Today I downloaded the database containing contributions to Hawaii noncandidate committees between January 1, 2008 and December 18, 2021. It’s available for download at https://opendata.hawaii.gov/.
State law defines a noncandidate committee:
“Noncandidate committee” means an organization, association, party, or individual that has the purpose of making or receiving contributions, making expenditures, or incurring financial obligations to influence the nomination for election, or the election, of any candidate to office, or for or against any question or issue on the ballot….”
The category includes corporations, unions, and political action committees. As you will see, it also includes groups like ActBlue which process earmarked contributions to candidates.
After downloading, I loaded the file into Filemaker, a database app that I use on my MacBook Pro. After a bit of eyeballing the data, I decided to see which committees took in the most money over the three year period from 2019-2021, which included the 2020 election and the run-up to this year’s election.
The database lists all the contributions received, which are primarily transfers of funds from their parent or related organizations, and I’ve included a count of the number of contributions received. The ones showing high counts are traditional political action committees which solicit contributions from members or affiliated donors.
Here’s a list of the top noncandidate committees ranked by total contributions received.
The top ranked committee, Hawaii Carpenters Market Recovery Program Fund PAC, actually paid out virtually all of its funds to another associated committee, “Be Change Now.”
To look up the campaign spending reports filed by any committee, just go over to the Campaign Spending Commisisson website.
And to go beyond the Top 40, here’s a full list of all reporting noncandidate committees. Again, this reflects contributions received between 2008 and December 18, 2021.
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The average donation to the carpenters PAC is almost $200,000, while the plumbers is about $100. The carpenters PAC apparently gets most of its money from the related fund, but where does that fund get its money?
Are donations to the union funds voluntary?
I am shocked to see UHPA so high on the list!
We need another MEGA Category for Hawaii Billionaires, seeking huge influence.
As today’s announcement of Larry Ellison owner of Lana’i Island. Today gave a PAC associated with US (R) Senator Tom Scott $15 Million. When you add up communications assistance by FB Zuckerberg, or “O” Network Oprah Winfrey the total unreported value is immense.
Hawaii’s part time Billionaire / Oligarchs, residents, have insurmountable monetary power. Make old Big #5 Plantation owners look like small beans.
The Oligarchy have not yet, swayed local campaigns. But, it’s only a matter of money!
Union rank and file schmucks must LOVE dishing out dues all the time with a few fat honchos at the top determining how the money is spent and which family members to hire for six figure office “jobs”.
IAN, a cursory glance at this donor list reveals what might be expected in a strong Democratic state like Hawaii. I see mostly unions, both private and public, a few big name corporations, and a smattering of political entities and parties. Considering how interwoven the labor movement is into Hawaii’s history, isn’t this to be expected?
(Although I am intrigued by No. 2 on the list “ActBlue Hawaii” and am not quite sure how to categorize that donation).
And I really don’t see anything inherently wrong with the donor list you downloaded because in the end I feel Hawaii voters don’t pay much attention to the radio and TV ads or mail pieces (just look at a condo mail room during election season and you will know what I mean) that much of these donations are going to pay for. What I think most local voters care about is the party identification of the candidate and their personal qualities.
But to really know if Hawaii is in-step or out, it would be interesting to run a similar download of another deeply Blue state like say, Vermont or Maine. And just for ducks, how about a deeply Red state like North Dakota or Wyoming to see how the donor list might look different.
It is odd to see ActBlue listed alongside clear special interests like the Carpenters Union and the Plumbers. ActBlue is an online fundraising platform that is used by Democratic candidates for crowdsourcing lots of small donations so each candidate does not have to set up their own means of receiving and recording donations.
It is like a GoFundMe or PayPal platform, but designed to collect information needed by the Federal Elections Commission. And it only makes the service available to Democrats. It was set up by a couple of the high tech whiz kids that helped Howard Dean raise lots of small donations to compete against the better-funded, more “Establishment” aligned Democrats when he ran for President in 2004.
So the money being reported here as coming from ActBlue, is a total of all the small donations raised using this payment platform by local Democratic candidates from state House, Senate, Congress, Governor and LG.
No ActBlue executives are seeking to sit down with the candidates who receive donations through them and asking for a quid pro quo.
I thought it was interesting to see how heavily it is used, and how widely adopted as a fundraising platform.