Kefalas: Act 11 won’t stop wealthy individuals from financing campaigns

from Grassroot Institute of Hawaii

Grassroot staffers Joe Kent and Ted Kefalas joined KHVH radio host Rick Hamada earlier this week to discuss Grassroot’s legal challenge to a new Hawaii law that stifles free speech, as well as its recent legislative wins and a favorable profile of Grassroot in local media.

Kent said that Act 11, which is set to take effect July 1, 2027, unconstitutionally silences nonprofit organizations on ballot initiatives and other election-related topics in the name of campaign finance reform. 

Kefalas added that the law does little to stop wealthy individuals from spending on political campaigns while effectively shutting down organizations representing everyday residents. 

“Just as an individual, you can’t run a Facebook ad campaign or a mailer campaign to people — that gets expensive really fast,” he said. “So what this is really doing is silencing the collective voices of regular, average, everyday people, and it’s not doing anything to stop, you know, the millionaires and billionaires that they are claiming to be getting out of politics.”

As for Grassroot’s legislative wins earlier this year, Kefalas said one of the more striking victories was the enactment of a bill that eliminates the cosmetology licensure requirement for hair braiders. 

He explained that a Maui woman wanted to braid hair professionally, but found that the only qualifying cosmetology school on the island cost $17,000. Thanks to the bill, hair braiders no longer need to hold a full cosmetology license. 

“This is a small bill,” Kefalas acknowledged, “but we’re hoping this can start chipping away at some of these licensure requirements.” He added that Hawaii ranks among the worst states in the country for occupational licensing burdens, making it unnecessarily difficult for residents to open businesses using their own skills.

The three also spent time discussing a recent profile of Grassroot published in Honolulu Civil Beat that identified Kent and Kefalas as lobbyists. 

“We’ve been able to build some great relationships because they see us as solution-oriented,” Kefalas said. “We’re not trying to create problems or just point out the issues here in Hawaii.”

You can listen to the entire conversation by clicking on the image above.