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About Us

Q: How do you interest "young people" in political advocacy and action?
A: Just ask Voter Owned Hawai`i!

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.

Vicki Higgins, President

Anna Hoover, Secretary

Will Best, Treasurer

HEP STAFF & CONSULTANTS

(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.

Ira Rohter, President
808-732-5497

Randy Ching, Vice President

Larry Gellar, Secretary

Brodie Lockard, Treasurer

HCE STAFF & CONSULTANTS

Kory Payne, Community Organizer
808-457-8622

Scott Foster, Communications Consultant
808-637-9822

John Higgins, Legislative Liaiason
808-949-0468

Alicia Maluafiti, Legislative Liaiason