Hawaii Passes First-of-its-kind Law to Undo Citizens United

Imagine a world without Citizens United... My guest Tom Moore is helping realize it: "It's not regulation; it's redefinition. States create corporations, and they give powers to all the corporations that operate within their states. And the Supreme Court has said consistently for 200 years that that is a matter of state law, that the federal courts don't have anything to do with that." Make your day brighter with some good news for a change by unlocking the interview. CLICK BELOW.

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FEATURING TOM MOORE - The Governor of Hawaii, Josh Green, just signed into law a landmark piece of legislation that has the power to undo corporate moneyed interference in politics. The law undermines the basis of the 2010 Citizens United Supreme Court ruling that has flooded election races with seemingly limitless resources and skewed the political landscape. Currently more than a dozen states are considering a similar approach as Hawaii. 

Tom Moore is a senior fellow for democracy policy at the Center for American Progress in Washington, DC and is the originator of the innovative legal basis that Hawai'i's law is based on. He spoke with Sonali Kolhatkar about the latest victory.

ROUGH TRANSCRIPT:

Sonali Kolhatkar: So last we spoke was a few months ago, and we were examining a similar effort in Montana, which is actually where I believe things went quite far before any other state did. But Montana is in the process of collecting signatures to put it to voters directly in the November ballot. And we'll talk about Montana later, but let's focus on Hawaii. What exactly is the law that Hawaii passed, and how did it do it so soon? 

Tom Moore: Well, they made it through their legislature. It was just a regular legislative process rather than going to the voters. And they had a number of bills introduced. They picked out the best one among them, moved that forward, went through two Senate committees and two House committees and a conference committee. 

Each step of the way looked like it was steps away from death. And the governor signed it very, very quickly. It was all a very, very pleasant surprise. We worked hard to testify in favor of the bill and get some good arguments out there, some good responses out and that kind of thing. But it was not a sure thing until the very last second.