After posting a link to yesterday’s entry here concerning contributions to Mayor Blangiardi’s campaign from members of the Sand Island Business Association, I was musing over on Facebook about campaign contributions in general, and I’ll repeat some of that here.
I’m not opposed to campaign fundraising. It’s one of those necessary tasks that helps to separate candidates that have an existing base of support from those that do not. I encourage people to support candidates of their choice, even if they hedge their bets by contributing to competing candidates. If more people contributed smaller amounts, then candidates wouldn’t have to look primarily to those with deep pockets for financial support, and political power wouldn’t be so skewed towards monied interests as opposed to voters interests.
So far, our courts have ruled that contributing to candidates is a form of free speech, and I agree with that for the most part.
The problem is that some of those deep-pocketed contributors want and expect more than just seeing their chosen candidates get elected and take office. They expect that their voices will be heard above the crowd by those they have supported, and qualify them or their special interests for favorable public policies.
Disclosure of contributors and what they have given, legal limits on contributions, and disclosure of the financial interests of public officials, provide some of the only ways for the public to hold those monied interests in check when they appear to have an unfair political advantage when asking for special treatment.
So filing that financial disclosure may seem like a somewhat insignificant task for a new mayor, but in the big picture of things, it’s a very important task that ultimately provides great potential benefits to the public.
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It’s interesting that freshman council member Radiant Cordero, who represents the district that includes Sand Island, didn’t seem to collect many contributions from the SIBA crowd but did draw from some of the usual political insiders, developers, and unions.
Not sure what that says. Maybe they didn’t support her. Maybe they believed they didn’t need to because she would do their bidding anyway.
But what’s also kinda interesting when you look at those campaign reports is that Cordero reported spending a total of $11,000 on campaign advertising with the Fil-Am Courier, the little newspaper published by her parents where she works as a editor. Probably perfectly legal but almost seems like self-dealing or money-laundering.
SIBA knows who can be bought cheaply and who needs more “encouragement” and development over years. She’s just starting out. Give her time.
IAN,
I haven’t heard very much noise from the “Clean Elections” folks in quite some time (for good reason, I always believed their methodology of matching funds was terribly flawed). Am I close by saying that left-leaning progressives have generally embraced the adage “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” when you consider how much money was raised by the left to successfully defeat Trump and Republicans?
And since you are on the topic of campaign contributions, I must say this new trend of political activists scowering campaign spending databases to see who donated to certain candidates in order to apply some “cancel” culture on them or their businesses is concerning. But then again, I guess a strong case could be made that what’s fair is fair and could go both ways.
Finally, like you I agree that contributions to candidates is a form of free speech, etc. But when you realize that so much of that money is used for lame television and radio ads, mail pieces that end up in the waste-bucket before their read, annoying robo calls, and signs and t-shirts, you have to wonder if old-fashioned 1800’s circus style electioneering will ever go away and evolve into something more modern and sophisticated. Or maybe our uniquely American style campaigns is what we are stuck with?
In the meantime, save your money for the next chili and rice fundraiser to be held in just a few short months only blocks away from the Hawaii State Capitol.
Accountability? In Hawaii? You’ve got to be kidding.