For the second year in a row, a powerful, agenda-driven organization posing as a “nonpartisan” group of lawyers is at the center of important legislative battles raging in states across the country.

The group is called the Uniform Law Commission (ULC), and although the organization has clearly aligned itself in recent years with far-left values, it remains one of the most influential forces in nearly every state capitol, including in the deepest-of-deep-red states.

Thus far in the 2024 legislative session, perhaps the biggest fight involving the ULC centers around a bill proposed in South Dakota, where the state legislature and the governor’s office are controlled by Republicans. (Although it’s important to note that similar legislation will likely soon be offered in other states, and the ULC will almost certainly be the primary opponent in those states as well.)

The bill in question is House Bill 1199. It seeks to change the Uniform Commercial Code in South Dakota so that investors in the state retain their property rights when they purchase securities, such as stocks, bonds, exchange-traded funds, and other investments.

Although most Americans don’t know it, under the current Uniform Commercial Code—a uniform state law that has been passed in every state, varying only slightly from one place to the next—investors who purchase securities, including through retirement accounts like 401(k) accounts, have no ownership of the securities themselves. The broker—Fidelity, for example—retains ownership of most of the securities underlying the investments.

To make matters worse, the UCC also allows the broker to use investors’ investments as collateral in its own........

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