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The ballot measure has strong backers from across the political spectrum, including a well-known former Republican governor and Democratic senator who have campaigned for it together.
The main challenge: Threading the needle of Citizens United, the 2010 Supreme Court decision in which a 5-4 majority ruled that independent political spending by corporations and labor unions was a protected form of free speech.
The decision opened a flood of “dark money” that critics blame for coarsening politics and empowering special interests.
“I haven’t talked to a person yet that doesn’t think that there’s too much money in politics,” said Jeff Mangan, a lifelong Montana resident who is the founder and president of the Transparent Election Initiative, the organization behind the proposal.
Montana business groups, the Republican governor and his party are already calling the proposed ballot measure unconstitutional under Citizens United. But supporters believe they have a potentially winning legal argument: Corporate regulations.
Corporations, unions and nonprofits are registered to do business within individual states, which can also impose regulations and restrictions on those entities for the privilege of operating there.
The penalty for violating Montana’s ban on corporate political spending would be to revoke an entity’s corporate registration, making it an issue of state sovereignty, the measure’s supporters argue. They say the state has the right to define corporations as “artificial persons” that lack free speech rights.
