voters. That represents a valuable civil asset: informed and engaged voters. Is our democracy better served by hoarding the $5.5 million HECF in a bank account, or by investing some of it to test how proposals on how to strengthen our electorate, include more voters and candidates, and build our democratic institutions? If voters feel their vote actually doesn't count in politics as much as special interest contributions do, that their voice doesn't really matter because it all really boils down to the money race and who can give the most money to candidates, regular citizens will increasingly opt out of democratic participation. Disenfranchisement, alienation and an "I don't give a damn" is not where we want our community members to be. In our most recent General Election, where our own locally-born "son of Hawai'i", Barack Obama, competed for and won the Presidency of the United States, our State of Hawaii tied for DEAD-LAST in eligible voter participation out of all the States, with just slightly over 50% of our eligible voters participating. Based on that, how can anyone here say that our Hawaii voter turnout is anything but tragically pathetic? We need to be doing more to bring voters back into the system. A significant positive outcome in other states with a Voter-Financed Option has been increased voter participation. Again, the pilot will test that for HI. I've run for office in Hawai'i, I've lobbied for important issues in Hawai'i, I've studied politics and democratic processes. So I'm well-aware of the power and necessity of threshold money in campaigns and in lobbying, and I've seen the inherent power of incumbency. I would hope that you are all confident enough about your Council abilities and contributions that you believe you could easily be re-elected in 2010 using an appropriate amount of public funds from the pilot, or conversely, fairly use your privately-raised funds to withstand an electoral challenge from a publicly-funding candidate. Similarly, I would hope this reso isn't some kind of end- run "incumbency protection program for 2010-2014". We want citizens to be well-informed when they step in the voting booth. Information costs money to disseminate. This should be publicly-available information, because these are public elections and public campaigns. If we the people pay for it, we own it. "Of the people, by the people, for the people." These are OUR ELECTIONS! Full Public Financing, if enacted throughout the state, would be the reform to enable all other reforms, and could actually alter the political landscape by encouraging alternative voices and perspectives into our democratic institutions. It could free elected officials from the necessity of constantly fundraising for their re-elections, and it would place citizens and their votes on an even playing field with Big Money special interests in the legislative process. The 2010 pilot is the first step, and will provide important programmatic experience about how to improve the democratic processes of Hawai'i. Please support it. Respectfully submitted, Toni Worst Schattauer, M.A. Political Science 4/9/2009