This is a big deal. The Montana Plan is a way for the state to bypass Citizens United, and their Supreme Court’s dismissal of a challenge to it is great. In the Daily Montanan, Micah Drew writes:
Organizers behind the Transparent Election Initiative were cleared to begin gathering signatures last month to put I-194, or Ballot Issue 10, on the ballot in November.
The statutory initiative, dubbed “The Montana Plan,” would create a new Montana law to prohibit corporations—known in law as “artificial persons”—from spending money on political candidates or ballot issues.
Also in the works is SB 2471 in Hawaii. It doesn’t regulate corporate speech. It doesn’t try to limit a right. It rewrites Hawaiʻi’s corporate code to slightly shorten the list of powers that corporations operating in the state actually have—and political spending power isn’t on the list.
Read more . . .
—Sarah Walz