On the last day of its 2026 session, May 8, the Hawaiʻi Legislature passed SB 2471, the Sunshine Over Dark Money bill, by a vote of 74-1. Six days later, Governor Josh Green signed it into law as Act 11 of 2026.
The Associated Press immediately covered the story nationally: Hawaiʻi had become the first state to directly counter the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision. And it happened because Indivisible Hawaiʻi members showed up, testified, organized, and refused to take no for an answer.
It started with a Substack essay
In November 2025, Maryellen Tuttell from Kona Indivisible shared a Substack publication from Robert Reich on our Signal message board: "How to Get Rid of 'Citizens United.'"
Younghee Overly, who leads Indivisible Hawaiʻi's Public Policy Action Group (PPAG), forwarded the essay to Senator Karl Rhoads, chair of the Senate Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs Committee. We also started coordinating with our partners in the Hawaiʻi Alliance for Progressive Action (HAPA) and Clean Elections Hawaiʻi.
Senator Rhoads told us he'd been thinking for years about how to deal with Citizens United, but Reich's essay was the first time he'd seen a workable plan. He submitted it at the start of the legislative session as SB 2471.
Marlene Thom, who led the Good Government issue for PPAG, tracked the bill through every step of the legislative session and made sure we kept advocating for it. We harnessed the full power of the Indivisible Hawaiʻi Statewide Network.
What was at stake
Think back to President Obama's 2008 campaign. Politics was more civil then. John McCain, Obama's opponent, publicly corrected his own supporters when they questioned Obama's character. He called him "a good man."
Then came 2010 and Citizens United v. FEC. The Supreme Court opened the floodgates to dark money — unlimited spending from untraceable sources, completely outside the limits of campaign finance law. In the 2024 presidential race, over $1 billion was spent through these channels, with most sources completely anonymous. Corporate spending far outstripped individual contributions.
Justice Kennedy, writing for the court in Citizens United, said that political contributions "don't raise issues of corruption, or even the appearance of corruption." As Avi Soifer, Emeritus Professor and Former Dean of Richardson Law School at UH Manoa, later explained in our webinar: "I'm afraid we know better than the court at that point knew. It was a naive statement, and we've seen dark money, and we've seen billionaires bragging about how much they gave. And I'm pretty confident that we've got a strong bill, and that it will survive constitutional review."
The Atlantic reported on the likely success of Hawaiʻi's bill becoming a precedent for states nationwide, noting that YouGov polling found 73% of Democrats and 53% of Republicans disapprove of Citizens United.
How Indivisibles made it happen
Indivisible Hawaiʻi didn't just support this bill — we made it happen, start to finish. Indivisibles showed up in person and submitted written testimony at every committee hearing. Seven of the ten most active submitters of testimony across all the bill's hearings were Indivisible members. We reached out directly to conferees when the bill was in conference committee, the stage where most bills die, and we pushed for floor amendments and passage when the bill hit the House and Senate floors.
Even on Friday morning, May 8 — the last day of the session — the sponsors were worried about the floor votes. By end of day, we'd won with a nearly unanimous vote: 25-0 in the Senate, 49-1 in the House. Over the weekend, we organized statewide rallies for Tuesday morning, May 12, asking the Governor to sign the bill into law.
![North Hawaiʻi Indivisibles with Representative Tarnas and others at the Capitol]
Our North Hawaiʻi Indivisibles (Waimea on the Big Island) wasted no time thanking the Governor and their State Representative Tarnas, who was one of the key committee chairs and conferees. Indivisibles came out on May 14, the very afternoon when the Governor signed.
![Indivisibles rallying at the Capitol on May 12]
Indivisibles rallying at the Capitol, Tuesday, May 12, calling on Governor Green to sign SB 2471.
In our legislative wrap-up webinar, Senators Rhoads and Keohokālole and Representative Matayoshi confirmed it directly: without Indivisible Hawaiʻi's continual outreach, this bill would have died.
There were many times when this measure seemed doomed — in committee, in conference, in floor amendment, on the Governor's desk. And yet, by the end, every one of our elected officials had gotten on board.
What happens next
Dark money will defend itself. Legal challenges are already being prepared, and excellent lawyers will argue on both sides. Forty-nine states will be watching. If Act 11 survives court challenges — and legal experts believe it will — Hawaiʻi will have provided a roadmap for campaign finance reform that doesn't require waiting for Congress or the Supreme Court to act. We didn't just pass a law. We created a national precedent.
What organizing looks like
This victory didn't happen because we hoped for change. It happened because Maryellen shared an essay, because Younghee forwarded it to the right legislator, because Marlene tracked the bill through every hearing, because hundreds of Indivisible members testified, because chapters across the islands showed up at the Capitol, and because we organized several rallies on a single weekend.
The majority of our PPAG members had never submitted testimony before 2026. If you've read this far, you're already interested in making a difference. Join the Public Policy Action Group to get sample testimony, hearing notifications, and the tools you need to be part of the next victory.