When Sen. Karl Rhoads was pushing last year for a political game-changer in Hawaii — full public financing of election campaigns — he had a significant partner in the other chamber.

Rep. David Tarnas pushed the measure through his House Judiciary Committee. Ultimately, despite overwhelming approval of different versions in both chambers, it died during the secretive conference committee period.

Both legislators lamented the lost opportunity to level the election playing field and give challengers a fighting chance by offering public money to viable candidates willing to eschew the private donations that lead to pay-to-play politics. 

“We took it much further than many ever expected and certainly further than it’s been in the past,” Tarnas told Civil Beat in a post-session interview that Rhoads also sat in on.

“I felt there was compelling reason to move it forward because of its policy value,” Tarnas said, later adding, “We need to continue the conversation. We’re entering the interim now. We can lick our wounds. We can look at what we’ve done.”

And yet when a similar bill for full public campaign finance came before Tarnas’ committee Thursday, he acted like he’d only recently started looking at the concept. He called the measure “fatally flawed” and then started itemizing its shortcomings as if he was looking for a criticism that would stick.

Eschewing The Solutions

“I must admit that I was very concerned about this bill after reading the testimony from the Campaign Spending Commission who articulated that they would be in an impossible position,” Tarnas said.

But that CSC testimony only came after the Senate yanked a $200,000 appropriation from the measure that would have allowed the commission to hire two more staff members to prepare for implementation of the program.

Solution: Amend the bill to reinstate that funding, Mr. Chair.

Tarnas indicated he had discussed the measure with his colleagues and “many members of the House are saying that they don’t want the state to pay for county candidates running for county office.”

Solution: Ignore those colleagues — we need to clean up all of Hawaii’s elections, and even county council races are regulated by the CSC. Or, amend the bill to remove county offices from the program.

To insure public funds only went to candidates who could demonstrate adequate support, the bill proposed requiring them to first obtain $5 donations from registered voters. The minimum number of such donations varied by office — as little as 50 for low-population county council districts to 6,250 for a gubernatorial campaign.

Tarnas said his analysis of those numbers found them to be “inconsistent” and added, “there’s no rhyme or reason for how it was set up.”

Solution: Regain your conviction of a year ago, Mr. Chair, when you supported a proposal containing the exact same numbers.

Finally, Tarnas faulted the measure for not including an appropriation for the actual public funds that candidates would receive. But it would not have taken effect until the 2028 election cycle, so that money wasn’t needed yet.

Indeed, Rhoads said pre-session that this time he was delaying implementation of the proposed program from 2026 to 2028 in recognition of the cash crunch caused by the Maui wildfires.

That didn’t wash with this year’s version of the House Judiciary chair, who said Thursday, “We cannot compel future legislatures to appropriate funds and that’s what this bill is tacitly doing.”

Solution: This would hardly be the first time that lawmakers passed a bill that would depend on an appropriation from a future legislature for implementation. But even if it’s a big concern, move the measure along to what would have been its next committee referral: House Finance, a natural venue for addressing finances.

‘It’s Not Just Me’

Tarnas took pains to show the majority of his committee supported deferring the bill, throwing up his hands as he declared, “I’m not making this decision as an autocrat and dictating it.” He clearly learned his lesson from last session, when he singlehandedly killed two of the biggest reform measures proposed by the Commission to Improve Standards of Conduct.

This time he was prepared to demonstrate “it’s not just me” by seeking comment on his motion to defer from the committee members. Six of them dutifully obliged, thanking him for his efforts and saying that when it came to true political reform, they too were not ready for prime time.

But it was rather stilted and seemed prearranged.

Tarnas had already acknowledged discussing concerns about the bill with other House members beyond his committee. One of them was presumably Speaker Scott Saiki, who after all had introduced an identical version of the Rhoads bill in the House this session. That seems to have been an attempt by Saiki to polish his reform credentials as he prepares for another reelection campaign against a reform-minded opponent he narrowly defeated in 2022 and 2020.

Saiki and Tarnas are allies. And even if they weren’t, House committee chairs don’t usually torpedo bills that the speaker actually wants.

The fact is that the proposal for full public campaign financing died behind closed doors last session during conference committee, and for all practical purposes it died behind closed doors this session before Thursday’s hearing had even begun.

Technically, there’s still time for the measure to be resuscitated. It would have to be re-referred from the House floor Monday and then approved by Tarnas’ committee before Thursday’s second lateral filing deadline.

House committee chairs don’t usually torpedo bills that the speaker actually wants.

That’s extremely unlikely to happen, but Clean Elections Hawaii, a coalition of good-government organizations, hasn’t given up. It’s planning a rally and news conference at the Capitol on Monday at 2:30 p.m. and is encouraging people to write and call Saiki, Tarnas and their own legislator to bring the bill back.

Barring a miracle, incumbent legislators will have to campaign for reelection this year having failed to pass any of the major government reforms that were proposed during the last two sessions in response to a series of public scandals. But they’ll still have their campaign war chests funded by special interests, meaning most of them will be in position to easily outspend any challengers.

Meanwhile, a far less ambitious bill to increase partial public campaign finance remains alive in the Legislature. But it’ll run out of time if it’s not scheduled soon for a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee by its chairman — Karl Rhoads.