Hawaii Legislature Passes Bill Redefining Corporations to Restrict Election Spending, Sent to Governor

Hawaii lawmakers sent a bill to Gov. Josh Green on Friday that would redefine corporations in a way that precludes spending on elections. Green, a Democrat, has until June 30 to say whether he intends to veto the legislation.

State Sen. Karl Rhoads, a Democrat who introduced the bill, said, “This is an instance where a small state has a chance to make big waves on the national scene. ” The office of Hawaii Attorney General Anne Lopez, a Democrat, opposed the bill, arguing it will be difficult and costly to defend in court.

Similar legislation has been introduced in at least 14 states besides Hawaii. In Montana, a volunteer group is gathering signatures to put a similar corporate redefinition measure on the ballot in November. The effort is branded as The Montana Plan.

Montana's Supreme Court ruled in April that the ballot effort could proceed even after Republican state Attorney General Austin Knudsen said the Montana ballot initiative violates the requirement that ballot initiatives stick to one subject. Jeff Mangan, a former Montana state commissioner of political practices who is leading the ballot effort, said, “It really resonates with citizens.

” The moves in both states represent a new approach to limiting the influence of corporations and hard-to-track dark money groups that have spent unlimited amounts on politics since the Supreme Court issued its ruling in Citizens United v.

Federal Election Commission in 2010. Citizens United wanted to run TV commercials promoting its anti-Hillary Clinton movie in 2008. The high court's ruling two years later effectively struck down a ban on corporate and union election spending as long as they don’t donate directly to any campaigns.

OpenSecrets tracked more than $4 billion in outside political spending in the 2024 federal elections. OpenSecrets reported that the 2024 outside spending figure was almost 12 times as much as in 2008. 9 billion in dark money spending in 2024.

The Center for American Progress is pushing to redefine corporations to ban spending on campaigns but allow them to lobby lawmakers. Tom Moore, a former Federal Elections Commission lawyer who is now a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, said Americans want to undo the Citizens United ruling.

“This is a genuinely new approach to getting Citizens United out of America's politics that is based on absolutely foundational corporation law,” he said.

Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Law School who studies campaign finance law, said keeping companies from spending on elections might not make a big difference because far more is spent by wealthy individuals. “The mistake I think supporters of this are making is thinking you can ignore the substance of a Supreme Court ruling by semantic lawyerly tricks,” he said.

Lower courts likely would not approve a measure that aims to circumvent a Supreme Court ruling, Smith added. If the measures take effect, companies might withdraw from states rather than curtail their political spending. Levitt said he is certain that if the Montana measure reaches the ballot, passes and clears state courts, the Supreme Court will want to review it.