BILLINGS — Montana’s political practices commissioner has ruled that Planned Parenthood violated campaign law by not alerting a legislative candidate she would be the target of an attack ad.
The Billings Gazette reported Thursday the ad was against Billings Republican Tonya Shellnutt.
Commissioner Johnathan Motl said the law requires anyone running attack ads in the last 10 days before an election to give the targeted candidate two days’ notice to prepare a response.
Planned Parenthood Advocates of Montana apologized to Shellnutt and the Political Practices Commission. In a written statement, the group said the mistake was an oversight and wasn’t intentional.
The ad was a campaign flier.
Motl also said Planned Parenthood didn’t provide required campaign spending details but reported only that it spent a total of $14,000.