{"id":260526,"date":"2026-08-06T19:12:15","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T19:12:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/260526\/"},"modified":"2026-08-06T19:12:15","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T19:12:15","slug":"another-glimmer-of-light-in-the-fight-against-citizens-united-pennsylvania-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/260526\/","title":{"rendered":"Another Glimmer of Light in the Fight against Citizens United- Pennsylvania edition"},"content":{"rendered":"

https:\/\/www.newsfromthestates.com\/article\/pa-house-democrats-introduce-measure-bar-corporations-political-contributions<\/a><\/p>\n

Four Democratic PA House members have introduced a bill to bar corporations from contributing to political campaigns in Pennsylvania as Democratic state lawmakers work to enact campaign finance reforms.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The\u00a0measure<\/a>\u00a0would rewrite the state\u2019s corporate charter to ensure corporations do not have \u201cany power to directly or indirectly engage in election activity or ballot question activity.\u201d <\/p>\n

Under the proposal, any corporation that does engage in election activity would be stripped of its charter and business privileges. It would also face civil action from the state Attorney General.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Rep. Joe Webster (D-Montgomery), along with co-sponsors Reps. Tarik Khan (D-Philadelphia), Paul Friel (D-Chester), and Ben Waxman (D-Philadelphia), introduced the bill, which has been referred to the House State Government Committee.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Rep. Webster said the bill was a response to a spike in corporate spending after the 2010\u00a0Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission<\/a>\u00a0Supreme Court decision.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIn 2024, all by itself, one year, federal elections saw over $4 billion in outside spending, and that\u2019s nearly 12 times the number prior to Citizens United,\u201d he said at a press conference Wednesday. \u201cThe power of that money diminishes the power of the Pennsylvania voter.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n

Rep. Khan added,<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not a lawyer\u00a0\u2026 But I know that corporations should not be racing to buy politicians,\u201d\u2026\u201cWe need common sense. We need to protect our politics. We need to protect our institutions. We need to make sure that corporations are not in a race to buy politicians to prevent action on issues that are important to the public.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earlier this summer the PA House passed a bill<\/a> with bipartisan support, also sponsored by Rep. Webster, that would prohibit corporations with foreign ownership from using their money to influence state elections.\u00a0HB 497 is now before the PA Senate\u2019s Committee on State Government. <\/p>\n

Rep. Webster said he expects the new bill (HB 2728, currently in the House\u2019s State Government committee) to pass the House with bipartisan support, but acknowledges that it may not make to Gov. Shapiro\u2019s desk this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe tee this up now. We make sure it\u2019s an issue. We\u2019re going to see the influence of money in the election by November,\u201d he said. \u201cThen we come back in \u201927 and get this done.\u201d<\/p>\n

I hope the Democratic National Committee recognizes that neutering Citizens United should be, and is, a priority among a great number of voters across party lines, including rank and file Republicans and independents.<\/p>\n

So far, they have not seen fit to add this issue to their national platform<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\tWe’ll get straight to the point: The financial hardships that Daily Kos is facing this year are tough.<\/p>\n

We continue to be paywall-free. We continue to be supported by our readers, not billionaires or corporations. But we need to bring in more revenue. We are leaning on our community more than ever to help make ends meet.<\/p>\n

\t\tPower matters.<\/p>\n

Sign up for our daily top stories newsletter so you don’t miss how it’s being used\u2014and what comes next.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsfromthestates.com\/article\/pa-house-democrats-introduce-measure-bar-corporations-political-contributions Four Democratic PA House members have introduced a bill to bar corporations from contributing to political campaigns…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":260527,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[23040,110494,2258,110495,110496,96802,28,30,29,47777],"class_list":["post-260526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-ben-waxman","tag-citizens-united","tag-democrats","tag-joe-webster","tag-pa-gen-assembly","tag-paul-friel","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-tarik-khan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=260526"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260526\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/260527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}