Voter Owned Elections Hawaii was one of the main grassroots groups that helped foil an attempt in the legislature to gut a 2005 campaign finance law that limits corporate contributions to $1,000 per election, reports the Star Bulletin.
"As we understood the proposed change, it eliminated the cap on corporate giving, and it would allow corporations to give as much as they liked," John Higgins, community liaison for Voter Owned Elections, formerly known as Hawaii Clean Elections, told the newspaper. More than three-quarters of the $10 million contributed during the 2004 elections came from corporate interests, according to the group.
House Speaker Calvin Say (D), acknowledged that the legislature dropped the amendment because of grassroots pressure from citizen activists.