Award-winning musician, Makana and Ben-Cohen, co-founder of Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream will come out to vocally

support Publicly-Funded elections Rally for Publicly-Funded Elections Friday, April 4 @ 1:00p.m. Hawaii State Capitol Rotunda Featuring: Makana, award-winning slack-key guitar player and singer and Ben Cohen, co-founder of Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream Cosponsors: Common Cause Hawaii, Faith Action for Community Equity (FACE) Hawaii, Voter Owned Hawaii, Makana, Stamp Stampede, Hawaii SEED, Sierra Club Hawaii, and Ben Cohen of Ben and Jerry's Purpose: Rally to call for the passage of House Bill 1481, which would create the public-funding program of candidates for the offices of state representative. How HB1481/Public-funding works: House Bill 1481,would upgrade and modernize Hawaiis citizen-funded elections program, which was established during the 1978 Constitutional Convention. By collecting 200 signatures (accompanied with a $5 contribution) from registered voters in their district, candidates could qualify to opt-in to this program to receive a competitive amount of money with which to run their campaign (~$32,000). This award would come from the Hawaii Election Campaign Fund, which is a special trust fund specifically for this program. During the 1978 Constitutional Convention, delegates fought hard to create our citizen-funded elections program. Legislators have let this program deteriorate over time, many times deliberately. We now have a chance to breathe life back into that program. Background: The U.S. Supreme Courts 2010 Citizens United v FEC decision granted corporations and unions the same free-speech protections as natural persons, thus allowing these special interests to spend unlimited amounts of money on U.S. elections. Publicly-funded elections will decrease the level of money corruptions in politics. Hawaii has a bill in the legislature (HB1481) that would establish a citizen-funded elections program for House candidates statewide. In 2008, Voter Owned Hawaii led an effort to pass a law that created a new Fair Elections program for County Council elections for Hawaii County. That pilot program was praised as a success, even by councilors who originally opposed the idea. In mid-March of the 2014 legislative session, the newest rendition of public funding bill, HB2533, died in the Senate Judiciary and Labor Committee. In 2013, HB1481 was stalled in Conference Committee, thus carrying over to the 2014 legislative session. Senators Donna Kim, Clayton Hee, David Ige; and Representatives Joe Souki and Sylvia Luke have the power to pass this HB1481, and were gathering to call on them to do just that. For more info: www.pass1481.org