Tag Archives: Hawaii

Wednesday…More back and forth on campaign bills, and greet more Kaaawa morning dogs

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Campaign spending issues have drawn lots of interest.

Thanks to Bartman for his comment here yesterday. In case you missed it, he wrote:

You made a significant error in your discussion of the Big Island public funding bill. You wrote:

“But the commission points to a U.S. Supreme Court decision last year that found this kind of equalizing provision to be unconstitutional.”

This is not correct. It was a Federal court in Arizona which made the ruling. As Della Bellatti pointed out at the hearing, three other federal courts have found the equalizing funds mechanism to be constitutional. Neither the Ninth Circuit nor SCOTUS has weighed in yet.

While I usually agree with him, in this case I’ll take issue to some extent.

While the commission testimony did point to the Arizona case, it made clear that the underlying issue was the Supreme Court’s decision in Davis v FEC. Commission testimony is available online, and attaches the Arizona case being cited.

And that Arizona decision notes the Supreme Court cited a Minnesota case finding equalizing unconstitutional “approvingly while ignoring the conflicting opinions entirely.”

This means (to me, at least) that it would mischaracterize the current legal landscape to say simply that there are 3 courts approving of equalizing while just one court is disapproving, as Bartman seems to be saying.

Senator Les Ihara also responded in an email regarding HB 539 and corporate contributions.

It’s no mystery why good government groups want to keep corporations out of elections. The reasons have been stated in a recent US Supreme Court opinion (Federal Election Commission v. Beaumont), and are paraphrased below. The federal law prohibiting corporate contributions to candidates, directly or through a political action committee, is a constitutional law that seeks to:

• counter the appearance and reality of corruption;

• prevent corporate capital from unduly influencing politics and misusing corporate advantages;

• forestall a threat to political integrity from corporate contributions;

• prevent unfair corporate advantage in the political marketplace, such as incurring political debts from legislators;

• limit the use of corporations as conduits for circumventing contribution limits; and

• protect individual corporate funders from having their money used to support political candidates they oppose.

The supreme court also said the federal ban is not unfair to corporations, because individual members of corporations are still free to make their own contributions to candidates and to their company’s PAC (plus corporate PAC may receive donations from their officers, employees, and anyone else).

If passed in its current form, HB 539 would preempt an expected Hawaii Supreme Court opinion by clarifying a law the legislative believes is an ambiguous. However, good government activists believe the clarification should be made in favor of citizens, not corporations – by prohibiting corporate campaign contributions. The advocates believe corporations already have too much power, and wonder why they should be allowed even more influence.

LES IHARA, JR.

I don’t disagree with Ihara’s general viewpoint. I do disagree with his assessment that HB 539 would give corporations “even more influence.”

As I’ve argued earlier, the bill establishes a corporate spending limit of $25,000. Without the bill, they are currently allowed unlimited spending from corporate treasuries. In reality, HB 539 is a step towards the future he and advocates say they want. It doesn’t get us the whole way.

The question becomes: Do you reject a big move in the right direction because it doesn’t get you across the goal line? In my view, you keep the ball moving towards your goal and pick up political allies along the way. Others, apparently, disagree. It’s a matter of political judgement.

Anyway, testimony presented on HB 539 is now available.

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Monday…Burglary makes the news, Star-Bulletin owner’s debt ratings lowered

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Andy Parx over on Kauai called my attention to this little snippet in yesterday’s Star-Bulletin reporting, albeit briefly, on the outcome of our burglary story.

With the cutbacks and layoffs at Gannett’s Honolulu Advertiser, a lingering question has been how things are going down the street at the Star-Bulletin, owned by David Black’s Victoria, B.C.-based Black Press. It seems Black Press has run into the same financial storm as the rest of the industry, according to a series of downgrades of its outstanding debt by rating agency Standard & Poors.

On Jan. 23, 2009, Standard&Poor’s Ratings Services lowered its ratings on Black Press Ltd.’s senior secured bank financing (a C$55 million revolving credit facility, a C$63 million term loan A, a US$25 million term loan A-1, a US$140 million term loan B-1, and a US$85 million term loan B-2). We also revised the recovery ratings. We lowered the ratings on the senior secured bank facilities two notches to ‘B’ from ‘BB-‘ (the same as the corporate credit rating on Black Press). We also revised the recovery rating on the secured debt to ‘3’ from ‘2’, indicating our opinion as to an expected meaningful (50%-70%) recovery in the event of a payment default.

An Editor & Publisher blog cited S&P’s concern about Black’s debt stemming from his 2006 purchase of the Akron Beacon Journal, and quoted another part of the S&P report:

“The downgrade reflects our view of Black Press’ weakened credit protection measures and reduced financial flexibility stemming from lower EBITDA and higher debt levels,” Toronto-based S&P credit analyst Lori Harris said in a note.“Furthermore, we believe the impact of lower profitability and higher debt levels has resulted in the tightening of financial covenants. While management is taking steps to strengthen its operations and liquidity position, we believe that Black Press will remain challenged in fiscal 2010, largely because of difficult industry conditions.”

And how all this will trickle down into the Star-Bulletin newsroom remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, Sean Hao’s story in Sunday’s Advertiser on the companies receiving Act 221 tax credits is definitely worth checking out.

Still University of Hawai’i economics professor Sumner La Croix said the state should suspend the program because the costs far exceed the benefits.

“During these tough times this is the perfect place for the state to be cutting back,” said La Croix, who’s working on a study of the credits for the UH Economic Research Organization. “Yes we would lose a few more jobs, but these are jobs that are incredibly expensive. After looking at the companies that are receiving the (benefits of the) credit, I don’t see the spillover benefits on the rest of the community.”

Unfortunately, many companies now benefiting from the credits may not be sustainable without them, La Croix said.

“This is an industry that’s being built on foundations of sand,” he said.

Maybe newspapers need to declare themselves very high tech and get in on these tax credits before the program disappears.

But it’s hard to see how the tax credit program can survive this legislative session in its current form.

Thursday…Newspaper Guild ends Advertiser video strike, ‘Tiser property up for sale, Bumatai plans to return, and thinking about factors in public lack of interest in legislative races

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Reporters at the Honolulu Advertiser ended their video strike yesterday. In explaining the move, the Hawaii Newspaper Guild said the company had cooperated with the union by opening its books, implying that the end of the video strike was in essence a show of good faith by the union.

The Company opened its books to a CPA chosen by the unions of the Hawaii Newspaper and Printing Trades Council. The Company was cooperative with our CPA and it appears the Company’s condition is as it has said. Under these conditions, we believe we should no longer withhold voluntary participation in video productions.

Video and new internet technology is here in the industry and Guild members are encouraged to learn as much about the new technology as possible. It will be good for future resumes. And it will help the newspaper now.

The Guild also said it has been assured that there will not be retaliation against those who withheld their “voluntary” services.

And the Advertiser reported today that it is making yet another effort to sell off the bulk of it’s property at the corner of South Street and Kapiolani, including the old printing plant and parking lot. It would retain the existing news building that once housed both the Advertiser and Star-Bulletin.

Thanks to those who stepped up to let me know what’s going on with Night Time with Andy Bumatai. Ryan Ozawa sent me to an entry in his Hawaii Blog, and the Star-Bulletin’s Erika Engle pointed me to an item in her column, TheBuzz. Bottom line: Bumatai plans to bring the show back after the first of the year in a new format and location.

Let’s see. I should say something in response to Advertiser columnist and former Star-Bulletin managing editor Dave Shapiro, who started his “Volcanic Ash” column yesterday by pointing to “the lack of excitement” in legislative races, but quickly reverted to another replay of his stale critique blaming GOP losses on “incumbent Democratic legislators and the interest groups that support them”.

Let me suggest other reasons for the lack of excitement Dave is concerned about which translates in fewer candidates, fewer real choices, and further dampening of excitement.

At the top of my list would be the significantly reduced news coverage of the legislature and the county councils by the state’s largest newspapers and broadcast media. Although meetings of the legislature and councils are open to the public, and some are broadcast live by public access television, most people don’t have first hand experience following the business of state or county agencies and instead get all of their knowledge via the news media. So reduced coverage means less recognition of the players, less understanding of the issues, no appreciation of the process, and quickly translates into less interest. No wonder fewer people are inclined to personally jump into government.

And there’s another item high on my list–news editors aversion to “process”. The prevailing wisdom in newsrooms has been the assumption that the public doesn’t have any interest in the actual process of legislative or administration decision-making or any “need to know”, allowing limited reporting resources to be focused on letting people know how the resulting policies will impact them.

What happens between the time a piece of legislation is conceptualized, then introduced, then massaged through the rather complex legislative process, is treated by the media as a “black box”, a mystery set-up where you put something in on one side and something comes out of the other end that can hurt or help.

It’s much easier for the public to remain fashionably cynical when reporters don’t have an opportunity to explain fully how we get from here to there legislatively. Without opportunities to observe the process in action, it’s all to easy to spin conspiracy theories to explain the outcome. And if conspiracies reign, why should regular folks think they can make any difference?

And then what do we call those who do stoop to getting involved in the insider details? We dismiss them as “special interests” and lump them as part of the problem. If they don’t get involved, armchair critics like Dave attack them for standing aside. How do you win in this game?

Parts of the business community are often hit for not getting more involved in the legislative process. And when they do jump in, such as with the much criticized legislative intern program, they’re attacked for acting in defense of their interests. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

Who can blame the public for being confused by the media whiplash and staying safely out of the action?

The aversion to process has another effect. Without an understanding of the political process, many believe that a good idea is enough to make a political difference, and fail to understand that electoral politics is, first and foremost, very hard work. Ask any candidate, winner or loser, and you’ll quickly learn just how demanding an election campaign can be. That’s a primary deterrent, overcome only by a special personal interest or political interest that tips the scale towards personal involvement.

I’m not saying that money and power aren’t issues in politics. But I don’t think they are the primary factors behind the general public’s declining interest and participation.

Anyway, just food for thought.

SimplicityFinally, click to check out a wonderful collection of photos on the theme, “Simplicity”. It’s really outstanding.

Friday…More Lum family coordinated contributions, churn out a novel in 30 days, Kahana report, Sunshine decision, etc.

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Andy Zajac of the Chicago Tribune has a folo today concerning campaign contributions made by the family of Gene & Nora Lum to Michael Brown, son of the late-Ron Brown.

One of my t-shirts, now all too well worn (okay, worn out), says: “Real men love cats”.

So I was, of course, thrilled to see this New York Times story several weeks ago. How in the world did I forget to make note of it here?

In any case, better late than never.

And, still on the better late than never front, there’s still time to get in on NaNoWriMo, more properly known as National Novel Writing Month. Nanowrimo’s goal is to gather as big a flock of wannabe novelists as possible and push through a 30-day sprint to a 50,000 word novel. Quantity, not quality, is one of its themes, along with “No plot, no problem”.

Many thanks to Charley Foster, Kauai lawyer and blawger, for his post linking to a 2001 Legislative Reference Bureau report on Kahana Valley

And thanks to Maui attorney Ben Lowenthal for calling attention to and explaining a recent Hawaii Supreme Court case involving key issues regarding the state’s public records law. Unfortunately, the court majority appears to have taken a step back from the “every is public unless specifically exempt” approach by allowing agencies to hold certain documents without being considered to “maintain” them. Anyway, its complicated, check out Ben’s analysis.

RomeoAh, another Feline Friday. I know it’s probably disappointing that I don’t have any cats in costumes for Halloween. I don’t think our cats would put up with it, so I didn’t even try. But you cat people will enjoy these anyway.