It took less than two weeks for the Intermediate Court of Appeals to issue a concise 13-page opinion upholding a Maui judge’s ruling rejecting the Campaign Spending Commission’s attempt to restrict corporations to a total of $1,000 in contributions to all candidates combined in any election.
The Intermediate Court found that the campaign spending law’s contribution limits are “clear and unambiguous” and allow “any person or entity” to contribute up to $4,000 to a candidate running for a four-year county office, while limiting contributions to noncandidate committees to $1,000.
Calling the commission’s interpretation of the law “convoluted”, the court said it could find nothing in the legislative history of the law that contradicts its decision that the law is straightforward and unambiguous.
The immediate result is that the corporations will be able to contribute up to the statutory limits to all candidates, with no overall restriction on how much a corporation can give in total to all candidates.
Supporters of campaign reform opposed a bill introduced in the 2009 legislative session that would have allowed corporations to give no more than $25,000 in total to all candidates combined. By rejecting that measure, reformers now face the prospect of the upcoming 2010 election without any limits on corporate money in place.
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… and every session, legislators have the opportunity to fix this once and for all, with a ban or a very low limit. Rep Berg offered a very clean amendment with the $1,000 cap at the end of last session. The legislature could easily pick up that same language and pass it. Will they try?
Don’t forget that HB128 passed last session: http://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/session2009/bills/HB128_CD2_.htm
It looks like it’ll become law w/o the Gov’s sig, but I’d say this alters the dialog substantially since it was written to clarify the $1000 cap. It also restates the reporting requirements that were the premise of requiring corporate contributors to register as noncandidate committees. This isn’t over yet.