Hawaiʻi Took On Corporate Election Spending. Now Its Law Is Under Attack.
Two federal lawsuits challenge a bold effort to limit corporate political power—and underscore why Move to Amend is organizing for constitutional change.
Hawaiʻi has taken a groundbreaking step toward ending corporate spending in elections. Now that effort faces two federal lawsuits seeking to stop it.
Signed into law on May 14, 2026, Act 11 uses the state’s authority over corporations and other artificial entities to remove their power to spend money influencing elections and ballot measures. The law is scheduled to take effect July 1, 2027. It targets corporate political spending rather than eliminating all money from elections.
For Move to Amend, this fight raises a fundamental question: Who governs—the people, or the artificial entities our laws create?
What Hawaiʻi’s law does
The approach begins with a straightforward principle: corporations exist because laws create them. Those laws grant privileges, including limited liability, and define the powers corporations may exercise.
Hawaiʻi’s legislature asserts that those powers should not include spending money to support or oppose candidates, political parties, political committees, or ballot measures. The legislation distinguishes the powers granted to artificial entities from the speech, petition, and association rights of human beings. It also includes exceptions for bona fide news coverage, commentary, and editorials, and provisions allowing qualifying political committees to operate.
Known as the Corporate Power Reset, this strategy seeks to address corporate election spending through the laws that define corporations themselves. Its supporters argue that states can withdraw political spending powers without directly overturning Citizens United. Whether courts accept that distinction is now being tested.
Who is challenging it?
The Grassroot Institute of Hawaii, represented by the Institute for Free Speech, filed its challenge in June. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce filed a separate lawsuit on September 24. Both seek to block the law.
The Chamber argues that Act 11 violates First Amendment protections for corporations and other organizations and conflicts with Supreme Court precedent. Hawaiʻi’s defense centers on its authority to define corporate powers.
At an October 13 hearing, U.S. District Judge Leslie Kobayashi expressed skepticism toward the state’s arguments and indicated that she viewed the law as restricting political speech. She did not issue a ruling at the hearing, taking the competing motions under advisement. The law has not been struck down by that hearing.
Why this matters beyond Hawaiʻi
Move to Amend supports efforts to challenge corporate political power at the state level. Organizing around corporate powers can educate communities, build coalitions, and put a basic democratic principle into practice: the people should determine the privileges of the entities their laws create.
But the lawsuits also expose the constitutional obstacle confronting that work. When corporations invoke constitutional rights to resist public control, communities must defend their decisions within a legal framework that grants artificial entities protections intended for people.
That is why state action and constitutional change belong together.
Overturning Citizens United alone is not enough. Move to Amend’s goal reaches beyond one decision: ending corporate constitutional rights and the treatment of money spent influencing elections as protected speech.
The We the People Amendment, H.J.Res. 54, would establish that constitutional rights belong to natural persons only. It would require federal, state, and local governments to regulate, limit, or prohibit election contributions and expenditures; require disclosure of permissible political spending; and prohibit courts from treating election spending as First Amendment speech. It expressly preserves freedom of the press.
Defend the Vote. End Corporate Rule.
Hawaiʻi’s effort deserves attention and support. Its legal outcome remains uncertain, but our organizing cannot depend on waiting for courts to solve the crisis of corporate rule.
We must build the public power to change the constitutional rules themselves.
Ask your members of Congress to support the We the People Amendment. Invite candidates to sign the pledge. Become a Move to Amend advocate and help organize in your community.
Hawaiʻi is challenging corporate political power. Together, we can keep striking at the root.
