The bill takes aim at the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling, which allowed corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money in elections. Lawmakers, drawing from a legal theory developed by the Center for American Progress, argued that because states create corporations and grant them their powers, Hawaii could simply decline to grant corporations the power to spend in elections.

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“Plainly, who does this democracy belong to?” Souza said. “Is it the people of Hawaii whose voices, votes and lived realities give meaning to this institution? Or is it corporations, entities created by the state, empowered by law, enriched by privilege, but never intended to stand as political equals to the very people who granted them existence?”

Souza argued that Citizens United had fundamentally distorted American democracy by elevating corporate spending into a force no individual voter could realistically match.

“Hawaii is not waiting for permission, not following the lead of others,” she said. “We are leading.”