The high court upholds the state’s century-old corporate contribution limits, a rebuff of the U.S. Supreme Court decision that allowed businesses to spend as freely as individuals in campaigns.
Kim Murphy, Los Angeles Times, Published January 4, 2012
Reporting from Seattle — Montana has engaged in a long, slow dance between corporations and politicians through much of its history. The free-spending audacity of the copper kings during the early 20th century — when mining czar W.A. Clark bought himself a seat in the U.S. Senate — are the stuff of Western lore.
In an attempt to fight back, Montana voters in 1912 passed an initiative barring direct corporate contributions to political candidates and parties — a law that, like those in many states across the country, was undone by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2010. The controversial decision gave corporations the same 1st Amendment rights as citizens and allowed businesses to freely spend their way into the nation’s political debates.
Now the Montana Supreme Court has issued a forceful rebuff of that decision.
Montana’s attorney general, Steve Bullock, a Democratic candidate for governor who personally argued the case, said the potential effects of unlimited corporate spending was disproportionately large in a sparsely populated state like Montana.
“It doesn’t take a heck of a lot of money to wind up influencing a state election where our average legislator ends up winning, I think, on $17,000,” he said in an interview. “Montana has a long history of corporate influence in elections, and ultimately the citizens are saying, no, that’s not how we want to run our elections.”