From California, an example of what an unregulated corporate bank account can buy at the ballot box. NPR reports that big corporations have been spending millions of dollars to finance ballot initiatives in California, on issues including suspending the state’s clean air law (oil companies), revising auto insurance rules (insurers), and making it more difficult for municipalities to compete with private utility companies (you guessed it….):

Take Proposition 16, for example. The initiative, which proponents call the "Taxpayer’s Right to Vote Act," would require a city or county that wants to start a municipal utility or expand an existing one to get approval from two-thirds of its voters. The backer of all this extra democracy is Pacific Gas and Electric, California’s largest private, for-profit electric company.

"Prop 16 puts the power back in the hands of the people," says Robin Swanson, spokeswoman for the "Yes on 16" campaign. Pacific Gas and Electric, she says, isn’t afraid of competition from publicly owned power providers.

"If our opponents can provide cheaper, greener, better electric service, then they shouldn’t be afraid to go to the people and sell it to them," she says.

Except those municipal power providers are forbidden by law from spending a dime on electioneering. PG&E, on the other hand, has already put about $44 million into the campaign for Proposition 16.