Public disclosure of the amounts special interest lobbyists spend to influence public policy just isn’t taken seriously here in Hawaii.

First of all, reporting is sporadic at best, with only three reporting periods each year. Lobbyists, and those that employ them, are required to disclose their compensation and expenditures on March 31, May 31, and January 31 of each year, and within thirty days after adjournment sine die of any special session of the legislature.

It you are trying to utilize these data to track and attempt to counter undue influence of these monied interests, good luck. The relative lack of full and timely reporting results in a system rigged against the public interest, and in favor of lobbyists and those that employ them.

This week, I was working on something else that led me to the lobbyist disclosure section of the Washington State Public Disclosure Commission.

Some quick comparisons between Washington and Hawaii.

First, Washington lobbyists are required to file a monthly report as long as they are employed as a lobbyist, even if they are inactive during the month. Monthly disclosure. Imagine that! What a concept! Compare that to Hawaii’s three reporting periods for the year.

Second, the required disclosures in Washington are more detailed than anything required by the Hawaii lobbyist law, and include in one place contributions, expenditures, spending on subcontractors, campaign contributions made by the lobbyist or transmitted by the lobbyist to candidates or political action committees, etc., although I’m not sure whether there is more detailed reporting by lobbyists, or whether it is just packaged more comprehensively for online public inspection.

Third, their law covers executive branch lobbying of state agencies, including the governor’s office. Lobbyists are asked the amount of time spent lobbying the legislature, and lobbying the executive branch.

Fourth, Washington requires public agencies to disclose their state-level lobbying activities as wel

All state and local agencies, including individual state agencies, each state-funded university or college, and any county, city, town, municipal corporation, quasi-municipal corporation and special purpose district (e.g., school, port, water, sewer, fire, library, hospital, and public utility districts), that lobby at the state level are required to report their expenditures quarterly. An agency does not file the L5 expenditure report for a quarter if no lobbying occurred, unless the agency has a contract lobbyist on retainer.

Fifth, the Washington Public Disclosure Commission offers its data for download, although the data for download appear to be split up by year, and according to the way it is reported in summary tables online, reported separately for lobbyist, lobbying firm, employers of lobbyists, and public agencies. So the data can be downloaded, but it looks like it would take a bit of work to put the different pieces together to get an overall searchable database.

But here in Hawaii, the State Ethics Commission’s switch to a reporting system powered by Salesforce left the public out in the cold. The data sets, which were formerly available for download through the state’s data portal, are no longer available to the public.

And it’s depressing to note that Honolulu’s lobbyist disclosure is even less public friendly than the state’s system, even though the city and county are home to two-thirds of the state’s population.