Today the James Madison Center filed this application for a stay of the Montana Supreme Court ruling upholding state law barring corporate independent spending in state elections. As I have explained,the opinion upholds Montana’s ban on independent corporate spending on state elections, and it seems to run headlong into the U.S. Supreme Court’s opinion in Citizens United. Eugene Volokh predicts the Court will hear the case and reverse, and Calvin Massey predicts a summary reversal. (More analysis from SCOTUSBlog.)
The Corporations opposing the law have now filed the stay application, which would stay the Court’s ruling and allow corporate spending in Montana elections pending the filing and decision on a cert. petition to be filed in the Supreme Court. But Bopp’s application does more than that: “The Corporations also request that this matter be referred to the Court, that this application be treated as a petition for a writ of certiorari, that the petition be granted, and that the Montana Supreme Court’s decision be summarily reversed. The lower court’s refusal to follow Citizens United is such an obvious, blatant disregard of its duty to follow this Court’s decisions that summary reversal is proper.”
Full Article: Jim Bopp Goes for Broke in Montana Campaign Finance Case, and Just Might Get It | Election Law Blog.