The Los Angeles Times highlights the new pilot Fair Elections program available this election cycle to candidates for the Hawaii County Council contest. 

Having passed out of the Hawaii Senate and House, a bill to create a pilot program of full public financing for county council elections on the Big Island now awaits approval by Governor Linda Lingle. The people at Voter-Owned Hawaii have been pursuing public financing for Hawaii's elections for many years -- I hope they'll soon be able to celebrate this victory!

The proposal to publicly fund county council elections in Hawai'i on a pilot basis may be in danger thanks to a state Senate amendment that would tie the program to another proposal to ease the limits on campaign contributions from corporations.  Come on state Senate, that's a low blow.

The Honolulu Star-Bulletin likes the idea of a pilot Clean Elections public financing program for Hawaii County Council elections, seeing such a program as a worthwhile experiment in public financing that could go on to benefit other elections in the state.

Members of Voter-Owned Hawai'i joined representatives of the Hawai'i County Council, the Democratic Party of Hawai'i and the League of Women Voters at the state Capitol yesterday to express support for a bill introduced last year that would offer a full public financing option for county council candidates on the Big Island, an update to the current partial public financing program.

Kory Payne of Voter-Owned Hawai'i uses a single example of a secretive government granting process to illustrate the larger need for Hawai'i to upgrade it's partial public financing system to a full public financing system and do away with the need for candidates for public office to run their campaigns with special interest money.