HELENA — Groups seeking to undo many of Montana’s restrictions on political donations and spending want to “inject unlimited amounts of money into Montana’s state and local elections,” the state’s Democratic attorney general said in a court filing.
Hoping to beat back the most expansive of several lawsuits attacking Montana campaign finance laws, Steve Bullock wrote a lengthy rebuttal Friday to a recent federal lawsuit by conservative and local Republican groups, arguing that the lawsuit would undo needed regulation.
“They … want to be free to use that money to engage in attack ads with no accountability for truth,” Bullock wrote in a 46-page filing. “As a matter of public policy, it is safe to say that what we do not need in our political process is more money and less truth.”
The conservative and local Republican groups are seeking to dramatically expand how much money candidates can take in and who can give it to them, and the lawsuit is one of three led by the Virginia-based American Tradition Partnership that challenges the state’s campaign finance rules. Each of the lawsuits has the same basic claim: that the state’s campaign rules are unconstitutional and restrict free speech.
The federal lawsuit the group filed in September is perhaps the biggest attack of the three. It argues that the state’s limits on the amount that individuals, political action committees, political parties and others can contribute are unconstitutional and restrict free speech.
The oldest of its lawsuits is currently under appeal to the Montana Supreme Court, which is being asked by the attorney general to overturn a lower court decision tossing out the state’s century-old ban on corporate political spending. The case piggybacks a U.S. Supreme Court decision from last year granting political speech rights to corporations.
A third lawsuit from American Tradition Partnership, filed when it was known as Western Tradition Partnership, fights sanctions the commissioner of political practices levied against the group for failing to file campaign finance activity. The group argues in that case that it is unconstitutional for the state to penalize it for not reporting its expenditures.
The group has been active in Montana elections, mostly attacking Democrats but also some Republicans deemed too liberal, generally through the use of mailed fliers.
Former Republican Secretary of State Bob Brown also filed a brief in support of Bullock in the federal lawsuit, as did Commissioner of Political Practices Dave Gallik and his program supervisor Mary Baker. University of Montana history professor Harry Fritz also filed a brief in support of the state.