Our Defense of Montana’s Corrupt Practices Act

For nearly 100 years, Montana law prohibited corporate money in politics‚ until the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision. Soon after Citizens United, the Montana Supreme Court, and then later the U.S. Supreme Court, considered a constitutional challenge to Montana’s law banning corporate political spending in a post-Citizens United challenge. Free Speech For People led a coalition of public interest groups and businesses in the filing of a friend-of-the-court brief before the Montana Supreme Court in defense of the century-old law. The Montana Supreme Court ruled in our favor and upheld the ban. When the challengers appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, we filed a brief there too. Unfortunately, the Court ignored the specific evidence of corruption from corporate political expenditures in Montana, and extended Citizens United to the states.