Voter disgust over an avalanche of political spending by corporations, labor unions and other special-interest groups is driving support for a possible ban on “dark money” in Montana, which could test a landmark Supreme Court decision.
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.
“I think it’s creative lawyering, and I don’t mean that in a negative way,” said Justin Levitt, a law professor at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles who served in the Biden administration. If the ban passed, it would almost certainly be challenged, with the Supreme Court likely having the final say.
Montana isn’t a place necessarily associated with anti-corporate sentiment or watchdog activism. President Trump won the state by nearly 20 percentage points in 2024, and Republicans are easily the largest bloc of registered voters. But it also has a populist streak and a historical distrust of big institutions.
The ballot question, which goes before voters in November, will ask whether the state should bar businesses, unions and nonprofit groups from making donations to candidates and political parties, or from taking sides in public referendums. It requires support from a simple majority of voters.
If passed, it would take effect on Jan. 1, 2027, making Montana the first state with such a law on the books. Hawaii lawmakers approved a similar prohibition in May, but it does not take effect until July, and is already being challenged in court.
During the 2024 federal election cycle, nearly $2 billion in dark money was spent across the country, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, a voting rights and democracy group. Those donations are largely exempt from individual spending limits and disclosure requirements under Citizens United.
Mr. Mangan, a former Montana commissioner of political practices, a watchdog position in state government overseeing ethics and transparency, said he senses widespread frustration over the political spending and influence of special interests.
“Folks are kind of throwing up their hands,” he said.
The spending ban is opposed by the state’s Republican Party and the Montana Chamber of Commerce, which has about 2,000 members. Todd O’Hair, the group’s president and chief executive, said the restrictions would concentrate more political power in the hands of wealthy individuals.
“We think it’s a clear violation of free speech,” he said.
Gov. Greg Gianforte, a Republican in his second term, has also urged voters to reject the measure. In a statement on Wednesday, Sean Southard, his spokesman, described it as “a likely unconstitutional gag order on Montana small businesses, ranches and family farms.”
But at least one of the state’s former top Republicans is supporting the ban. Marc Racicot was governor from 1993 to 2001, and served as the Republican National Committee chairman in the early 2000s. He appeared at town hall event on Wednesday in Billings to help promote the initiative alongside Jon Tester, the state’s former Democratic senator.
Mr. Racicot said in an interview that the political system had become “rancid” since Citizens United, with billions of dollars paying for an onslaught of attack ads without identifying the source.
“The money moves around through these serpentine collections of entities and groups, then it becomes unidentifiable,” said Mr. Racicot, who considers himself an independent.
Restrictions on political spending have broad public support, said Tom Moore, a senior fellow for democracy and government at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank in Washington that has championed legal arguments for the measure.
“Everybody hates dark money,” he said.
Professor Levitt at Loyola Marymount suggested that even with a ban, though, special interests would still wield outsized influence, as long as wealthy individuals could still give vast sums.
“This wouldn’t change a thing about Elon Musk’s political spending,” he said.
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