Supreme Court Could Strike Down Montana’s Campaign-Finance Rules

By Kellyn Brown, 12-09-09

The Wall Street Journal has a fascinating piece on a case being reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court that could strike down campaign finance laws in several states, including Montana.

The high court has agreed to hear Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which challenges several provision in the McCain-Feingold Act, a law that built upon a ban on direct corporate giving to politicians.

Montana first outlawed corporate spending on candidates for state office in 1912 to lessen the influence out-of-state mining companies, specifically the Anaconda Mining Company, had on local elections.

From the WSJ:

States initially took little interest in the Citizens United case. When the Supreme Court said it might overrule Austin, however, Anthony Johnstone, the Montana state solicitor, saw a threat to his state's nearly century-old campaign finance laws. He and the Arizona solicitor general circulated a friend-of-the-court brief to other states, and 24 added their names.

The 1912 voter initiative "has allowed Montana to have a political sphere that isn't dominated by the one or two companies that dominated it in its early, post-territorial days," said Mr. Johnstone. Back then, the Anaconda company, a mining trust whose founders included William Randolph Hearst's father, George Hearst, exerted outsize influence on the state.

Montana remains sparsely populated, and holding down corporate spending prevents outside commercial interests from overly influencing the elections in a state where a small amount of money can go a long way, Mr. Johnstone said. "Each state really needs to have the flexibility to adapt to its own circumstances," he said.

Montana's law, and similar ones in more that 20 states, could be in jeopardy if the Supreme Court rules that the McCain-Feingold Act limits corporations’ right to free speech.

The whole article is definitely worth a read. [End of article]