Frequently Asked Questions

It eliminates corporate and dark money from California's elections.

It does this by changing California corporate law: by redefining what powers corporations and other artificial entities are granted under state law, and which powers are not granted. In particular, it makes clear that artificial entities are not granted the power to use corporate treasury funds to support or oppose candidates or ballot issues, while leaving individuals fully free to participate in the political process.

Corporations and other artificial entities are not people. They exist only because the state creates them and grants them specific legal powers. The Corporate Power Reset updates those powers to reflect California's decision not to grant artificial entities the power to use their corporate treasuries to support or oppose candidates or ballot issues.

It would end corporate and dark-money spending in California elections by requiring election spending to come from real people, with their names and legally required identifying information attached — not from corporations, LLCs, nonprofits, trade associations, unions, or other artificial entities.

It does not stop any real person from speaking, donating, volunteering, endorsing, organizing, joining a group, contacting lawmakers, or participating in politics.

It does not regulate ordinary business operations, hiring, pricing, advertising, customer relationships, or day-to-day organizational activity.

It does not stop businesses, nonprofits, churches, unions, or advocacy organizations from speaking about public issues, educating the public, lobbying, publishing research, hosting forums, or engaging with the government.

It addresses a narrow but powerful category of activity: using an artificial entity's treasury funds to support or oppose candidates or ballot issues.

Yes. It applies to all spending to support or oppose candidates and ballot issues in California elections.

Corporate powers come from state law. The Corporate Power Reset makes clear that the artificial entities California recognizes are not granted the power to spend corporate treasury funds to support or oppose candidates or ballot issues in California elections — whether those elections are local, state, or federal.

No. The Corporate Power Reset does not regulate speech, campaigns, candidates, or elections. It does not tell any human being what they can or cannot say.

Instead, it specifies what powers the State of California grants to the artificial entities it creates. The Supreme Court has said for two centuries that states' authority to define and redefine their corporations is absolute. Political participation remains fully available to people, while the corporate form is defined as a business and organizational tool rather than a political actor.

Corporations and other artificial entities receive powerful benefits from the state, including limited liability, perpetual existence, and special legal protections that make large-scale business and organizational activity possible.

These benefits were initially granted by the state to support commerce and charitable activity, not to amplify political power. Later judicial rulings (Citizens United among them) interpreted these grants of power to include political power. That's a mistake, but one the citizens of California can fix.

The Corporate Power Reset clarifies that political participation belongs to human beings. Artificial entities exist to carry out lawful business or organizational purposes, not to act as political participants in their own right.

An artificial person is an entity that exists because the law creates or recognizes it. That includes corporations, LLCs, nonprofits, trade associations, unions, and similar entities that receive benefits from the state in exchange for legal recognition.

Real people have constitutional, unalienable rights. Artificial entities have only the powers the people of California grant them under law. The Corporate Power Reset makes clear that those powers do not include spending money to support or oppose candidates or ballot issues in California elections.

Yes, it is the same idea and strategy, applied to California.

No. The Corporate Power Reset does not stop nonprofits, advocacy organizations, or membership groups from educating the public, speaking about issues, publishing research, organizing communities, lobbying, hosting forums, or engaging with government.

The line is election spending by artificial entities. Nonprofits and advocacy organizations may continue their issue work, but they cannot use organizational treasury funds to support or oppose candidates or ballot measures.

Yes. Nonprofits can continue to educate the public, publish research, issue reports, hold public events, train volunteers, organize communities, and speak about policy issues.

The Corporate Power Reset does not restrict issue advocacy. It applies when an artificial entity spends money or provides something of value to support or oppose a candidate or ballot measure.

Yes. Nonprofits can still lobby, contact lawmakers, testify at hearings, support or oppose legislation, communicate with agencies, and advocate for policies that matter to their mission.

The Corporate Power Reset does not stop organizations from participating in public policy debates. It addresses election spending, not ordinary advocacy or lobbying.

Nonprofits can continue to speak about public issues and educate the public. But spending money to support or oppose a ballot measure would have to be done through a political committee funded by real people, not through the nonprofit's general treasury.

That means the nonprofit can keep doing issue work, while election spending is handled transparently through the proper political vehicle.

No. The Corporate Power Reset does not require a nonprofit itself to disclose donors for ordinary charitable, educational, religious, or issue-advocacy work.

If real people contribute to a political committee for election spending, those political contributions are disclosed under campaign-finance law. That is the point: money spent to support or oppose candidates or ballot measures should be traceable to real people, not hidden behind artificial entities.

A 501(c)(4) could still decide to endorse a candidate and communicate that endorsement internally to its members.

What changes is paid public promotion. The organization itself could not use treasury funds to run ads, mailers, or other paid communications supporting or opposing a candidate. If supporters want to fund that election activity, it would need to happen through a political committee funded by real people.

Yes. Membership organizations can continue communicating with their members, including about public issues, legislative priorities, events, and organizational positions.

The restriction applies to using organizational treasury funds for election spending. Normal member communications and issue advocacy will not be impacted under the Corporate Power Reset.

Yes, so long as the activity is nonpartisan and even-handed.

A nonprofit can host candidate forums, publish neutral voter guides, provide information about candidates' positions, and educate voters. Those activities remain educational, not election spending, when the organization does not endorse, oppose, or urge people to vote for a specific candidate or party.

Yes, if they are structured as issue education and applied fairly.

Organizations can continue informing the public about where candidates or officeholders stand on issues. The key distinction is whether the organization is educating voters or spending organizational funds to support or oppose a candidate or ballot measure.

Yes. Political committees can still operate. They remain the proper vehicle for election spending.

The difference is that election spending should be funded by voluntary contributions from real people, not by transfers from an artificial entity's general treasury. PACs disclose their donors, which helps voters see who is trying to influence elections.

No. A nonprofit could not move general treasury funds into a PAC for election spending.

That would effectively allow the artificial entity to spend in elections through a different account. Under the Corporate Power Reset, political spending must be funded by real people, disclosed as real people.

No. The Corporate Power Reset is viewpoint-neutral and party-neutral.

Both major parties and many groups aligned with them benefit from the current system of corporate and dark-money spending. The Corporate Power Reset applies the same rule across the board so California elections become more transparent, local, and accountable to real people.

Only in the same way it affects other artificial entities.

The Corporate Power Reset does not stop unions, professional associations, civic groups, or membership organizations from organizing members, advocating on policy issues, communicating with lawmakers, bargaining collectively, holding meetings, publishing research, educating the public, or speaking about issues that affect their members.

It applies only to election spending by the organization itself: using organizational treasury funds or resources for campaign activity supporting or opposing a candidate or ballot measure.

Yes. The Corporate Power Reset does not affect collective bargaining, workplace organizing, contract negotiations, grievance work, member representation, strike activity, labor advocacy, or ordinary union operations.

Workers keep all their rights as real people, including the right to organize, join a union, speak publicly, volunteer, donate personally, and advocate for candidates or ballot measures they support.

Yes. Unions and membership organizations can continue speaking about wages, working conditions, public education, health care, public lands, taxes, labor rights, small-business policy, professional standards, and any other issue affecting their members.

They can publish research, hold events, train members, lobby lawmakers, testify at hearings, and take public positions on policy questions.

The line is election spending. Organizational treasury funds cannot be used for campaign activity supporting or opposing a candidate or ballot measure.

Yes. Membership organizations can continue communicating with their members about policy issues, organizational priorities, meetings, events, legislative updates, and civic participation.

The Corporate Power Reset is not aimed at ordinary member communications. It is aimed at using an artificial entity's treasury funds to support or oppose candidates or ballot measures.

Yes. Union members keep their full political rights as real people.

They may donate personal funds, volunteer for campaigns, endorse candidates or ballot measures as individuals, attend rallies, knock doors, make calls, run for office, and speak publicly about their political views.

The Corporate Power Reset does not limit political participation by workers or members. It limits election spending by artificial entities.

Yes. Political committees can still operate.

In practice, political committees are the proper vehicle for members and supporters to voluntarily band together and raise money for the express purpose of influencing elections. Those funds should come from real people, disclosed as real people — not from an artificial entity's general treasury.

No. Under the Corporate Power Reset, unions, trade associations, nonprofits, corporations, LLCs, and other artificial entities cannot use organizational treasury funds for campaign activity supporting or opposing candidates or ballot measures.

That rule applies across the board. It is not based on whether the organization is liberal or conservative, business-oriented or labor-oriented, popular or unpopular.

No. The Corporate Power Reset applies the same rule to artificial entities across the board.

Corporations, LLCs, nonprofits, unions, trade associations, chambers of commerce, and membership organizations are all treated the same: real people may participate fully in politics, but artificial entities may not use treasury funds for election spending.

No. The Corporate Power Reset protects the political voice of workers as real people.

The current system allows the biggest artificial entities — including corporations, national trade associations, dark-money groups, and large institutional spenders — to dominate elections with organizational money.

The Corporate Power Reset shifts political power away from entity-level spending and back toward real people, including workers, union members, small-business owners, farmers, ranchers, retirees, and families.

Yes. Political committees can still operate.

PACs are the proper vehicle for real people to voluntarily join together and raise money to support or oppose candidates or ballot measures. The key principle is that PAC money should come from real people, disclosed as real people — not from an artificial entity's general treasury.

PACs are different because they exist for political activity and are already regulated as political committees under existing campaign-finance law.

A corporation, nonprofit, union, trade association, or LLC can be used for business, charitable, religious, labor, or advocacy work — and can also be used to hide the true source of political money.

A PAC is different. Its purpose is political, its donors are disclosed, and voters can see who is funding it.

The Corporate Power Reset does not create a loophole for dark money. It preserves transparent political committees funded by real people.

No. Under the Corporate Power Reset, artificial entities cannot use a PAC as a pass-through for organizational treasury funds.

The loophole in the current system is that artificial entities can move money into elections while shielding the real people behind the spending. The Corporate Power Reset closes that loophole by making clear that corporations, nonprofits, unions, trade associations, LLCs, and other artificial entities cannot use PACs as pass-throughs for organizational treasury funds.

Super PACs can still exist, but under the Corporate Power Reset they cannot be funded with money from corporations, nonprofits, unions, trade associations, LLCs, or other artificial entities.

That matters because super PACs are often where large checks and dark-money transfers enter the political system. The Corporate Power Reset makes clear that if money is going to be spent to influence California elections, it should come from real people, disclosed as real people.

The Corporate Power Reset stops wealthy individuals from hiding behind artificial entities.

A wealthy individual could still spend or donate as a real person, subject to existing disclosure laws. But they could not route money through a corporation, nonprofit, trade association, shell entity, or other artificial entity to hide who is really trying to influence California voters.

That is the point: if someone wants to spend money to support or oppose candidates or ballot measures in California elections, voters should be able to see who they are.

Yes. The Corporate Power Reset is designed to operate squarely within existing constitutional doctrine.

The Corporate Power Reset does not regulate individual rights or restrict human speech. It defines the powers the State of California chooses to grant to the artificial entities it creates or recognizes.

Nothing in the Constitution requires states to create corporations, LLCs, nonprofits, unions, trade associations, or other artificial entities with political-spending authority. The Corporate Power Reset makes clear that California's grant of power to artificial entities does not include the power to spend treasury funds to support or oppose candidates or ballot measures.

No — this is one of the first (and most important) questions that gets asked about The Corporate Power Reset.

Citizens United addressed whether campaign-finance laws could apply to corporations that already possessed political-spending power under state law.

The Corporate Power Reset addresses a different question: which powers California chooses to grant to the artificial entities it creates in the first place.

That distinction is key. Citizens United did not require states to grant corporations political-spending power. No Supreme Court case has ever held that states must do so.

No. It is an effort to operate squarely within existing constitutional doctrine.

The Corporate Power Reset does not deny people their constitutional rights. It defines the powers the state chooses to grant to the artificial entities it creates.

Citizens United addressed how campaign-finance laws apply to corporations that already possess political-spending power under state law. The Corporate Power Reset addresses corporate powers at their source.

This approach is fully consistent with more than 200 years of foundational corporate law, under which states retain broad and ongoing authority to define, revise, and redefine the powers of the entities they create.

Courts review laws as written and as applied. The Corporate Power Reset fits within long-standing doctrine recognizing that states control the powers of the artificial entities they create.

To strike it down, a court would have to say that corporations possess a constitutional entitlement to political-spending power that exists independently of state law. No court has ever said that.

Such a ruling would be a major and unprecedented expansion of corporate constitutional doctrine. It would also remove this question from state control altogether. If political-spending power were constitutionally mandatory for corporations, states would no longer be able to define the scope of the entities they create in this area at all — a result totally at odds with existing law.

Yes. For most of American history, corporate charters were narrow and specific. Corporations were created for defined purposes, and they could act only within the powers the state granted to them. Political-spending power was never an item on that list.

Early lawmakers were deeply suspicious of concentrated corporate power. As a result, they treated corporations as limited legal tools, not general-purpose actors.

To preserve democratic control, states also built a relief valve into corporate law: the authority to revise, redefine, or withdraw corporate powers over time as public needs changed. The Supreme Court has repeatedly recognized state authority over corporate powers for more than 200 years.

The Corporate Power Reset draws on that tradition. It applies a long-standing principle of corporate law to a modern problem using a targeted and transparent approach.

“Ultra vires” means beyond the powers the entity was granted.

The state recognizes only those acts an artificial entity is empowered to take. Actions outside that scope are not treated as lawful acts of the entity.

Corporate law has always operated this way. The Corporate Power Reset applies that familiar principle to political spending.

The Corporate Power Reset is enforced through ordinary corporate law mechanisms. When an artificial entity acts outside the powers granted to it by state law, that act is considered ultra vires, meaning beyond its legal authority.

In such cases, the state may rely on standard corporate-law remedies, including civil enforcement actions and judicial declarations that the conduct was ultra vires.

Where appropriate, corporate officers or board members who authorized or carried out ultra vires actions may face civil liability under existing principles of corporate law.

In serious or repeated cases, the state's attorney general may seek changes to an entity's corporate privileges through the courts, up to and including termination of the corporation's charter.

This is normal corporate-law enforcement, not a new or unusual system.

Enforcement is handled through existing legal channels. The Attorney General may bring enforcement actions, and shareholders or members of an artificial entity may also have standing to challenge election spending by that entity.

There is no new enforcement bureaucracy. The Corporate Power Reset relies on civil actions in court and ordinary corporate-law remedies.

No. Like most corporate law, enforcement is triggered when violations occur and come to light.

The Corporate Power Reset does not create a surveillance system. It creates a clear legal rule that can be enforced through civil proceedings when an artificial entity uses treasury funds for election spending.

No. This is not a criminal law. Violations do not result in criminal charges against anyone.

Criminal penalties in this context would raise serious First Amendment concerns, and The Corporate Power Reset deliberately avoids that approach.

The Corporate Power Reset is enforced through civil remedies, not criminal prosecution.

The Corporate Power Reset is aimed at clear violations, not ordinary good-faith mistakes.

Because enforcement is civil and handled through existing legal channels, courts have discretion. Accidental or minor violations could typically be addressed through compliance measures rather than severe penalties.