I Like It

Hawaii has an interesting approach to dealing with corporate money following the Supreme Courts infamous Citizens United decision.

Rather than attempting to regulate corporate money, Hawaii is on track legislation to redefine corporate power in the state as a way of preventing corporate campaign donations.

Sweet idea, but I am pretty sure that the Supreme Court will overturn this in a 6-3 vote before the ink is dry. 

The corrupt 6 want corporate money distorting democracy, and Citizens United was always a corrupt partisan ruling. 

When Hawaii drafted its constitution for eventual statehood in 1950, the delegates made very explicit the principle that runs through the laws of the 49 states that preceded it into the Union. “The power of the State to act in the general welfare shall never be impaired by the making of any irrevocable grant of special privileges or immunities,” reads Article I, Section 21 of the Hawaii Constitution.

Sixteen years after Citizens United started laying waste to America’s elections, the Hawaii legislature is poised to put that tool to unusually good use. S.B. 2471—a bill under which Hawaii would no longer grant artificial entities, including corporations, the power to spend in Hawaii’s politics—has passed both chambers with overwhelming bipartisan support. It is in conference committee now, one step away from Gov. Josh Green’s (D) desk.

Gov. Green has said he will sign a good bill that meets constitutional muster. That is the right test. S.B. 2471 meets it.

The bill, which is based upon the Center for American Progress’ “Corporate Power Reset,” is not a regulation of speech. It is a redefinition of corporate power. Aviam Soifer, former dean of the University of Hawaii’s law school, has studied the measure closely and concluded that it is squarely constitutional.

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While this state authority is not new or novel, it is dusty; no state legislature has redefined corporate powers this directly in roughly a century. It is natural that questions have arisen, including from Gov. Green, Hawaii Attorney General Anne E. Lopez, and some legislators. 

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The bill redefines the powers Hawaii grants to the corporations that operate within the state. It does not regulate what corporations say. It does not regulate what they spend. It defines what powers they have in the first place—and the powers Hawaii grants would no longer include the power to spend in Hawaii’s politics.

Natural persons like you and me keep every political right they have today.

Political committees remain governed by existing campaign finance law. This bill applies to corporations, LLCs, partnerships, and similar artificial persons—entities that operate in Hawaii only because Hawaii law creates them or empowers them to do so.

A note here, the registration of corporations and the powers that they have have always been left to the states, and in order for the Supreme Court to overrule this, they would reverse this, which would mean that Congress has this power.  (It also means that corporate shell company states like Delaware and Wyoming would likely be much more tightly regulated)

My guess is that SCOTUS will use some sort of hypocritical slight of hand to strike this down.