Americans of every political stripe are disgusted by the influence of money in elections, which has exploded since the US Supreme Court’s decisions in Citizens United and SpeechNOW opened the floodgates of super PACs and dark money nonprofits to spend unlimited amounts on electioneering. This fall, anonymous corporate and ultra-rich donors will fund super PACs to spend over one billion dollars on midterm elections nationally, outspending candidate campaigns themselves. The corrupting influence of this much money in our elections is one of the main reasons that Americans faith in our democracy is at a record low, with a recent Gallup poll showing 90% of Americans believe corruption is widespread in the US government. This new status quo must not be accepted.

Soon, I will introduce legislation to stem the avalanche of corporate spending on elections by amending the general powers of Pennsylvania corporations and nonprofit corporations to clarify that such corporations may make contributions and donations, but not towards election or ballot question activity.

In Citizens United, the court ruled that the First Amendment prohibited the government from limiting a person’s ability to spend money independently on elections, including corporations. While several states have tried to fight the corrupting influence of money on elections by enacting novel commonsense caps and regulations on independent and campaign expenditures, the courts have struck these limits down to enforce the Supreme Court’s Citizens United precedent.

However, US case law has consistently held that corporations are creatures of state laws, and that states have the authority to define what corporations are allowed to do. As legal creations of state law, corporations’ general powers are explicitly defined by state statute, rather than being endowed with natural rights or US constitutional rights. Like most states, Pennsylvania has provided expansive powers to general corporations since the late 1800's – it is often taken for granted that basic actions such as existing in perpetuity, selling and buying real property, making donations, or taking on debt are all specifically authorized by state statute.

My legislation will rewrite the general powers of a corporation, a nonprofit corporation, and limited liability company to explicitly exclude the power to make donations or contributions to election activity or ballot question activity, with a penalty of a corporation’s general powers being revoked. As corporations formed outside of Pennsylvania that operate here are not granted any privileges beyond those granted to Pennsylvania-based corporations, they will also be prohibited from spending on Pennsylvania elections.

This approach to negating Citizens United on a state level is gaining traction across the country, with Hawaii already putting it on the books and Montana citizens successfully petitioning it up for a voter referendum this November. This legislation has also been introduced in the Pennsylvania House by Reps. Webster, Friel, Khan, and Waxman as HB 2728.

Pennsylvanians are sick of corporate and dark money in politics. Please join me in restoring trust and fairness in elections in our commonwealth.