To the Member of the California Legislature:

Our organizations write to indicate our intent to show strong support for the reintroduction into the California legislature of the bill to prohibit foreign influenced U.S. corporations (FICs) from contributing to California elections.

This model legislation which is already law in San Jose, California and Seattle, Washington, and which was signed by Governor Tim Walz in Minnesota, would bar contributions from FICs to campaigns, candidates, PACs, Super-PACS, political parties and ballot measure.

52 U.S. Code § 30121 prohibits foreign money in U.S. elections contributed either “directly or indirectly”.  However, the Supreme Court of the United States, in the 5-4 Citizens United (2010) ruling created a loophole for foreign money to “indirectly” stream into our elections through foreign investments in U.S. corporations.

While in 1982, 5% of all the shares held in U.S. corporations were held by foreign investors, by April 2024 the percentage of shares in U.S. corporations held by foreign investors was a staggering and worrying 42%.

As former Chair of the Federal Election Commission Ellen Weintraub, who first sounded the alarm that Citizens United had created  a loophole for foreign money in our elections wrote: “It defies logic to allow groups of foreigners, or foreigners in combination with American citizens, to fund political spending through corporations."

Sincerely,