Fighting Dark Money in Elections
New Hawaii law targets corporate influence in politics after Citizens United ruling
| Jennifer Sinco Kelleher | Associated Press | May 2026
Hawaii enacted a new law aimed at reducing corporate and “dark money” influence in state elections by redefining corporations in a way that prevents them from spending on elections. The law is designed as a direct state-level response to Citizens United and is expected to face legal challenges, but supporters argue it could become a model for other states.
What to know about states' efforts to limit corporate donations in politics
| Jennifer Sinco Kelleher and Geoff Mulvihill | Associated Press | May 12, 2026
This article explains the emerging state-level strategy behind Hawaii’s corporate-spending bill and Montana’s proposed ballot initiative. It describes how reformers are trying to use state corporate law to limit corporate political spending, while opponents argue the strategy may conflict with Citizens United and First Amendment doctrine.
Addressing Questions Surrounding Hawaii’s Bold Move To Undo Citizens United
| Tom Moore | Center for American Progress | April 29, 2026
The Center for American Progress defends Hawaii’s proposed corporate-spending reform as a constitutionally grounded use of state corporate-law authority. The article argues that states can define the powers they grant to corporations and can therefore withhold the power to spend corporate money in elections.
Hawaii’s pioneering, bipartisan effort to fight corporate and dark money spending in elections is a model for rest of country
Issue One praises Hawaii’s legislation as a bipartisan model for limiting corporate and dark-money influence in elections. The piece frames the law as a state-level reform that could inspire similar efforts elsewhere.
Transparent Election Initiative
| Tom Moore | Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance | August 7, 2025
This article describes Montana’s “Transparent Election Initiative,” a proposed ballot measure that would limit corporate political spending by changing the powers granted to corporations under state law. It presents Montana as another state testing a new path for reducing corporate and dark-money influence after Citizens United.
How a dark money network linked to Leonard Leo factors into Maine’s super PAC lawsuit
| Maine Morning Star | April 27, 2026
This article examines Maine’s voter-approved $5,000 contribution limit for super PACs and the legal fight surrounding it. The article connects the challenge to broader national dark-money networks and shows how Maine has become a major test case for whether states can limit the influence of very large donors and super PACs.
The Maine Lawsuit That Could Save Democracy From Big Money
| The Nation | December 11, 2025
This article analyzes Maine’s voter-approved super PAC contribution cap as a direct challenge to the post-Citizens United campaign finance system. It argues that Maine’s reform could become a major legal vehicle for revisiting the assumption that super PACs may accept unlimited contributions.
Arizona Supreme Court Grapples with Challenge to “Dark Money” Disclosure Law
| Eric Petry | State Court Report | March 17, 2025, updated September 30, 2025
This article explains the legal challenge to Arizona’s voter-approved Proposition 211, also known as the Voters’ Right to Know Act. The law requires disclosure of major donors behind election spending and was adopted to expose anonymous campaign spending from large donors.
Arizona Supreme Court allows GOP lawmakers to challenge voter-approved dark money disclosure law
| Arizona Mirror | September 29, 2025
This article reports that the Arizona Supreme Court allowed Republican lawmakers to continue challenging Proposition 211, while not yet deciding the law’s constitutionality. The case highlights the continuing legal struggle over state efforts to require donor disclosure in political campaigns.
Bill aims at dark money loopholes
| Marjorie Childress | New Mexico In Depth | February 5, 2025
This article reports on a New Mexico bill aimed at closing loopholes in the state’s campaign finance laws. It explains how political groups can evade disclosure rules and how reformers are trying to make it harder for donors to hide behind intermediaries when influencing elections.
It’s Time for Congress to DISCLOSE Election Spending
| Saurav Ghosh | Campaign Legal Center | March 4, 2026
Campaign Legal Center argues for passage of the federal DISCLOSE Act, which would require groups spending money in elections to disclose major donors and trace money routed through LLCs and other intermediaries. The article frames the bill as a federal response to dark-money tactics that hide the true sources of election spending.
Dark Money Hit a Record High of $1.9 Billion in 2024 Federal Races
| Anna Massoglia | Brennan Center for Justice | May 7, 2025
The Brennan Center documents the scale of the dark-money problem, reporting that undisclosed election spending reached a record $1.9 billion in the 2024 federal cycle. The article provides background for why states and reform institutions are pursuing stronger disclosure laws, public financing, and other anti-dark-money reforms.
New York comptroller race draws $4.6M in matching funds
| Timothy Fanning | Times Union | May 22, 2026
This article reports on New York’s public matching-funds program, which is designed to amplify small donors and reduce candidates’ dependence on wealthy donors and special interests. The comptroller race shows how public financing can help candidates raise significant money through small-dollar participation rather than relying primarily on large donors.
Seattle Democracy Voucher program up for renewal on August ballot
| Josh Cohen | Cascade PBS | July 21, 2025
This article explains Seattle’s Democracy Voucher program, a local public-financing system that gives residents publicly funded vouchers to donate to participating candidates. Supporters argue the system broadens who funds campaigns and reduces reliance on wealthy private donors.
State and Local Programs Help Take Big Money Out of Politics
| Cinthia Illan-Vazquez and Celina Avalos Jaramillo | Brennan Center for Justice | August 4, 2025
The Brennan Center surveys state and local public-financing programs, including Seattle’s democracy vouchers, as tools for reducing the influence of big money in elections. The article emphasizes small-donor public financing as one way institutions can counterbalance wealthy donors and dark-money spending.
The inside story of how the FEC investigated a dark money group but failed to hold it accountable
| Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington | March 16, 2026
CREW analyzes the Federal Election Commission’s investigation into Freedom Vote Inc., a nonprofit accused of acting like a political committee while avoiding donor disclosure. The article shows how enforcement breakdowns at the FEC can allow dark-money groups to avoid accountability, while also illustrating how watchdog litigation can expose hidden campaign spending.
Two-Page Summary: State and Institutional Efforts to Reduce Dark Money in U.S. Elections
The articles collected here show that the fight against dark money in U.S. elections is increasingly moving through state governments, ballot initiatives, courts, watchdog organizations, and public-financing institutions. Since the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, corporations, wealthy individuals, nonprofit organizations, LLCs, and super PACs have been able to spend very large sums in elections, often while obscuring the true source of the money. These articles describe a growing effort to respond to that system through disclosure laws, contribution limits, public financing, litigation, and new legal strategies that try to redefine the role of corporations in political spending.
One of the most significant current examples is Hawaii’s new law aimed at reducing corporate influence in elections. The Associated Press article on Hawaii explains that the state enacted a law designed to prevent corporations from spending directly in elections by changing how corporate powers are defined under state law. Rather than simply trying to regulate campaign spending after the fact, Hawaii’s approach goes deeper: it asks whether corporations, as state-created legal entities, should be granted the power to spend money to influence elections at all. Supporters frame this as a direct state-level response to Citizens United, which treated corporate political spending as protected speech. The Hawaii reform is expected to face court challenges, but reform advocates see it as a possible model for other states.
A related Associated Press article places Hawaii’s law alongside Montana’s “Transparent Election Initiative,” showing that reformers are testing a broader state-level strategy. In Montana, the proposed ballot measure would also use state corporate-law authority to limit corporate political spending. The Harvard Law School Forum article on the Montana initiative explains that the theory behind this strategy is that corporations exist because states create and authorize them. If a state can grant corporations certain powers, reformers argue, it can also withhold the power to use corporate treasury funds in elections. This approach does not merely ask for more disclosure; it challenges the assumption that corporations should have the same election-spending rights as natural persons.
The Center for American Progress and Issue One articles defend Hawaii’s approach as a potentially important breakthrough. They argue that states are not powerless after Citizens United because states still control corporate charters and corporate privileges. These articles present the Hawaii law as both legally bold and politically important. It is bold because it invites a legal test of the relationship between corporate law and campaign finance law. It is politically important because it offers reformers a new path beyond waiting for Congress or the Supreme Court to reverse Citizens United. In this view, state governments can become laboratories for democracy by experimenting with legal tools that reduce the power of corporate and dark-money spending.
Maine provides another important example, but its strategy focuses on super PAC contribution limits rather than corporate powers. The articles from Maine Morning Star and The Nation discuss Maine’s voter-approved $5,000 contribution limit for super PACs. Super PACs are a major part of the dark-money ecosystem because they can accept very large contributions and spend independently to support or oppose candidates. Although super PACs are supposed to operate independently from campaigns, critics argue that they often function as vehicles for extremely wealthy donors to exert outsized influence. Maine’s law challenges the idea that contributions to super PACs must remain unlimited. The Maine litigation has attracted attention because it could become a major test case for whether states can impose limits on money flowing into super PACs.
The Maine articles also show how dark money networks can influence legal and political battles far beyond one state. The Maine Morning Star article connects the lawsuit to a dark-money network associated with Leonard Leo, illustrating how national donor networks can shape state-level campaign finance fights. This matters because reform laws are often challenged by organizations and funders who benefit from the existing system. The Maine example demonstrates that reducing dark money is not only a matter of passing laws; it also requires defending those laws in court against well-funded opposition.
Arizona’s Proposition 211, also known as the Voters’ Right to Know Act, represents another major reform model: donor disclosure. The State Court Report and Arizona Mirror articles explain that Arizona voters approved a law requiring disclosure of major donors behind election spending. Unlike Hawaii’s corporate-law strategy or Maine’s contribution limit, Arizona’s law focuses on transparency. It does not necessarily stop large sums from entering elections, but it seeks to ensure that voters know who is behind political advertising and campaign spending. This is one of the most common anti-dark-money strategies because dark money depends on secrecy. If donors must be disclosed, voters can evaluate the motives and interests behind campaign messages.
The Arizona articles also show that disclosure laws face persistent legal and political challenges. The Arizona Supreme Court allowed lawmakers to continue challenging Proposition 211, which means the law remains part of a larger legal fight over how much transparency states can require. Opponents of disclosure laws often argue that disclosure can chill political speech or expose donors to harassment. Supporters argue that voters have a democratic right to know who is trying to influence elections. The Arizona case therefore highlights a central tension in campaign finance law: balancing donor privacy claims against the public’s interest in transparent elections.
New Mexico’s reform effort focuses on closing loopholes. The New Mexico In Depth article describes a bill aimed at dark-money loopholes in the state’s campaign finance system. This type of reform is especially important because political money often moves through intermediaries, shell entities, nonprofits, and other structures that make it difficult to identify the original source. Even where disclosure laws exist, sophisticated donors may find ways to avoid revealing themselves. New Mexico’s effort shows that anti-dark-money reform often requires technical changes to campaign finance laws so that disclosure rules cannot be easily evaded.
At the federal level, the Campaign Legal Center article argues for passage of the DISCLOSE Act. This legislation would require groups spending money in elections to reveal major donors and would also address money routed through LLCs and other intermediaries. The DISCLOSE Act represents a national version of the transparency reforms being pursued in states such as Arizona and New Mexico. Its purpose is to make it harder for wealthy donors, corporations, and politically active nonprofits to hide behind layers of organizations. The federal proposal reflects the idea that dark money is a national problem requiring national disclosure standards, especially in federal elections.
The Brennan Center article on the 2024 election cycle provides the scale of the problem. It reports that dark money reached a record $1.9 billion in federal races in 2024. This figure helps explain why so many states and institutions are experimenting with reform. The problem is not limited to a few isolated races. Instead, dark money has become a central feature of modern American elections. Because this money can come from undisclosed sources, voters may see political ads or campaign messages without knowing whether they are funded by corporations, billionaires, trade associations, ideological nonprofits, or other interests.
Several articles focus on public financing as another way to reduce the influence of dark money and wealthy donors. Public financing does not necessarily ban dark money, but it gives candidates another path to run competitive campaigns without relying so heavily on large private contributions. The Times Union article on New York’s public matching-funds program explains how small donations can be multiplied through public funds, helping candidates raise meaningful money from ordinary voters. The program is designed to amplify small donors and reduce dependence on wealthy contributors and special interests.
Seattle’s Democracy Voucher program is another example of public financing. The Cascade PBS article explains that Seattle gives residents publicly funded vouchers that they can donate to participating candidates. This system broadens participation in campaign funding because people who might not otherwise donate money can still support candidates financially. The Brennan Center article on state and local public-financing programs places Seattle’s vouchers and similar systems in a broader reform context. These programs are meant to shift political power away from wealthy donors and toward ordinary residents. While public financing does not eliminate outside spending, it can help candidates remain viable without depending primarily on large private donors.
Finally, the CREW article on the Federal Election Commission shows the importance and weakness of enforcement institutions. CREW describes how the FEC investigated Freedom Vote Inc., a nonprofit accused of operating like a political committee while avoiding donor disclosure, but failed to hold it fully accountable. This example illustrates that campaign finance rules are only as strong as the institutions enforcing them. If agencies are deadlocked, underpowered, or unwilling to act, dark-money groups can exploit the system even when laws appear to require disclosure. Watchdog organizations such as CREW, Campaign Legal Center, Brennan Center, Issue One, and others therefore play an important role by investigating violations, filing complaints, bringing lawsuits, and educating the public.
Taken together, these articles show that efforts to reduce dark money are happening on multiple fronts. Hawaii and Montana are testing whether states can use corporate law to limit corporate political spending. Maine is testing whether states can limit contributions to super PACs. Arizona and New Mexico are working to strengthen disclosure and close loopholes. Congress is considering broader federal disclosure through the DISCLOSE Act. New York and Seattle are using public financing to reduce candidates’ dependence on wealthy donors. Watchdog groups are exposing failures in enforcement and pushing institutions to act.
The common theme is that dark money weakens democratic accountability by separating political spending from public knowledge. When voters cannot see who is funding campaign messages, they cannot fully evaluate the interests behind those messages. The reforms described in these articles do not all use the same method, and some may face serious constitutional challenges. However, they reflect a growing recognition that the current campaign finance system allows wealthy and hidden interests to exercise disproportionate influence. The state and institutional efforts summarized here represent attempts to restore transparency, reduce dependency on large donors, and make elections more accountable to ordinary voters.
