“To Whom does this democracy actually belong?” asked Hawaii state GOP Rep. Kanani Souza in an impassioned speech supporting the passage of a law that directly addresses the massive influx of corporate money into our elections after the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. FEC. The bill passed with near-unanimous bipartisan support, and was signed into law May 14 by Hawaii governor Josh Green. Today, Ali Velshi explains how Hawaii, and soon other states, can take democracy back from corporations and put it into the hands of the people.

Citizens United determined that since Corporations are treated as individual people under the law, they also, like people, have a constitutional right to spend unlimited money in elections under the First Amendment. From 200-2024, outside groups spent more than $4 billion on federal elections alone, and dark money (spent by groups not require to disclose their donors) hit a record $1.9 billion dollars.

Hawaii is the first state in the nation to effectively ban corporate and dark money in elections. The law circumvents Citizens United by redefining the powers that corporations have in the first place. Political spending is no longer one of those powers. The strategy, known as the “Corporate Power Reset,” was developed by Tom Moore of the Center for American Progress.

Corporations are created by laws of the state, a principle defined by an 1819 Supreme Court decision in Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward. This decision has never been superseded, meaning, states have the ultimate power of what rights and responsibilities a corporations has. Where Citizens United protected a corporation’s right to free speech, Hawaii has decided that the state itself won’t grant corporations the right to spend money on elections or ballot measures.

Fourteen other states have introduced bill that rely on this legal framework, and more states are planning legislation in the coming year.

“The impact on American political financing would be, and this is not an overstatement, seismic,” Velshi says of the potential success of these efforts to reverse the damage Citizens United has done.

LISTEN: HOW HAWAII HAS CIRCUMVENTED CITIZENS UNITED

WATCH: VELSHI EXPLAINS HOW CORPORATIONS EXIST UNDER STATE LAW

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