Montana voters challenge Citizens United with corporate spending ban

Imagine a corporation wants to spend $10 million to defeat a political candidate. Under the Supreme Court’s landmark 2010 Citizens United ruling, it can spend as much as it wants provided it doesn’t coordinate with the candidate’s campaign.

On Tuesday, Montana voted to change that.

In a state President Donald Trump won by nearly 20 points in 2024, roughly 65% of Montanans voted to approve Initiative 194 — the “Montana Plan” — embracing a novel legal strategy to curb corporate political spending. If states cannot restrict political speech under Citizens United, can they instead strip corporations of the power to spend money on elections?

The vote follows a record $11.87 billion in political advertising nationwide this election cycle that was split about evenly between the two parties, according to media tracking firm AdImpact.

The voter-approved measure is set to become state law on Jan. 1 in Montana, where voters can make law via ballot initiatives. Montana’s Republican-controlled legislature could amend or repeal it, though proponents have pledged that if that happens they will take the fight back to voters in 2028.

Now, Montana is poised for a constitutional showdown that could reach the nation’s highest court. If the strategy survives, it could provide a replicable blueprint for restricting corporate political spending across the country. Similar measures are being explored in more than 30 states.

“If a single state can successfully deny corporate power over elections, it proves that Citizens United wasn’t the final word on democracy, and we will continue battling,” said Tom Moore, a former Federal Election Commission official and current senior fellow at the Center for American Progress who helped develop the Montana Plan.

How the law works

The Montana Plan hinges on a legal distinction: Corporations may have constitutional rights, but their powers come from the states.

Under Initiative 194, Montana would strip corporations, trade associations, labor unions and nonprofits, including those headquartered elsewhere, of the legal power to spend money influencing elections in the state.

In practice, that should mean no corporate-funded attack ads, no trade associations bankrolling referendum campaigns and no politically active nonprofits spending their own funds to sway Montana voters.

Violators risk losing state-granted corporate privileges such as limited liability, which generally protects shareholders from personal responsibility for corporate debts, until all improperly spent funds are surrendered…