A Civil Beat/New York Times report published last week unveiled just how deeply the pay-to-play culture is ingrained in Hawaii politics.

By examining hundreds of thousands of campaign contributions and more than 70,000 government contracts, reporters discovered that nearly $1 out of every $5 donated to politicians came from people tied to companies doing business with state and local governments.

And when some companies were on the verge of winning big government contracts, people connected to them donated larger amounts of money to the relevant officials.

Even though those contributors generally didn’t acknowledge their connections to the companies, they were not violating Hawaii law, which only prohibits donations directly from the firms.

“Everyone gets very upset with pay-to-play, but it’s legal,” said Kristin Izumi-Nitao, executive director of the Hawaii Campaign Spending Commission.

What’s especially galling is that the commission proposed measures to close the gaping loophole this session and they were ignored by the Judiciary chairs in the House and the Senate, never even receiving a public hearing.

Now that the gargantuan scale of the problem has been defined, that has to change when the Legislature reconvenes in 2025.

Stopped Dead in the Judiciary Committees

The commission was clearly aware of the issue when it proposed Senate Bill 2214 and House Bill 1849, but after reading the Civil Beat/New York Times report, even Izumi-Nitao found that “the numbers were a bit surprising. And if the bill had been in effect, I believe those numbers would not be as high.”

The identical measures introduced in the House and Senate would have expanded a 2006 ban on campaign contributions from government contractors to include the officers and immediate family members of the company owners. It also would have applied the same prohibitions to recipients of government grants.

They were modified versions of a measure that unanimously passed the House and Senate in 2023 but died during the secretive conference committee period when disagreements between the two chambers must be resolved if a bill is to become law.

Far less love was shown to the proposal this session by the Judiciary chairs, Rep. David Tarnas and Sen. Karl Rhoads.

Tarnas had said during a pre-session interview that when it came to government reform measures, he would prioritize consideration of bills that had made it to conference committee the previous year.

That didn’t happen with HB 1849, and Tarnas didn’t respond to a Civil Beat request to explain why.

For his part, Rhoads said he didn’t give SB 2214 a hearing in his committee because he thought his measure to offer full public financing of political campaigns “was more important.”

Full public campaign financing would go a long way toward reforming the pay-to-play landscape, but accepting the public money instead of continuing to solicit private funds would be voluntary. And even though it passed the Senate unanimously, Tarnas led the effort to kill that measure when it got to his committee.

Credit Rhoads for his efforts on behalf of public campaign financing, but this shouldn’t have been a one-or-the-other matter — he didn’t have to derail the effort to turn off the tap on political contributions tied to government contracts.

‘I Will Look At The Issue With More Urgency’

Rhoads also expressed concern that if SB 2214 had passed, candidates would have no way of knowing they were accepting illegal contributions. He’s apparently developed those concerns since last year’s session, when his committee unanimously approved a similar measure.

Still, the senator acknowledged that the number of pay-to-play contributions documented in the recent report is “surprisingly high,” and added, “with this new information, I will look at the issue with more urgency next session.”

Urgency. Government reform efforts seemingly achieved that two years ago after a series of public scandals — including the bribery convictions of two former legislators — led to the creation of a special state commission that proposed numerous good government measures.

Some were adopted by the Legislature, but the major ones — including closing the loophole on contractor contributions — were not.

So here we sit with a well-documented culture of political pay-to-play and a Campaign Spending Commission that is so understaffed that it would have a hard time enforcing new restrictions on campaign contributions even if the Legislature had the courage to approve them.

Izumi-Nitao said the commission will “absolutely” propose restrictions on pay-to-play donations again next session. Presumably it will also again seek an appropriation to enlarge its staff of 5, which hasn’t grown since it was established in 1973 even as it struggles to regulate more and more candidates and campaign committees.

Before that will come an election in which voters can deliver their own message about the need for reform in state and local government.

The Civil Beat/New York Times report broke new ground in connecting campaign contributions to the people who benefit from government contracts. Over the last 2 years, our “Let the Sunshine In” project has lit up many other dark corners of political dysfunction.

Our collective eyes are open wider now. It shouldn’t take another round of scandals to re-energize momentum for reform.