The rhetoric on Friday when the Legislature passed SB2471, was triumphant. All but one of the legislators voted for this attempt to nullify the Citizen’s United decision for Hawai‘i, and did so with bold claims. We’re standing up for Hawai‘i! We’re standing against dark money! We’re making history! We’re protecting democracy!
These people are acting like they personally threw Sauron’s ring into Mauna Kea and are just waiting for the eagles to carry them away now that Hawai‘i is free of Corporate Mordor’s dark money.
But now, consider these names:
Bain Capital. The United Arab Emirates. Walmart. Citigroup. Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America. Silicon Valley Community Foundation. Chan Zuckerberg. Bill & Melinda Gates. Service Employees International Union. Mitsubishi. Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office.
Tens of millions of dollars in donations from corporate interests, from foreign entities, from Silicon Valley, from Wall Street, from billionaires and their foundations, from the biggest unions in America.
Am I talking about the sources of dark money that ruined America’s democracy, drowning out the voices of everyday citizens in a flood of corporate spending?
No. I’m talking some of the many donors, over the years, who have funded the Center for American Progress, according to InfluenceWatch.org and other reporting.
The same Center for American Progress that was credited again and again by Hawai‘i state legislators as they passed SB2471 on Friday. The same Center for American Progress mentioned directly to me by lawmakers I interviewed.
“We’re the little state that could,” said Rep. Della Au Belatti on Friday as she urged the Legislature to pass the bill. She described CAP’s Tom Moore as “the legal mastermind behind this effort” and said “this state shouldn’t turn away the experts like CAP.”
This isn’t some disinterested, academic public policy institute. John Podesta, the White House chief of Staff for Pres. Bill Clinton from 1998 to 2001, started CAP in 2003 to be a policy brawler.
This is an organization described, sometimes admiringly, as Bill Clinton’s post-defeat shadow government, as Hillary Clinton’s government-in-waiting, as the brains of the Obama administration, as the adults actually in charge of the Biden administration while the Easter Bunny patiently guided Biden through his duties. Its staff and board of directors are, and always have been, a revolving door of people in and out various 21st-century Democrat administrations.
CAP, on its website, currently conceals its list of top donors, claiming this is to protect them from retribution by the Trump administration but in fact, as the Washington Post reported in 2015, the organization has a long and controversial history of hiding the names of its supporters.
At that time in 2015, as the Washington Post reported, Podesta was “set to run [Hillary] Clinton’s presidential campaign,” and the group’s then president Neera Tanden was “a longtime Clinton confidante and adviser.”
Just a reminder, folks: The group Citizens United won its Supreme Court case in pursuit of showing a documentary critical of Hillary Clinton. CAP has been avenging this insult to her honor ever since.
That’s the Center for American Progress. Capital Research Center calls it, “The Democrats’ Public Relations Firm.”
Oh, and it has a fundraising arm, as well, the Center for American Progress Action Fund. In 2024, it donated $147,332 directly to leftwing candidates and causes, from Kamala Harris to Moveon.org, according to InfluenceWatch.org.
With all that in mind, think of the power plays being made here. Sen. Jarrett Keohokalole and Rep. Della Au Belatti stood out as fervent champions of this bill. And are both running for Congress this year.
This move burnishes their credentials with the DC power players. This bill doesn’t move the needle on corruption in Hawai‘i but it does a lot for for these two. When Belatti praises CAP, she’s reminding them she did them a favor.
So now SB2471 awaits the signature of Gov. Josh Green. Do you think the heavyweights who back CAP are white-knuckled in fear that their influence will be silenced?
As far as I know, the only Legislator sounding a cautionary note on Friday was Rep. Scot Matayoshi who, while praising it, also said, “We spent an inordinate amount of time trying to pass this bill in a responsible way, in a way that would ensure that Hawai‘i interests are not harmed at the expense of Mainland interests coming in to spend money here. … My fear is that bill will work a little too well.”
You see, SB2471 restricts Hawai‘i-based corporations and other entities from spending on elections, either locally or on the Mainland. But it also says that corporations based in other states are bound by the same restrictions if they do business here. That, he says, it likely to get challenged and he seems to believe it’s a challenge we’re likely to lose.
So the bill contains what Matayoshi calls a fail-safe. Others might call it a poison pill. If a single court anywhere decides a case against any part of SB2471, its fail-safe language says that all of SB2471 self-destructs. It will be null and void, in its entirety.
Maybe that’s what will happen, if Green signs this into law and it takes effect Jan. 1, 2027. There are other reasons it could be challenged that I explored in a recent column.
The legislators pushing this clearly believe, for some reason, that this bill will not put them out of office or harm their ability to gain financial support. They seem pretty self-assured that they’ll remain in power after this passes, maybe win their runs for bigger and better offices. Now why might that be?
Maybe, at heart, this bill isn’t revolutionary at all. Maybe it just preserves the status quo.
When you get right down it, SB2471 doesn’t change anything about the influence of money on politics in Hawai‘i. Note the bill’s emphasis: Electioneering. It seeks to remove a corporation’s ability to spend money in any way, for or against candidates running for office, or for or against initiatives put on ballots.
It does not otherwise remove any ability to spend money on politics.
Big money groups can still spend millions all year long on high-priced lobbyists who meet with legislators. They just can’t spend any money to speak directly to voters.
Big money groups, including Mainland interests, could still do what CAP has done here and simply write legislation for Hawai‘i lawmakers and hand it over to them to introduce.
Big money can still dangle lucrative consulting jobs in front of politicians, promising a cushy life after office. None of that changes.
On Friday, Sen. Karl Rhoads, who introduced the bill, described the growth of so-called “dark money” spending in elections, from mere millions before Citizens United to tens of billions in the last presidential election.
But he also told me last week that bills like this do nothing to stop billionaires who simply spend their money on elections as individuals, rather than as corporations.
Hawai‘i legislators have said they needed to pass this legislation to “restore people’s trust in elections.”
But is corporate spending really the reason people in Hawai‘i don’t trust elections and barely participate in them? I can think of a few other reasons.
1. We don’t hold elections anymore, we conduct a mail-in survey, with no meaningful check on voter IDs, no default to the privacy and safety of the ballot booth. Legislators could fix this any time but won’t, in fact, they’re the ones who instituted this weak imitation of true elections. This session, they further weakened election integrity by passing a law that automatically opts-in to voter registration anyone who gets a Hawai‘i driver’s license.
2. The quality of the candidates.
3. Their poor results once in office. This very bill being a case in point. Think of all the time spent on this Mainland crusade — an “inordinate amount of time,” Matayoshi said — when it could have been spent solving Hawai‘i real problems.
When the session ended, we still didn’t know who took the $35,000.
Passing SB2471 didn’t change that one bit.
A. Kam Napier is editor in chief of Aloha State Daily. His opinions in Pipikaula Corner are his own and not reflective of the ASD team.
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A. Kam Napier can be reached at kam@alohastatedaily.com.
