HELENA – A judge on Wednesday rejected a request from a group fighting the state’s campaign finance laws to immediately rule some disclosure requirements unconstitutional.
Montana has been attempting to penalize Western Tradition Partnership for not reporting expenditures from previous state election campaigns. The Virginia-based group filed a lawsuit claiming that what the state is trying to do is unconstitutional.
But District Judge Jeffrey Sherlock ruled Wednesday that he cannot issue a summary judgment in the group’s favor, which the group had been requesting. Sherlock, in rejecting the motion, said more information is needed about the claims.
“Whether those statutes and regulations are unconstitutional as applied to the plaintiffs is, of course, a factual question that can only be determined after the trial of this matter,” Sherlock said.
Sherlock rejected the group’s argument to toss out the laws as obviously unconstitutional.
“The court cannot rule that the statutes and regulations in question are unconstitutional on their face,” Sherlock wrote. “Therefore, that part of Plaintiffs’ motion seeking such a ruling is rejected.”
Montana Attorney General Steve Bullock said he was pleased with the decision, and blasted WTP for trying to undo the laws.
“Montana’s law on disclosure is simple: If you want to blanket the airwaves or fill people’s mailboxes with political attack ads, you’re required to say who you are and who is financing your commercials,” Bullock said in a release. “But in their war to dismantle our clean and fair elections, this out-of-state group has tried to use our courts to get rid of this and many other provisions.”
Montana’s commissioner of political practices, who oversees campaign finance laws, ruled last year that the group, which now calls itself American Tradition Partnership, was required to report its expenditures because of the money it spent on flyers attacking political candidates.
Former Commissioner Dennis Unsworth found that third-party groups need to disclose money spent advocating for the election or defeat of candidates because when they do so, they are acting like political committees subject to regulation.
The group then filed a lawsuit challenging the ruling, arguing it should not be considered a political committee because it is involved in educational efforts — not electioneering. The group’s attorney, James Brown, says the activities are free speech protected by the First Amendment and that the Montana laws governing campaign expenditures unconstitutionally restricts that speech.
The state argues that the commissioner of political practice’s investigation into Western Tradition Partnership’s involvement in the 2008 general election showed it spent $200,000 and sent tens of thousands of glossy mailers and flyers to voters. The state argues the activity was clearly meant to persuade voters.
Sherlock said more information is needed about the group for him to make a decision prior to more fact-finding.
“There are, in view of this court, several factual questions that preclude summary judgment at this point in the proceedings. First among those factual questions is, what exactly is WTP?” Sherlock wrote.
Besides its challenge of the commissioner’s ruling, Western Tradition Partnership also took the lead in a lawsuit last year decided by Sherlock that tossed out the state’s constitutional restriction on corporate political spending. The state attorney general’s office has appealed that case to the Montana Supreme Court.
The group also filed a separate lawsuit in U.S. District Court that seeks to throw out Montana’s limits on the amount that individuals, political action committees, political parties and others can contribute in elections, saying the limits restrict free speech.