After win at the ballot box, The Montana Plan draws legal challenge

On the same day that voters approved a ballot initiative that disallows corporate spending in Montana elections, several groups — including the Montana Republican State Central Committee — filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the measure. The lawsuit was filed at 11:15 p.m. Tuesday, 18 minutes before AP called the race.

Initiative 194 , dubbed The Montana Plan, changes state code to prohibit any incorporated entity in Montana from spending money to influence state, local and federal elections. Voters on Tuesday approved the measure 65% to 34%, with 97% of the vote counted as of Nov. 5, according to the Associated Press . Without court intervention, the law will take effect on Jan. 1, 2027. The ballot measure received high-profile support — former U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg traveled to Butte to bolster the initiative — and vocal opposition, mostly in the form of op-eds from groups claiming the measure would prevent local businesses from participating in the political process.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court, alleges the initiative violates First Amendment rights to freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and freedom of the press. The plaintiffs — including the Montana-based Frontier Institute, Montana-based Frontier Action Fund, Montana Family Institute, Montana Family Foundation and Montana Republican State Central Committee — ask the court to enjoin the law.

Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen and Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen are the defendants. A spokesperson for Knudsen declined to comment, saying the attorney general had not been served as of 11:30 a.m. on Thursday. Jacobsen’s office has not responded to a request for comment.

“I-194 harms everyone,” the complaint alleges. “It silences organizations, preventing them from sharing information essential to their purposes.”

Several people involved in organizing efforts for Initiative 194 said the lawsuit does not come as a surprise.

“We expected a lawsuit from day one, and we’ve been waiting for this moment,” Jeff Mangan, founder and president of the Transparent Election Initiative , the group behind The Montana Plan and similar initiatives in other states, said in a statement. “Montana voters overwhelmingly made their voices heard, we’re confident in the legal foundation of this initiative and ready for the fight ahead.”

The complaint alleges that the new law harms the plaintiffs and other organizations by restricting their ability to communicate about ballot measures and advocate for candidates. They also allege that “vague terms” of the initiative make it unclear which actions are prohibited, and say provisions in the law “deprive plaintiffs, their donors, and their audiences of the rights of speech, assembly, petition and association.”

The Montana GOP, according to the complaint, “relies on contributions to its independent-expenditure account by corporations and other entities” to support candidates.

“(Initiative 194) will significantly reduce the funds the Montana GOP needs to make independent expenditures, and thus harm its ability to fulfill its mission,” according to the complaint.

Citizens United , the landmark 2010 U.S. Supreme Court ruling recognizing that First Amendment protections extend to corporations, is cited 11 times in the 57-page complaint.

“A law like I-194 is a ban on an organization’s speech,” the complaint reads.

In promoting the ballot measure, Mangan and the Transparent Election Initiative have asserted that Initiative 194 is not incompatible with the Supreme Court ruling, but rather “takes a different legal approach.”

Tom Moore, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress whose white paper in part inspired Mangan to push the initiative in Montana, said the initiative relies on a centuries-old legal framework in which corporations are defined as “creatures of state law.” States, Moore told MTFP Thursday afternoon, can at any time change what powers a corporation does or does not have.

“People were really afraid that corporations, given too long a leash, would go terrorize the countryside, and a lot of people, clearly the voters of Montana, think that that’s what’s happened,” Moore said. “And (states) have reserved the authority to pull (corporations) back in, refashion their powers and then send them back out.”

“Nowhere in that case,” he said, referring to Citizens United, “nowhere in any case did it ever say that a state has to give the capacity to spend in politics.”

Moore said the specific question of a state’s ability to decline to extend certain powers to corporations has not been challenged. He said he can envision the lawsuit over the Montana law eventually coming before the U.S. Supreme Court, adding that it could take months or years to resolve.

The Hawaii Legislature passed a similar law via legislative bill in May, which is now in litigation . Moore said leaders from dozens of other states have approached his organization with interest in adopting similar initiatives.

This story was originally published by Montana Free Press and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.