Leaders Kick Off Movement To Stop Corporations Spending On Campaigns

In the 15 years since the famous “Citizens United” court case, which opened the floodgates for more spending in political races, the amount of money spent on federal elections has increased 2,800 percent.

Former U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, a Democrat from Montana who was unseated by Republican Tim Sheehy, outspent his opponent in 2024 and still lost, with estimates of the single Senate seat race spending totaling $275 million — without a primary election challenger.

When Tester first ran for the Senate in 2006, the primary and general election spending was $27.5 million.

As spending in politics has continued to balloon, leaders in Montana, spurred on by former Commissioner of Political Practice Jeff Mangan, have kicked off an initiative to put a new idea forward for curbing the influence of dark money in politics. Dark money is a term used where corporations or organizations don’t have to disclose their donors or their gifted amounts, making it nearly impossible to tell who is involved in some political campaigns.

The idea, called the “Transparent Election Initiative,” would be a state constitutional amendment that would simply prohibit corporations from making political campaign donations, using the state’s power to control how corporations operate in the state. Mangan kicked off the initiative in a call with reporters on Wednesday.

While the organizers of the initiative have not released the text of the amendment, which they say is still being drafted and perfected, the idea is simple: Corporations doing business in Montana would be barred from spending money on political campaigns. However, individuals would still be free to donate as the law allows.

Former Gov. Marc Racicot, a Republican governor who was at one time chairman of the Republican National Committee, is supporting the measure, as well as Tester, because of its straightforward approach. Racicot, who also served as the state’s attorney general, explained that the Tenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution gives states the right to regulate commerce and corporations that do business in the state. Therefore, by simply making it illegal for any corporation to spend on political campaigns, Racicot said the state is exercising the power the federal government gives each state to regulate commerce.

The organizers of the initiative admit they may face a United States Supreme Court that has seemed to give increasing power to corporations and has equated the power to spend money freely as a part of protected political speech, but they said the high court cannot avoid the constitution’s power given to the states to regulate commerce. Furthermore, Mangan and Racicot, argued that while corporations enjoy some of the same protections as individuals, there is a host of things corporations cannot do. That includes voting or sitting on juries.

Mangan said the genesis for the idea is nonpartisan: Residents are fed up with how much money is being spent on campaigns, the flooding of media and mailboxes with attack ads, and no transparency when it comes to identifying groups behind the messages.

“States have always had the ability to limit the corporations in their states, they have just chosen not to,” Mangan said.

He said states can revoke or modify the charters that allow corporations to operate within their borders, and this would be just one example of limiting their scope of business.

At one time, Montana had some of the strictest campaign laws in the country, and a history of grass-roots efforts to fight against corporations and wealthy individuals when it came to campaigning, based upon its checkered past when copper and gold mining magnates ran roughshod over the politics of the state. More than a century ago, Montana established the Corrupt Practices Act which barred certain political activities. However, many of those same laws fell after the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision because the high court ruled in a 5-to-4 split decision that spending money to support causes or candidates amounted to political speech, which is protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution. Since then, organizations and leaders have tried to re-establish campaign laws, with little success.

Tester said that states like Montana will have to take the lead on these initiatives because Congress — the very body that could make the changes — is too tied to the funding and money raised by dark money and corporations.

“The notion that Congress will do something about this is foolish,” Racicot said.

Tester said the issue of taking money out of politics appeals to citizens, regardless of party affiliation.

“Not once during my time in the Senate did someone say to me, ‘You know what? We need to spend more on campaigns,’” Tester said.

Mangan said when trying to figure out how to reform the election system while respecting the U.S. Supreme Court, they went back to the future, so to speak, borrowing a power from when states had to push back against large corporate interests, like railroads.

“I am almost shocked this hasn’t been done before,” Racicot said. “And it’s important no person’s rights are being restrained. It’s profoundly simple: The state gives corporations power in the first place. In this case, you’re just telling them they don’t have the power to spend money like this in the first place.”

“Montana has a long history of standing up against corruption in politics,” said Sarah Haan, a professor at Washington & Lee University’s School of Law. “Now it is taking the lead with a powerful new solution: Treat electioneering as a state-conferred power, not an intrinsic right. The Montana Plan restores democratic accountability to the people without treading on anyone’s speech.”