HELENA – Conservative groups won another victory Wednesday in an ongoing challenge to Montana campaign finance laws when a federal judge agreed that several regulations unconstitutionally restrict free speech.
U.S. District Judge Charles Lovell mostly sided with Virginia-based American Tradition Partnership in its federal case attacking several aspects of state campaign finance laws. The judge determined that state laws requiring attack ads to disclose the targeted candidates’ voting record and ban knowingly false statements in such ads are unconstitutionally vague.
The ruling largely matched a preliminary determination made earlier by the judge. But Lovell went a step further and also decided that Montana cannot ban corporations from making contributions to political committees that make independent expenditures.
“It’s a great day for the first amendment and people and entities who want to engage in free speech without having to first get state permission or having the state prohibit that speech,” said ATP attorney Jim Brown.
American Tradition Partnership is joined by 11 other plaintiffs, largely other politically active conservative groups like the Montana Right to Life Association and local Republican groups, who also are asking the judge to rule that contribution limits also unconstitutionally restrict free speech. The judge said that claim will go to trial in September.
Attorney General Steve Bullock’s office has argued that the laws are necessary to protect political corruption, and that laws such as those blocking false statements are constitutional because free speech rights don’t protect defamation.
The attorney general is currently before the U.S. Supreme Court, defending the state’s 1912 voter-approved ban on direct corporate spending on third-party political advertising. The high court has so far placed a stay on the Montana Supreme Court’s decision to reinstate that law.
“Montana is facing an onslaught of secretive, out-of-state groups coming into our state and trying to influence our elections while hiding behind a curtain of anonymity. American Tradition Partnership is trying to systematically dismantle all campaign finance regulation in our state,” said Attorney General Steve Bullock.
If the other case currently in front of the nation’s high court succeeds, corporations would be allowed to spend directly from their treasuries on political third-party campaigning that is not coordinated with a state candidate’s campaign. Much of that has already been seen this year in federal elections, such as where independent groups have been spending millions of their own money attacking presidential candidates.
Lovell’s decision dovetails with that case in that he decided corporations could give directly to political action committees and political parties on spending that will not be coordinated with an individual candidate’s campaign.
Both of the ATP cases in Montana revolve around the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision that granted free-speech rights to corporations. Montana’s effort to keep its Corrupt Practices Act intact in face of the legal assault is seen by some as a challenge to that earlier high court ruling.
ATP in the past has been active in Montana campaigns by assaulting Republicans viewed as too moderate in primary elections with hard-hitting mailers. The group has then turned its attention in the general election to Democrats with the attack mailers.
Candidates from both sides of the aisle have argued that the attacks are outrageous stretches of the truth, and the state commissioner of political practices has dinged the group for failing to follow state campaign finance disclosure laws. ATP has a third court case pending where it challenges the right of the state to regulate it, arguing its efforts are about educating voters not electioneering.