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About Us
Voter Owned Hawaii office
3442 Waialae Ave, Suite 8
Honolulu, Hawaii
96816
808-457-8622
For over eight years,Voter Owned Hawai`i (aka Hawai`i Clean Elections) has worked to bring about a fundamental change in the way elections are financed in Hawai`i. From the beginning, all realized that it would take a concentrated effort over time to wrench our state government back from the corporations and other big-money special interest groups who are focused only on their bottom lines -- instead of what's good for us mere citizens.
Amazingly, Clean Elections has captured the interest of the once-elusive "young people" everyone talks about trying to somehow bring into the political process. Students and young potential voters "get it" and want major changes, not Band aid reforms. While we've accomplished a lot with little money, it's costing $10,000 a month for only two staff, office, insurance, communications and lobbying efforts, etc. Our goal is to enhance our community organizing, training, reaching more students, and research. We need a budget of $15,000 a month to pass a Clean Elections bill. Up until now, we've been funded primarily by out-of-state grants but these sources are drying up and we must begin to fund our effort locally.
Please contribute as generously as you can to help pass The Reform That Makes All Other Reforms Possible -- Clean Elections in Hawai`i!
Over 400 years of political action and issue advocacy is represented by the directors, advisors and staff of the two organizations comprising Voter Owned Hawai`i; THE HAWAI`I ELECTIONS PROJECT (HEP) and HAWAI`I CLEAN ELECTIONS (HICLEAN).
(1) The HAWAI`I ELECTIONS PROJECT (HEP) is a non-profit 501(c)(3), a tax-deductible, non-partisan organization.
HEP BACKGROUND: In the mid-1990s the Hawai`i State Campaign
Spending Commission heightened public awareness about the outrageous criminal
and quasi-criminal activities surrounding political campaigns by filing
charges against what has become a long list of elected officials and corporate and business entities.
To date, an estimated 100 high-profile prosecutions have taken place with many convictions and large fines
levied (the most recent conviction and settlement was announced in October of 2005). Early on, in 1997,
the Hawai`i League of Women Voters made the comprehensive public funding of elections a priority issue
and a group of committed League volunteers created the Hawai`i Elections Project (HEP).
The group set out to investigate possible alternatives to the existing corrupt system.
Now in its eighth year, the HEP mission is:
(1) to educate citizens, candidates and legislators about
comprehensive public funding of election campaigns; and
(2) to collect, evaluate and analyze data about
the connections between money, politics, legislation and legislative outcomes, and to make that research
and analysis available to the public.
This inventive new public funding program is now being considered by
many states to help overcome money's corrupting influence in politics.
The Board of HEP not only felt an obligation to inform voters and citizens
of this outstanding campaign-financing alternative, but also to begin giving the general public
the skills and know-how to help make this idea a reality.
Financial contributions to the Hawai`i Election Project (HEP) are tax deductible and
can be mailed to:
Hawai`i Elections Project (HEP)
3442 Waialae Ave, Suite 8
Honolulu, Hawai`i
96816.
(2) HAWAI`I CLEAN ELECTIONS (HCE) is a non-partisan, non-profit 501(c)(4) that lobbies
Hawaii's policy makers and organizes voters in order to pass a Voter-Owned Elections program through
the Hawai`i State Legislature and other bodies of Hawai`i government.
HCE BACKGROUND: The HEP organizers and volunteers soon understood that simply educating and
informing Hawai`i State Legislators about comprehensive public funding, the Voter-Owned Elections option,
would never be enough to pass a bill and implement the program.
In the fall of 1997, a group of advocates formed Hawai`i Clean Elections to legally lobby elected officials.
The growing list of state and municipal governments which have indeed passed some form of comprehensive public funding have done so
through voter initiative -- which Hawai`i does not enjoy. We must pass the program through the State Legislature and it is now clear
that many elected officials simply do not want the perceived competition the new system might bring.
There is also great opposition from the corporate and business lobbyists and myriad other vested special interests who enjoy
the control and access that significent campaign contributions bring. The status quo is not easily moved.
HCE advocates began lobbying the city councils and legislature, and in 2003 and 2004 the organization received grants to
hire experienced political lobbyists to help advance our legislation.
Hawai`i Clean Elections' mission is to restore the democratic principle of one-person, one vote by:
(1) Reducing the escalating cost of campaigning;
(2) leveling the electoral field so that any qualified candidate has
the opportunity to run for office regardless of wealth or access to it;
(3) eliminating the undue
influence of large contributors;
(4) breaking the connection between the influence of special interest
money and elections; and
(5) freeing the candidate and public official from the burdens of fundraising and
allowing them more time to serve the public interest.
Although donations made to Hawai`i Clean Elections are not tax deductible because we
do direct political lobbying, such donations are vital to our mission. It is far-more difficult to find
foundations and individules willing to give grants to organizations that are doing much of
the most-important work of lobbying elected officials directly, and educating the public
the important skills needed to lobby their own and other elected officials.
Your donation to Hawai`i Clean Elections is greatly appreciated and would be put to good use in passing the Voter-Owned
Elections bill through the Hawai`i State Legislature.
Please mail donations to:
Hawai`i Clean Elections
PO Box 1572
Honolulu, Hawai`i
96806.
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"While Congress wallows in the ethical swamp where
money and politics meet, one more state just found a way out.
Voters [in Connecticut] will pay for campaigns, which might be
the bargain of the century. They'll save countless dollars doled from public coffers to the
favor seekers who fund campaigns now."
-- USA TODAY EDITORIAL
”Public financing is the difference
between being able to go out and spend your time talking
with voters, meeting with groups, . . . traveling to communities
that have been under-represented in the past, as opposed
to being on the phone selling tickets to a $250 a plate
fundraiser.” -- Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano,
elected under Arizona's Voter Owned Elections program
“We Clean Elections [Voter Owned Elections]
pioneers are a more independent bunch, especially because
we’re not worrying about how we’re going
to raise the big bucks to win our next race. Lobbyists
for special interests tend to spend less time with us,
which makes it easier to get through the Capitol halls
in time for a vote.” -- Glenn Cummings, & Ed Youngblood, Maine State legislators,
elected using Voter Owned Elections
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