Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-Second State Legislature

Regular Session of 2003

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committees on Transportation, Military Affairs, and Government Operations and Science, Arts, and Technology, to which was referred S.B. No. 690 entitled:

beg leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to require all candidates for the State Senate and the State House of Representatives to file electronic campaign financing reports, and to strengthen administrative and criminal penalties for candidates and committees that show a significant pattern of abuse and violation of campaign spending laws.

Testimony in support of this measure was submitted by the State Campaign Spending Commission; League of Women Voters of Hawaii; Hawaii Pro Democracy Initiative; and the Mestizo Association.

Your Committees find that requiring State Senate and House candidates to file campaign financing reports electronically will help to ensure accountability in the elections process by facilitating timely public access to these records. In the 2002 elections, 117 candidates filed campaign financing reports using customized software to prepare a report on diskette. An additional 88 candidates completed and submitted their reports on-line by simply hitting the "send" key. The electronically-filed reports were available to the public instantaneously; the reports filed by diskette were available on the Internet in a matter of days.

Your Committees find that the Campaign Spending Commission is in the process of improving its electronic filing system. The next generation of electronic filing is planned to be a web-based filing system. Using software embedded in the Commission's computer system, candidates will be able to log onto the State's web page, complete and electronically send their campaign financing report--and the results will be available to the public instantaneously.

Although your Committees support utilizing technology as a means to improve public access, your Committees recognize that there may be candidates who do not have reasonable access to an Internet-ready computer or the capability to electronically file. As the intent of this measure is not to penalize such candidates, but, rather, to encourage the use of technology to improve public access to government, your Committees have amended this measure by:

As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Transportation, Military Affairs, and Government Operations and Science, Arts, and Technology that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 690, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 690, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs.