Montana

Articles about voting issues in Montana.

Supreme Court agrees to consider corporate free speech post-Citizen United | UPI.com

Apr 092012

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to consider taking another bite of the corporate political free speech apple recently, accepting a petition asking justices to summarily overturn a Montana Supreme Court decision petitioners say flies in the face of Citizens United. Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission is the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision two years ago that basically negated campaign finance laws. In its ruling, the court said Congress shouldn’t be allowed to limit the amount corporations, unions and similar entities give to campaigns. In upholding a ban on corporate independent expenditures in state elections, the Montana Supreme Court determined that “unlike Citizens United, this case concerns Montana law, Montana elections and it arises from Montana history.” That ruling, the petition said, raises the question for the U.S. Supreme Court to consider: “Whether Montana is bound by the holding of Citizens United, that a ban on corporate independent political expenditures is a violation of the First Amendment, when the ban applies to state, rather than federal, elections.” Read More »

Missoula Elections Activist Asks Judge To Seize Absentee Ballots | NBC

Mar 302012

A local elections activist has filed another court action against the county, saying that someone tampered with absentee ballots from last May’s school mill levy election. Last week, NBC Montana told you how Patty Lovaas organized a team to look over ballot envelopes from last May’s school mill levy election. She says the records were unsealed, and that someone tampered with them — adding her claims to a civil lawsuit she already filed against the county. ”This was intentional, and they know the law,” Lovaas said. “It doesn’t matter what spin they put on it. They know the law. There are numerous irregularities in that election — numerous. And that prompted me to do the review in the first place.” Read More »

Ex-secretary of state Johnson will be on Montana ballot after all | Billing Gazette

Mar 232012

Former Secretary of State Brad Johnson will be allowed to run for his old office after all now that the state’s political practices commissioner reversed an earlier decision Wednesday. Earlier in the day, Johnson’s name was to be stricken from the June primary election ballot for not filing a business disclosure form on time. It was due by 5 p.m. Tuesday. ”I’m delighted,” Johnson, a Republican, said after learning from Commissioner Jim Murry on Wednesday that he would be on the June primary ballot. Johnson said he had submitted the form electronically twice on time Tuesday, but it didn’t show up at the commissioner’s office or show up on his own computer. Read More »

Secretary of State Won’t Let Libertarians Choose a U.S. Senate Nominee | Ballot Access News

Mar 222012

Montana’s primary in 2012 is on June 5. Parties entitled to nominate by primary are the Democratic, Republican, Libertarian, and Americans Elect Parties. When filing closed for this year’s primary, two Libertarians had filed to run for U.S. Senate in the Libertarian Party. On March 20, Montana Secretary of State Linda McCulloch ruled that the Libertarian Party may not have a primary this year, and that she will print the names of both Libertarians on the November ballot. She made this decision, based on section 13-10-209(2). Before 2005, that section said, “It is not necessary to print a primary ballot for a political party which does not have candidates for more than half of the offices on the ballot in even-year elections if no more than one candidate files for nomination by that party for any of the offices on the ballot.” Read More »

Judge indicates part of initiative on Montana Supreme Court elections invalid | The Missoulian

Mar 162012

A District Court judge indicated Wednesday that a portion of a Republican-backed ballot initiative, which many in the GOP hope will tilt Montana Supreme Court elections to their party’s favor, could be unconstitutional as alleged by critics. The Legislature last year sent the initiative directly to this June’s primary ballot. It establishes regional districts that would each elect one justice to the state’s high court. The court’s six justices and one chief justice are currently elected in statewide elections. Supporters argued that justices elected statewide favor Democrats and do not represent certain places, like the rural areas that generally favor Republicans. Opponents argued Wednesday in District Court in Helena that the proposal runs afoul of the Montana Constitution by adding qualification criteria for the judicial candidates. They are asking the courts to remove it from the ballot. Read More »

Judge blocks more election rules | Independent Record

Feb 272012

A federal judge on Friday blocked more Montana campaign finance laws amid an ongoing battle over political spending restrictions, and ruled that corporations are indeed allowed to donate to some political action committees. Montana officials are fighting multiple attacks aimed at undoing state restrictions. The legal battles follow a 2010 U.S. Supreme Court decision known as Citizens United that grants free-speech rights to corporations. U.S. District Judge Charles Lovell struck down a state ban on knowingly false statements in political attacks in election materials, a law aimed at preventing misrepresentation of a state candidate’s record. He also blocked a requirement that political attacks disclose relevant voting records. The judge also makes clear that a ruling last week by the U.S. Supreme Court indeed allows corporate donations to political action committees that spend only on independent expenditures. The impact of that ruling was not immediately clear since Montana does not currently establish any PACs restricted from donating directly to individual candidates. Read More »

Judge hears arguments to lift Montana’s campaign finance laws | Montana Watchdog

Feb 182012

A federal judge debated with attorneys Thursday on whether he could overrule a decision by the Montana Supreme Court regarding Montana’s campaign finance laws, even if that decision was in violation of a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court. District Court Judge Charles C. Lovell said he would rule within days on the request for a preliminary injunction, but cited “res adjutica” throughout the hearing, meaning the matter had already been decided by the Montana justices. “What the Montana court held here is binding on this case,” he told the plaintiffs’ attorney, Noel Johnson, but later said he likely would not have ruled the way the Montana justices did. Johnson noted the Montana Supreme Court ruling was in contradiction to findings 2010 by the U.S. Supreme Court in Citizens United vs. the Federal Elections Commission. Read More »

Citizens United Part II: Montana Supreme Court Collides With U.S. Supreme Court | Huffington Post

Feb 172012

The fate of Montana’s century-old ban on corporate political spending is now in the hands of the U.S. Supreme Court, setting up a possible sequel to the hotly contested Citizens United decision handed down two years ago. In 2010, a five-member majority of the U.S. Supreme Court declared that corporations’ independent spending in elections does not corrupt — or even appear to corrupt — the political process. On Wednesday, Montana Attorney General Steve Bullock submitted a brief to the Court with facts that suggest otherwise as he urged the justices to uphold his state’s ban on corporate political spending. Read More »

Montana’s Challenge to Citizens United | NYTimes.com

Jan 252012

Two years ago, when the Supreme Court struck down bans on independent corporate and union expenditures in elections in the Citizens United case, Justice Anthony Kennedy’s majority opinion claimed that money does not “give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption.” While it might result in “influence over or access to elected officials,” he wrote, it is not the same as Last month, in a 5-to-2 vote, the Montana Supreme Court rejected that misguided reasoning and upheld a part of a state anticorruption law banning corporations from making political expenditures from general treasuries. The court’s dissenters argued that Montana cannot ignore the Citizens United decision — and they may well be proved right when the case is appealed to the United States Supreme Court. Read More »

Attorney General wants law in place before review | Great Falls Tribune

Jan 252012

The attorney general’s office asked the Montana Supreme Court on Monday to keep in place the state’s century-old ban on direct spending by corporations on political candidates or committees until the U.S. Supreme Court reviews the law. Last month, the Montana Supreme Court restored the state’s ban by deciding it does not run afoul of the U.S. Constitution, as a lower state court had initially ruled. A politically involved corporation had challenged the 1912 Corrupt Practices Act, which passed as a ballot initiative. It argued the law unconstitutionally blocks political speech by corporations. Read More »

SCOTUS expected to weigh Montana campaign finance appeal | Politico.com

Jan 062012

The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to wade into the hot-button debate over corporate cash in politics again, just in time for the 2012 election season. The conservative group American Tradition Partnership announced plans Thursday to appeal a Montana Supreme Court ruling that upheld a state law banning corporations from spending to directly support or oppose candidates.

Campaign finance experts predict that the court will almost certainly address the ruling, since it’s seen as a direct challenge to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision that allowed corporations, unions and other special interests to use their treasury funds to make or fund political ads that support or oppose political candidates.

… At least one justice on the Montana court isn’t expecting the state law to stand. “Citizens United is the law of the land, and this Court is duty-bound to follow it,” said Montana Supreme Court Justice James Nelson, one of the two dissenting judges in the 5-2 ruling issued on Dec. 30. “When this case is appealed to the Supreme Court, as I expect it will be, a summary reversal on the merits would not surprise me in the least,” he wrote. But campaign finance reform advocates see opportunity in re-opening the contentious debate at the federal level. Read More »

Double Barrel Blast From Big Sky Country: Montana Rejects Citizens United | Ciara Torres-Spelliscy/Huffington Post

Jan 042012

On December 30, 2011, by a vote of 5 to 2 the Montana Supreme Court decided that Montana’s ban on corporate political expenditures dating back to 1912 could stand. In a hard hitting decision, the U.S. Supreme Court’s take on the role of corporate money in politics in 2010′s Citizens United was challenged by both the majority and a dissent. The Montana Court slammed Citizens United from both barrels.

Barrel number one is the majority opinion, which relies on the particular history of Montana to uphold the constitutionality of the Corrupt Practices Act, a voter initiative, which was adopted on the heels of rampant corporate corruption at the behest of out of state mining interests. As the majority wrote: “the Montana law at issue in this case cannot be understood outside the context of the time and place it was enacted, during the early twentieth century.”

Montana’s “Copper Kings” as they were known bought judges, influenced the legislature and nearly monopolized the state’s mass media of the day — its newspapers. The corruption had federal aspects as well as. One U.S. senator from Montana, W. A. Clark, was expelled because the Senate concluded he had won his seat through bribery. The people of Montana chose to protect their democracy from this type of mischief by outlawing corporate spending in Montana’s elections. Read More »

Supreme Court upholds state ban on corporation spending | Billings Gazette

Jan 022012

The Montana Supreme Court on Friday overturned a lower court’s ruling and reinstated the state’s century-old ban on direct spending by corporations for or against political candidates. The justices ruled 5-2 in favor of the state attorney general’s office and commissioner of political practices to uphold the initiative passed by Montana voters in 1912.

Western Tradition Partnership, a conservative political group now known as American Tradition Partnership, joined by Champion Painting Inc., and the Montana Shooting Sports Association Inc., had challenged the Montana ban after the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. The U.S. Supreme Court decision granted political speech rights to corporations. District Judge Jeffrey Sherlock of Helena ruled that the U.S. Supreme Court decision rendered the Montana ban unconstitutional. But the Montana Supreme Court’s majority saw it differently and overturned Sherlock. Read More »

A Citizens United sequel: different result | SCOTUSblog

Jan 022012

The Montana Supreme Court on Friday put to work its own view of what the Supreme Court had decided in the controversial ruling allowing massive corporate spending in political campaigns, and came out differently: the state court upheld a 99-year-old state ban on the use of corporations’ own money to support or oppose any candidate in state elections. The 5-2 ruling, including two dissenting opinions, is here. One of the dissenters predicted that the ruling would not survive an inevitable appeal to the Justices, and might be overturned without even a close look.

Both the majority and the dissenters treated the voter-approved Corrupt Practices Act as a flat ban on independent spending of corporations’ internal funds to support or oppose specific candidates for state office — independent in the sense that the financial effort was not coordinated with a candidate. Thus, the measure was nearly identical to the ban in federal law that was struck down by the Supreme Court in January of last year in the case of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. Read More »

State Supreme Court Upholds State's Century-Old Ban on Corporate Money in Elections | freespeechforpeople.org

Dec 312011

The Montana Supreme Court today upheld Montana’s century-old ban on corporate political expenditures in state elections. The Court’s 5-2 ruling sets up the first direct challenge to the US Supreme Court’s January 2010 decision in Citizens United v. FEC, which equated corporations with people under the First Amendment and swept away longstanding precedent that had barred corporate expenditures in federal elections. Montana’s 1912 Corrupt Practices Act came under legal attack following the Citizens United decision, and Montana Attorney General Steve Bullock has vigorously defended the state’s law in the Montana courts, leading to today’s state supreme court ruling.

“[T]he State of Montana, or more accurately its voters, clearly had a compelling interest to enact the challenged statute in 1912,” wrote Chief Justice Mike McGrath for the Court’s the majority opinion in the case of Western Tradition Partnership, Inc. v. State of Montana. “At that time the State of Montana and its government were operating under a mere shell of legal authority, and the real social and political power was wielded by powerful corporate managers to further their own business interests.” Read More »

As Lovaas Sues For Voter Fraud, Investigation Finds No Wrongdoing | NBCMontana

Sep 212011

The Missoula County Attorney’s and Sheriff’s departments say that after a thorough investigation, they have no reason to believe fraud took place in the May school elections. The announcement comes just a few weeks after a local accountant filed suit over the vote results.

“I have come to the conclusion that there is no basis to charge anyone with any criminal offense,” County Attorney Fred Van Valkenburg said. According to Van Valkenburg, a technical glitch affected after-the-fact voting reports — like the one that led Patty Lovaas to believe the election had been rigged –making it appear that some votes were counted more than once. ”They were never counted toward the election, and therefore this was simply a problem with how the software ran reports,” Van Valkenburg said. Read More »

New tools to help Montana absentee voters move | KAJ18.com

Jul 142011

Montana’s legislators might have shot down a move to allow people to do all their voting by mail, but Secretary of State Linda McCulloch is taking steps to make it easier for absentee ballots.

GOP lawmakers led the move to squash a proposal to allow vote-by-mail during the recently completed legislative session. That opposition came despite support from elections officials in every Montana county and successful adoption of vote by mail by other states like Washington a decade ago.

However, the Legislature did agree to have voter registration cards to display an option for people to sign up for the Annual Absentee List. McCulloch has now issued the new enhanced voter registration card, as well as a postcard allowing currently registered voters to permanently switch over to absentee voting. Read More »

Facebook Posting Of Ballot Doesn't Break State Law | NBCMontana

Jul 082011

It’s not a violation of Montana’s election laws for a candidate to post a photograph of a marked absentee ballot on Facebook.

That decision was among a handful released Wednesday by the commissioner of political practices’ office. Read More »

Montana Governor vetoes bill for photo-ID voter registration | helenair.com

May 072011

Gov. Brian Schweitzer has vetoed a bill to require a government-issued photo identification to cast a vote during an election.

Schweitzer says the bill would have placed an unnecessary burden on low-income, elderly, disabled and student voters. Read More »

Linda McCulloch: Existing law good for democracy | missoulian.com

Apr 142011

On Wednesday, April 13, I proudly joined Gov. Brian Schweitzer as he heated up his branding iron and vetoed House Bill 180, a partisan bill that would have ended Election Day voter registration across Montana.

Hours before the veto was issued, I read a guest opinion in support of HB180. It was written by former Secretary of State Brad Johnson. As I read Johnson’s opposition to Election Day registration, I was reminded of Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry’s infamous 2004 statement, “I was for it before I was against it.”

That’s because Johnson’s office supported the bill that created Election Day registration in 2005, and he touted in the news the beneficial fact that Montana now had a failsafe voter registration system to ensure that any eligible Montana voter could register to vote up until 8 p.m. on Election Day. Read More »

Montana Secretary of State expresses worry on effect of postal closure on mail ballots | Helenair.com

Apr 132011

Montana Secretary of State Linda McCulloch has weighed in on a proposal to move Helena’s mail-sorting operations to Great Falls, expressing concerns about what it could mean for local elections.

In a letter addressed to Montana’s congressional delegation, McCulloch noted that an increasing number of Montanans are choosing to vote using absentee mail ballots, with the number of votes cast that way jumping from 15 percent of the total to 47 percent in the past decade. The shift to mail ballots is expected to continue, meaning the U.S. Postal Service will play a role in elections, McCulloch wrote in the letter. Read More »

New Montana bill ending Election Day voter registration might hurt state GOP | KBZK.com

Apr 062011

The state legislature has passed a bill ending Election Day voter registration. The last day voters could now register is the Friday before an election. The Republican sponsored House Bill 180 passed largely on party lines Monday. Long held political thought says blocking same day registration benefits the G.O.P. But new research calls that into question.

The general argument put forth around the issue goes like this: Republicans say allowing voters to register on Election Day can lead to fraud; Democrats argue we should be trying to get as many citizens as possible to vote–and same day voter registration helps. This issue, though, is often seen as having a deeper partisan motive. “ Read More »

Montana Lawmakers end same-day voter registration | New Times

Apr 052011

The Montana Legislature has passed a bill that would end same-day voter registration and moving the last day voters could register to the Friday before Election Day.

The Senate gave final approval to House Bill 180 with a 28-22 vote on Friday. The House had passed it 67-33 in February. Republican sponsor Rep. Champ Edmunds of Missoula argued the current system of allowing people to register on Election Day opens the system to fraud. Read More »

Supreme Court upholds state ban on corporation spending | Billings Gazette

Jan 012011

Montana

Supreme Court agrees to consider corporate free speech post-Citizen United | UPI.com

Missoula Elections Activist Asks Judge To Seize Absentee Ballots | NBC

Ex-secretary of state Johnson will be on Montana ballot after all | Billing Gazette

Secretary of State Won’t Let Libertarians Choose a U.S. Senate Nominee | Ballot Access News

Judge indicates part of initiative on Montana Supreme Court elections invalid | The Missoulian

Judge blocks more election rules | Independent Record

Judge hears arguments to lift Montana’s campaign finance laws | Montana Watchdog

Citizens United Part II: Montana Supreme Court Collides With U.S. Supreme Court | Huffington Post

Montana’s Challenge to Citizens United | NYTimes.com

Attorney General wants law in place before review | Great Falls Tribune

SCOTUS expected to weigh Montana campaign finance appeal | Politico.com

Double Barrel Blast From Big Sky Country: Montana Rejects Citizens United | Ciara Torres-Spelliscy/Huffington Post

Supreme Court upholds state ban on corporation spending | Billings Gazette

A Citizens United sequel: different result | SCOTUSblog

State Supreme Court Upholds State's Century-Old Ban on Corporate Money in Elections | freespeechforpeople.org

As Lovaas Sues For Voter Fraud, Investigation Finds No Wrongdoing | NBCMontana

New tools to help Montana absentee voters move | KAJ18.com

Facebook Posting Of Ballot Doesn't Break State Law | NBCMontana

Montana Governor vetoes bill for photo-ID voter registration | helenair.com

Linda McCulloch: Existing law good for democracy | missoulian.com

Montana Secretary of State expresses worry on effect of postal closure on mail ballots | Helenair.com

New Montana bill ending Election Day voter registration might hurt state GOP | KBZK.com

Montana Lawmakers end same-day voter registration | New Times

Supreme Court upholds state ban on corporation spending | Billings Gazette

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