STAND. COM. REP. NO. 1528

                                   Honolulu, Hawaii
                                                     , 1999

                                   RE:  H.B. No. 71
                                        H.D. 2
                                        S.D. 1




Honorable Norman Mizuguchi
President of the Senate
Twentieth State Legislature
Regular Session of 1999
State of Hawaii

Sir:

     Your Committee on Judiciary, to which was referred H.B. No.
71, H.D. 2, entitled: 

     "A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO ELECTIONS,"

begs leave to report as follows:

     The purpose of this bill, as received by your Committee, is
to amend various election laws to:

     (1)  Add a new category of "ballot issue committee;"

     (2)  Require candidates to register with the Campaign
          Spending Commission within ten days of the first
          expenditure or contribution, regardless of the amount;

     (3)  Change the dates on which preliminary reports must be
          filed with the Commission; 

     (4)  Repeal short form reporting; and

     (5)  Make various housekeeping changes.

     Your Committee finds that constitutional constraints raise
questions regarding the degree to which the State can exercise
regulatory authority over informational or educational
advertising.  Similarly, the Attorney General has opined that
committees that receive and expend funds only to impact ballot
issues cannot be subject to contribution limits.  

 
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     Your Committee finds that amending the candidate
registration threshold to require candidates to register after
making a first expenditure of any amount will improve the
Campaign Spending Commission's awareness of candidates in smaller
races, who may not be required to even register under current law
until late in the campaign.  Your Committee further finds that
the current requirement of registration for each new election has
created unnecessary administrative burdens for the Campaign
Spending Commission and for continuing candidates.

     Your Committee finds that a limitation on a candidate's
contributions to the candidate's own campaign may not be
constitutional, and that it should be made clear that campaign
contribution limitations are not intended to apply to candidates.
Your Committee further finds that committees should have the same
opportunity and obligation that candidates currently have to
voluntarily turn over excess or wrongful contributions.  Also on
the subject of contributions, your Committee finds that the
existing prohibition against corporate contributions to
committees formed within the last year is virtually unenforceable
and subject to court challenge.

     Your Committee finds that the Campaign Spending Commission
should have the option to publish either in the newspaper, or on
the internet, or by both methods, the names of candidates,
committees, and parties who have failed to file a report.  The
obligation to publish the names by one or more of those methods,
however, should be mandatory.

     Testimony in support of this measure was received from the
Campaign Spending Commission, the League of Women Voters, Common
Cause Hawaii, Hawaii Clean Elections, and one individual.

     Upon further consideration, your Committee has amended this
measure by:

     (1)  Deleting its contents and substituting the contents of
          S.B. 628, S.D. 1, which contains an educational purpose
          exclusion in the definition of "committee," allows web
          page publication of notifications by the Campaign
          Spending Commission, leaves the reporting trigger at
          $100 for contributions but any amount for expenditures,
          contains an exception to contribution limits for a
          candidate's contributions to the candidate's own
          campaign, and is otherwise similar in substance;

     (2)  Clarifying the threshold for the waiver of preliminary
          report filing;


 
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     (3)  Allowing the Campaign Spending Commission to impose
          alternative fines or penalties for failure to respond
          to a notification; and

     (4)  Making technical, non-substantive amendments for the
          purposes of clarity and style.

     As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your
Committee on Judiciary that is attached to this report, your
Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No.
71, H.D. 2, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second
Reading in the form attached hereto as H.B. No. 71, H.D. 2,
S.D. 1, and be placed on the calendar for Third Reading.

                                   Respectfully submitted on
                                   behalf of the members of the
                                   Committee on Judiciary,



                                   ______________________________
                                   AVERY B. CHUMBLEY, Co-Chair



                                   ______________________________
                                   MATTHEW M. MATSUNAGA, Co-Chair

 
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