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 generally conservative 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has rejected challenges to North Carolina's full public financing program for judicial elections and upheld the law that put Clean Elections-style financing of judicial races on the map.  This is great news for North Carolina and the popular public financing program, which this year has been expanded to include three Council of State positions (the state Cabinet).

The Tallahassee Democrat doesn't give this story the most encouraging lede in the world, but it looks like Florida's system of partial public financing for Governor and state Cabinet races isn't going to get the ax this year, and that's good news for those looking to bring full public financing of campaigns to the state, and expand it to cover more offices.

More news on the recently released polling showing support for publicly financed elections in New York is at around 74%. But New York Governor David Paterson is saying he's reluctant to move forward with a public financing bill now because of concerns about the state budget -- here's what Paul Silver at The Moderate Voice has to say about that.

This article in the New York Daily News mentions new polling by Citizen Action of New York showing a high level of support -- 74%, consistent with the national average we've seen -- among New York residents for Clean Elections public financing of campaigns, and seems to suggest that it's time for New York Governor David Patterson (D) to live up to his reputation as a supporter of public financing by speaking publicly about the issue.

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.