HELENA — Almost two-thirds of voters in this year’s election backed a ballot measure intended to stop corporations from spending money in Montana campaigns. However, if it’s going to go into effect, it will first have to survive in the courts.
Supporters of Initiative 194 said, even before it officially made it to the ballot, they already knew it would face court challenges. The first one came Thursday morning – just a day and a half after the polls closed.
“The real problematic parts of this proposal are that it's actively taking away the ability of groups like ours, local businesses and other nonprofits, from even being able to speak about proposals that matter to Montana,” said Kendall Cotton.
(Watch the video for more on the lawsuit.)
Cotton is president and CEO of the Frontier Institute, a free-market think tank – as well as the affiliated Frontier Action Fund, a new 501(c)(4) nonprofit that plans to advocate on ballot measures and judicial races. The other plaintiffs include the Montana Family Foundation and the Montana Republican Party.
I-194, also called “the Montana Plan,” seeks to go around the federal Citizens United decision to keep corporations, nonprofits and other “artificial persons” from making campaign expenditures. Supporters have argued states have the authority to set those persons’ powers, so it aims to redefine those powers to simply exclude spending money in elections.
The plaintiffs argue these organizations have a constitutionally protected right to engage in political speech, and that I-194 is asking them to give up that right in order to operate in Montana.
“This is the government conditioning the rights of businesses and organizations to exist on their compliance with silence about elections,” Cotton said. “If we kind of take that further in its logical conclusion, what is the government going to condition legal status on next?”
The Transparent Election Initiative, the group that introduced I-194, released a statement Thursday, saying they had expected a lawsuit “from day one” and were standing by the legal theory they based the plan on.
“This lawsuit is part of a much larger legal campaign to try and silence the will of the people,” said TEI founder and president Jeff Mangan. “There will be hearings, decisions and appeals along the way, but no single ruling will determine the future of this movement. Every state that adopts this approach creates another opportunity to make the case. We believe that when the courts fully weigh the merits, the legal arguments for the Montana Plan and similar initiatives will prevail.”
The plaintiffs in this case are being represented by attorneys from the national organization the Institute for Free Speech. That organization is also pursuing a challenge to a similar law to I-194, passed earlier this year by the Hawaii State Legislature.
Read the plaintiffs' full complaint here.
