Hey, this must have worked! County Council members on Hawai'i's Big Island have endorsed a plan to try out a full public financing system for their races in 2010. This is a good step forward after many years of public support for a Clean Elections-style system met with reticence on the part of legislators to make substantive changes to campaign laws.

Community activists and supporters of public financing argued their case before the council, citing Arizona's increased rate of voter participation following the implementation of a Clean Elections system as well as the rising cost of running for office. More details on the program:

Some lawmakers who oppose or are indifferent to public campaign funding may be willing to vote for a test run to watch it play out at the county level on the Big Island, Payne said. He said lawmakers realize that public financing of campaigns is a popular idea with the voters and are generally reluctant to publicly oppose it.

Under the Big Island council plan, the amount of public funding a candidate would receive would be calculated by averaging the amounts the winning candidates in that district spent in each of the last two elections, and then awarding 90 percent of that amount to each publicly funded candidate to use to run the race.

Candidates who choose public funding would only be allowed to spend the public funding and would face fines if they spend extra money. Candidates who choose not to participate in the publicly funded program would still be free to raise and spend money in the traditional way under existing campaign spending law.

Thanks to the people at Voter Owned Hawai'i for their tireless work on this issue.