Hawaii Just Found a Way to Keep Corporations Out of Politics

American Prospect

05/18/2026

At a time when giant tech companies and other corporate behemoths loom over our economic, social, and political life, the state of Hawaii has just found a way to limit their hold.

Last Thursday, Gov. Josh Green signed into law the first piece of American legislation that curtails corporations’ ability to engage in electoral politics. It doesn’t—because it couldn’t—undo the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United, which holds that corporations have the right to spend their resources on political campaigns. That would require another Court ruling striking down Citizens United, or a constitutional amendment banning such spending.

Rather, the Hawaiian law is based on the fact that in the United States, corporations are created and given their powers by the charters of the individual states. Indeed, corporations simply are a legal creation of the state, everywhere they exist, by definition. The new law simply states that corporations doing business in Hawaii do not have the power to engage in local, state, or federal political campaigns, that that was not one of the powers enumerated in the state’s corporate charter. It further specifies a range of penalties—including losing the right to conduct any business in the state at all—if they do.

Corporations’ rights to free speech are not addressed by the new law. “Two hundred and fifty years ago, Jefferson said that people’s rights are self-evident, endowed by their creator, preceding the establishment of governments,” says state Sen. Jarrett Keohokalole, who chairs the Senate Commerce and Consumer Protection Committee that first considered the bill, which was introduced by longtime Sen. Karl Rhoads.

“But corporations were, and continue to be, created by state law, as were their powers,” Keohokalole continues. “They are not irrevocable. State charters give corporations limited liability for their founders and owners; they make them eligible for specific kinds of tax breaks, and so on. This legislation clarifies that the powers and privileges granted under Hawaiian law to corporations do not include electioneering.”