The big corporate law firms in Delaware have set up two organizations to keep friendly lawmakers in office. In our partnership with Spotlight Delaware Delmarva Public Media's Don Rush talks with deputy editor Karl Baker about that move and its implications.
Senate Bill 21, signed into law in March of 2025, made it harder for shareholders to challenge corporate executives and directors in Delaware courts, which handle disputes for many of the nation’s largest companies incorporated in the state.
“Essentially, SB 21 limits the ability in many cases of shareholders to bring those kinds of challenges against those companies,” Baker told Delmarva Public Media’s Don Rush.
The political effort supporting lawmakers who backed the measure includes the Alliance to Protect Delaware’s Future, which emerged during the debate over SB 21, and First State Future PAC, a political action committee formed earlier this year.
Baker said campaign finance records show First State Future received donations from the same five prominent law firms whose attorneys were key members of the Alliance.
“There was a clue there that they were acting in tandem, if not even kind of the same operation,” Baker said, pointing to similarities in the groups’ political mailers and the candidates they support.
Campaign finance records also show that some money raised by First State Future PAC was later directed to the Alliance. But the Alliance is organized as a 501(c)(4) nonprofit rather than a registered Delaware political committee, meaning it is not required to publicly disclose all of its donors.
“We know that some of that alliance’s money came from First State Future,” Baker said, “but we don’t know the entirety of how they’re funded.”
