Washington, D.C. — Today, the Center for American Progress unveiled a breakthrough legal strategy to undo the harms of the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision.
The strategy—termed the Corporate Power Reset—would use state corporate law authority to stop granting political spending powers to corporations and dark money nonprofits. It argues that states can amend their corporation laws to no longer grant corporations the power to spend in politics.
When they do this, they rid their politics—their ballot measures and local, state, and federal elections—of both corporate and dark money from any corporation anywhere. It does not overturn Citizens United; it makes it irrelevant.
CAP’s approach is already playing out in Montana, where local organizers earlier this year drafted and submitted a constitutional ballot initiative for voters to consider in 2026—the first step in a movement built to spread nationwide.
It does not depend on a hopelessly deadlocked Congress to act. It does not wait for a federal constitutional amendment to pass three-quarters of the states. And it does not wait for the Supreme Court to change its mind about Citizens United, the case that reversed century-old campaign finance restrictions and opened the floodgates for corporations and other outside groups to spend unlimited money on elections.
Read the report: “The Corporate Power Reset That Makes Citizens United Irrelevant” by Tom Moore
For more information, or to speak with an expert, please contact Sam Hananel at [email protected].