[Vision2020] Montanans Take a Stand

[Art Deco]

  [image: The New York Times] <http://www.nytimes.com/>

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November 16, 2012
Montanans Take a Stand

Montanans overwhelmingly approved Initiative
166<http://www.standwithmontanans.org/>on Election Day. The measure
requires the state’s congressional delegation
to propose an amendment to the United States Constitution that would
prohibit corporate contributions and expenditures in Montana elections.
Even in Montana, it is unlikely that voters believe this will happen
anytime soon. But the law is an expression of outrage about harmful
intervention in the state’s campaign system.

The United States Supreme Court in June struck
down<http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/american-tradition-partnership-inc-v-bullock/>the
state’s Corrupt Practices Act, passed by initiative in 1912. The
statute banned corporations from making political expenditures out of their
general treasuries. It kept Montana politics free of big money and meddling
by outsiders. The conservatives on the court applied their 2010 ruling in
the Citizens United<http://www2.bloomberglaw.com/public/document/Citizens_United_v_Federal_Election_Commission_130_S_Ct_876_175_L_>case
to toss out the law, so corporations can now make unlimited
independent expenditures in Montana.

In October, a Federal District Court struck
down<http://politicalpractices.mt.gov/content/JudgeLovellsOrderOnContributions>all
of Montana’s political campaign contribution limits, though a federal
appeals court soon
reinstated<http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2012/10/16/1235809.pdf>the
limits.

The big money affecting many state races that most vexes Montanans came
from a group of outsiders called American Tradition
Partnership<http://americantradition.org/>,
a tax-exempt organization that describes itself as “fighting the radical
environmentalist agenda” and refuses to disclose its donors. It brought the
lawsuit that led the Supreme Court to strike down the state’s
anti-corruption law.

The group has brought another lawsuit in Montana to strike down the state’s
campaign contribution disclosure law, scheduled to go to trial next year.
Its deeply flawed theory is that the more money there is in politics, the
freer the exchange of ideas, and that disclosure inhibits that exchange.

Initiative 166 gave voters the chance to say they want to control how
political campaigns are run in their state. As Gov. Brian Schweitzer summed
it up, Montanans are saying loudly enough for the Supreme Court to hear,
“Now it’s up to Congress to pass a constitutional amendment to get the
dirty, secret, corporate, foreign money out of our elections for good.”


-- 
Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
art.deco.studios at gmail.com
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