It is with great sadness that we report that Ira Rohter, who served as president of Hawaii Clean Elections, died yesterday morning.

Analysis is trickling in about the impact the Supreme Court's recent decision on the Millionaire's Amendment will have on the "rescue funds" provision of existing and future Clean Elections laws.

Common Cause President Bob Edgar is paying a visit to Hawaii in support of a bill that would bring Voter-Owned Elections, or full public financing of elections, to the Council Council races on the Big Island. Edgar is set to meet with Hawaii Governor Linda Lingle to ask for her support of the bill, which has been championed by public financing supporters at Voter Owned Hawaii.

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!

Looks like the controversial amendment that might have doomed the Hawaii public financing pilot program has been taken out of the bill, and it's advancing down the road to approval by the state legislature. The bill would cover a full public financing pilot program for Big Island County Council elections to begin in 2010.

In this guest piece for the Hawaii Reporter, Todd Lange of the Arizona Citizens Clean Election Commission takes on disinformation about Clean Elections presented in a recent editorial by the Center for Responsive Politics. The result is a nice summary of the successes of Arizona's public financing program, and a good argument for the Hawaii legislature to continue to pursue a pilot program of full public financing for county council races -- a proposal that's recently hit a few roadblocks.