Montana Voters Move to Curb Corporate Election Power

Montana voters approved Initiative 194, known as the “Montana Plan,” with roughly 65% voting in favor on Tuesday, backing restrictions on corporations and other organizations spending money to influence state elections. The measure challenges the legal framework established by the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling. It’s now headed into a fight over who gets to use corporate legal privileges to shape the political choices presented to voters.

What the Vote Changes

The plan would strip corporations, trade associations, labor unions and nonprofits—including organizations headquartered elsewhere—of the legal power to spend money influencing Montana elections. That would bar corporate-funded attack ads, trade associations financing referendum campaigns and politically active nonprofits using their own funds to sway voters. Individuals, political committees, government entities, and bona fide news, commentary and editorial content are exempt.

The measure is set to become state law on Jan. 1. But the Republican-controlled legislature could amend or repeal it, and proponents have pledged to take the fight back to voters in 2028 if lawmakers do. Montana voters can make law through ballot initiatives; the legislature still holds a route to undo the result.

The plan’s argument is that corporations may have constitutional rights but derive their powers from states. Violators risk losing state-granted corporate privileges, including limited liability, until improperly spent funds are surrendered and legal conditions are met. Limited liability generally protects shareholders from personal responsibility for corporate debts.

“The argument of the people supporting the initiative is, in theory, trying to be pretty simple. Keep your campaign cash out of Montana, or you run the risk of putting your shareholders’ personal balance sheets on the line,” said Kal Munis, a politics professor at Montana State University who is an expert in the state’s politics.

The scale of political spending provides the backdrop. The vote followed a record $11.87 billion in political advertising nationwide this election cycle, split about evenly between the two parties, according to media tracking firm AdImpact. Known corporate contributions to outside groups in federal elections rose from $13 million in 2010 to more than $600 million by September 2026, according to OpenSecrets, a nonpartisan nonprofit that tracks such spending. Those figures exclude money funneled through nonprofits that conceal their donors.

Who Still Gets to Spend

The campaign for the measure also drew high-dollar support from corporate America. State campaign finance data shows Samantha Walton, wife of Walmart heir Lukas Walton, gave $722,300 to groups supporting the measure, while LinkedIn co-founder and Democratic megadonor Reid Hoffman contributed $150,000. The campaign’s organizing nonprofit, Transparent Election Initiative, is a type of dark-money group generally not required to disclose its donors.

The restrictions would bind companies, but not all wealthy political spenders. Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, described as the 2026 election’s largest known individual donor, had given at least $474 million in political contributions, according to a CNBC analysis of campaign finance records. He could still spend millions of his personal fortune influencing Montana elections, while his companies would face the restrictions.

Tom Moore, a former Federal Election Commission official and current senior fellow at the Center for American Progress who helped develop the plan, said: “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.” Moore argued that states should be able to restrict corporate political spending because corporations derive their legal existence from states.

The Courtroom Fight

Opponents call the plan an unconstitutional end run around Citizens United. They argue that if states cannot directly prohibit protected political speech, they cannot achieve the same result by threatening companies’ legal privileges. Critics also warn the restrictions could silence local trade groups, labor unions and community organizations on school bonds, tax measures and other local ballot issues.

“Why allow a media corporation to speak out, while denying a non-profit association of citizens the right to organize around clean water or lower taxes?” said Brad Smith, who leads the Institute for Free Speech and is a former FEC chairman. “Billionaires will find loopholes. All this really does is silence Montana’s small- and medium-sized businesses.”

A similar law enacted by lawmakers in Hawaii in May is the first legal test of the strategy; Montana is the first state to adopt it by statewide vote. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has sued to block the Hawaii law, and the Institute for Free Speech is representing the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii in a separate challenge. The national ACLU has argued in a court brief that the law violates the First Amendment.

Legal and campaign finance experts said the dispute could eventually reach the Supreme Court, whose 6-3 conservative majority has repeatedly loosened campaign finance restrictions. In June, the justices struck down limits on political parties’ spending in coordination with candidates.

“Shifting the prohibition into the corporate code is a distinction without a difference,” said Michael Kang, a Northwestern Pritzker School of Law professor who studies campaign finance. “The courts will see right through it because the clear intent remains to bypass Citizens United. It seems like a legal sleight of hand.”