Corporations can give just as much as individuals in campaign donations to Hawai'i political candidates, a Maui Circuit Court judge has ruled, rejecting the state Campaign Spending Commission's interpretation of a state law that sought to limit corporate money in politics.

Circuit Court Judge Joseph Cardoza, in a ruling earlier this month, agreed with Maui Mayor Charmaine Tavares' campaign, which had sued the Campaign Spending Commission over the issue. The Commission had warned corporate donors they may have violated the law by giving excess contributions to Tavares during her successful campaign last year.

The ruling threatens a disputed section of a campaign-finance law passed by the state Legislature in 2005. The law placed new restrictions on Mainland contributions to state campaigns but also — and some believe inadvertently — limited the amount of money corporations can give to their corporate political action committees.

Corporations since 1997 had been able to give unlimited amounts of corporate money to corporate PACs, which could then distribute the money to candidates. But lawmakers changed the law to limit corporations to only $1,000 in corporate money to corporate PACs during the primary and $1,000 during the general election — a total of $2,000 during an election cycle.

Corporate PACs could still accept contributions from employees or other donors — and use that money to give the maximum donations to candidates — but it choked off money directly from corporate treasuries.

Some state House and Senate leaders, and state Attorney General Mark Bennett, said the intent was not to limit overall corporate contributions to just $1,000 — total — during an election. Rather, they said, it was an effort to limit the amount that a corporation could put into a political action committee directly from the corporate treasury.

But attempts to repeal the change failed in 2006 and did not come up during the most recent session.

"That was never the intent when we passed the law," said state Senate President Colleen Hanabusa, D-21st (Nanakuli, Makaha).

Under state campaign-finance law, the maximum donations for the last election cycle were $6,000 to a governor's campaign, $4,000 to mayoral or state Senate campaigns, and $2,000 to state House campaigns.

Barbara Wong, executive director of the Campaign Spending Commission, said the commission warned a corporate donor to Tavares cited in the lawsuit that they may have violated the law by giving a $2,000 contribution to her primary campaign. Wong believes the corporate donor should have registered as a PAC and should have been limited to giving $1,000 to Tavares during the primary — or a maximum $2,000 for the cycle.

But William Crockett, an attorney for the Tavares campaign, argued that the corporate donor was allowed to give the $2,000 contribution directly to the Tavares campaign for the primary — or a maximum $4,000 for the cycle, the same amount as individuals — without forming a PAC.

"She simply was not interpreting the law correctly," Crockett said of Wong.

The state Attorney General's office represented the Campaign Spending Commission before the court but also filed a separate friend-of-court brief agreeing with the Tavares campaign.

Deputy Attorney General Charleen Aina, in her brief, described the commission's interpretation of the law as "palpably erroneous." Aina also claimed it exposed the state's contribution limits to being struck down as unconstitutionally too low, restricting political dialogue under the First Amendment.

Wong said she wanted to read Cardoza's ruling, which is not yet available, before announcing her response. But she indicated an appeal to the Intermediate Court of Appeals was possible.

Wong had defended the changes to the law when the Legislature thought about a repeal last year, contending it stemmed the flow and influence of corporate money on campaigns.

"My only comment is the law from 1997 through 2005 permitted corporations and companies to put unlimited money from their treasuries into their noncandidate committees (or PACs), and then the 2005 Legislature repealed that, so the law changed," Wong said. "So, obviously, it's not a new rule I made up. The law changed and I am enforcing the new law."

Reach Derrick DePledge at ddepledge@honoluluadvertiser.com.