Opinion | Hawley Aims at Wokeness and Misses

Conservatives celebrated when the Supreme Court ruled, in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010), that corporations have a right to free speech. Now Sen. Josh Hawley (R., Mo.) has joined Bernie Sanders to propose legislation that defies Citizens United.

Mr. Hawley is up front about wanting to silence publicly traded corporations because he doesn’t like what some have to say. “Corporate America has funneled billions of dollars into elections in favor of politicians who favor their woke, social agendas,” he says in a press release. He wants to “hold mega-corporations’ feet to the fire and stop their dollars from buying our elections.” He exhorts: “To my conservative friends, listen, there is no reason we should want to empower these mega-corporations.”