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Curious to know which businesses have put their money behind which Hawaii candidates this election year?

You’ll have to click through all 353 online reports of the individual candidates to find out.

Thanks in part to the against Maui Mayor Charmaine Tavares, corporate donations have become harder to track. But a new law that takes effect Jan. 1, 2011, should help make business contributions more transparent.

As candidates are raking in millions of dollars in contributions, it’s worth taking a look at the impact the ruling has had. And at how the lack of transparency has been compounded by the recent Citizens United decision by the U.S. Supreme Court.

First, let’s look at the laws surrounding business contributions.

Under , if you’re a business making political contributions of more than $1,000 in a two-year election period, you need to register as a so-called noncandidate committee with the . A noncandidate committee refers to any person or entity other than an individual using personal money to make a contribution. In other words, a business using company money. They are required to electronically file two reports a year detailing political donations with the commission.

While that may sound straightforward, the Tavares case made things blurry. In 2009, a Maui Circuit Court judge ruled — and the Intermediate Court of Appeals later upheld — that companies may contribute unlimited amounts of company money to any candidate up to the limits of the office being sought without having to register and report as a noncandidate committee. (The limits are as follows: $2,000 for a two-year office, $4,000 for a four-year non-statewide office, and $6,000 for a four-year statewide office.)

Barbara Wong, executive director of the Campaign Spending Commission, at the time called the ruling “a blow to transparency.”

“For years, corporations and companies have been making contributions through their noncandidate committees to candidates,” Wong said. “Based upon the court’s decision, the public no longer is able to see at a glance in one noncandidate report special interest campaign contributions and expenditures.”

As an example, here’s the site where with the spending commission. If you click on, say, the link for Inc. HiPAC, you’ll see the company on Sept. 9 to Democrat Bobby Bunda, the runner-up in the lieutenant governor race.

Wong said an immediate impact of the court’s ruling has been that companies have stopped filing as noncandidate committees.

“Some noncandidate committees terminated after the (Tavares) decision came out, and that has meant the public loses that transparency of who they’re giving to,” Wong said. “In other words, if you want to know what candidates ‘Corp. XYZ’ gave to — now you have to look at 353 reports versus just one noncandidate report.” The 353 figure refers to the total number of candidates this election.

Civil Beat reached out to some of the candidates to ask if they’d seen any effects stemming from the Tavares case. We asked if they could share any examples of the type of “special interest campaign contributions” Wong had mentioned. No one replied with specifics.

So we dug up a couple of our own examples.

Take the hotel in Waikiki. A search for “Hilton” doesn’t turn up any results in the Spending Commission’s of noncandidate committees.

Yet it made at least $9,000 worth of political contributions this election cycle. The hotel, using its Kalia Street address, gave $6,000 to Mufi Hannemann‘s campaign and another $3,000 to Neil Abercrombie. The Hilton didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Another example: of Mercer Island, Wash. The company’s name also doesn’t appear on the list of noncandidate committees. It gave $2,000 to Brian Schatz, using its business address. (Both the chief financial officer and general counsel at Liberty Dialysis together contributed $10,000 to Abercrombie’s campaign using what appear to be residential addresses.) A company representative declined to comment, but said Liberty Dialysis is “just trying to keep up with other giant health-care providers giving money to Hawaii candidates.”

It’s also become more difficult to track business donations to independent organizations seeking to influence the outcome of political races. This year’s Citizens United Supreme Court ruling means that companies can give to organizations such as the Democratic and Republican Governors Associations or Karl Rove’s group without having to disclose the contributions.

Wong declined to comment on any impact the high court’s ruling is having on Hawaii. She said the Campaign Spending Commission is consulting with the Attorney General’s office about “these issues.”

Hawaii’s rules are set to change come Jan. 1.

In the 2010 legislative session, lawmakers pushed through — introduced by Rep. Calvin Say — which became law as without Gov. Linda Lingle‘s signature.

The intent was “to update, organize, and clarify current campaign finance laws” and “provide transparency in the campaign finance process.”

Part of those changes will require individuals or businesses to register as a noncandidate committee if they give contributions that aggregate to $1,000 or more. Remember, a noncandidate committee refers to any person or entity not writing a check using a personal bank account.

The new law says: “A noncandidate committee shall register by filing an organizational report within two days of receiving contributions or making or incurring expenditures of more than $1,000, in the aggregate, in a two-year election period.” You can read about what these reports will have to include .

Wong said the state is building a new electronic filing system to accomdate the new reporting requirement. “It will be more simple than filing a disclosure report,” she said. “They’ll just go online to file, it’ll be a simple process.”

While the law takes effect Jan. 1, the first reports are not due until Aug 1.