More than 15 years ago, the Supreme Court removed limits on corporate political spending in its notorious Citizens United decision, ushering in an era of unprecedented influence by moneyed interests.

As a result, a small group of ultra-wealthy donors have skewed the political system to their advantage—and today, social scientists link the growing gap between rich and poor to that seminal 2010 decision.

Federal attempts to overturn the ruling by amending the US Constitution or legislating against corporate spending have repeatedly failed. But now several states are experimenting with new ways to get this flood of corporate money out of politics.

The state of Hawaii just passed a first-of-its-kind law redefining corporations as entities that aren’t allowed to spend money in elections anywhere within the state. The effort could kick off a powerful state-by-state pushback that succeeds where federal efforts failed.

Curtailing corporate influence on the political system is essential at a time when corporations are thriving while ordinary Americans struggle to make ends meet.

This simple idea is the brainchild of Tom Moore, senior fellow for democracy policy at the Center for American Progress. “It’s not regulation; it’s redefinition,” Moore told me. “States create corporations, and they give powers to all the corporations that operate within their states.”

So if the federal government and the Supreme Court enable corporations to influence elections, states can counter that merely by changing the definition of a corporation. And that’s precisely what Hawaii did. Effective starting July 2027, corporations doing business in the state are redefined to “not include the power to spend money or contribute anything of value to influence elections or ballot measures.”

The novel approach is well-protected against legal challenges. Moore explained, “The Supreme Court has said consistently for 200 years that [the power to define corporations] is a matter of state law, that the federal courts don’t have anything to do with that.”

The impact of this on Hawaii’s politics are likely to be monumental. “Basically, in Hawaii politics,........

© Common Dreams