States explore new approaches to limit corporate political spending

Hawaii and Montana are taking up a question that has shaped U.S. campaign finance for more than a decade: how much influence corporations can exert in elections when the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling removed limits on corporate and union political spending.

In Hawaii, lawmakers on Friday sent a bill to Democratic Gov. Josh Green that would redefine corporations in a way that supporters say would bar them from spending on elections. Supporters of the Hawaii plan say voters dislike corporate and hard-to-track “dark money” in politics and that the bill would meet that demand. Opponents say states cannot legally pass measures meant to sidestep Supreme Court rulings they do not like.

Montana’s effort centers on a volunteer signature-gathering campaign aimed at placing a similar idea on the November ballot. The initiative, branded as “The Montana Plan,” would seek to redefine corporate powers in a way that supporters say would block election spending while permitting lobbying. The volunteers are pursuing the measure after Montana’s Supreme Court ruled in April that the initiative could proceed, even after Republican state Attorney General Austin Knudsen said it violated a state rule requiring ballot measures to stick to one subject.

The push in both states is tied to how Citizens United changed the legal landscape. In that case, the Supreme Court effectively struck down a ban on corporate and union election spending if the groups do not donate directly to campaigns. Since then, outside political spending has surged, and watchdog groups have documented growth in money associated with organizations that are not required to disclose donors.

Political spending has also shifted at the federal level since Citizens United. OpenSecrets tracked more than $4 billion in outside political spending in the 2024 federal elections, almost 12 times as much as in 2008, according to the Associated Press report. The Brennan Center for Justice also tallied a record $1.9 billion in dark-money spending in 2024, the report said, and the influence of dark money has appeared in state-level races as well.

Advocates for the corporate redefinition idea include Tom Moore, a former Federal Elections Commission lawyer now a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. Moore said the think tank is pushing to redefine corporations to ban spending on campaigns but allow lobbying. He also said the prohibition would extend to nonprofit organizations involved in dark money spending and framed the proposal as a path to move Citizens United’s effect out of politics.

“This is a genuinely new approach to getting Citizens United out of America’s politics that is based on absolutely foundational corporation law,” Moore said, according to the Associated Press report. Moore added that if even one state adopted the approach, it would be tested in court.

In Hawaii, the legislation’s fate remains with the governor. Green, a Democrat, has not said whether he will sign the bill, and he has to decide by June 30 whether to veto it. State Sen. Karl Rhoads, also a Democrat, introduced the measure and said it could have national implications. “This is an instance where a small state has a chance to make big waves on the national scene,” Rhoads said in the AP report.

Hawaii Attorney General Anne Lopez, a Democrat, opposed the bill, arguing that defending it in court would be difficult and costly, according to the Associated Press report.

In Montana, the volunteer effort is led by Jeff Mangan, a former Montana state commissioner of political practices. Mangan said the measure resonates with voters. “It really resonates with citizens,” he said, “They probably see it because they live it,” according to the AP report.

Skepticism about the plan’s legal durability came from those who say the approach cannot avoid Citizens United’s substance. Bradley Smith, a Republican former member of the Federal Election Commission, said the redefinition idea is unlikely to pass muster in court, arguing that supporters are trying to ignore what he characterized as the substance of a Supreme Court ruling through “semantic lawyerly tricks.” Smith also said lower courts likely would reject any measure aimed at circumventing the Supreme Court decision, and that a provision tying benefits to recipient behavior could be rejected, according to the Associated Press report.

Smith said that if such measures took effect, companies might withdraw from states rather than curtail their political spending. Loyola Law School professor Justin Levitt said he was not sure whether the Montana and Hawaii efforts would work, but he said he knows where the dispute is likely to land. “The one thing I am absolutely sure of is if it got the signatures and is passed by the Montana public and is approved by the Montana courts, that the Supreme Court will want a crack at it,” Levitt said, adding, “There are a lot of steps between here and there,” the AP report said. Levitt also said restricting companies from spending on elections might not make a big difference overall because far more money is spent by wealthy individuals such as Elon Musk.

If Montana’s initiative clears its procedural steps and survives legal challenges, it would put the corporate redefinition strategy into a direct confrontation with the Supreme Court’s interpretation of campaign spending limits—while Hawaii’s bill faces an immediate test in statehouse politics and, potentially, the courts as well.