Massive amounts of private money have poured into Montana’s elections for years. In 2020, the Steve Daines-Steve Bullock race for the U.S. Senate became the most expensive in state history. Four years later, the Jon Tester-Tim Sheehy race shattered that record, becoming the most expensive Senate contest per vote in American history.
But this year, big money began flowing into the state even earlier than usual, flooding primary races that haven’t historically attracted national attention. Before summer even started, three PACs — Americans for Prosperity, Accountability in State Government and the School Freedom Fund — had already spent over $2 million in Republican legislative primaries to unseat more moderate lawmakers, including some who isolated the far right during the 2025 legislative session. This spring, the Progressive Vet PAC also spent nearly $3 million in a five-person Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate. The PAC then exited the race, saying the state was unwinnable for Democrats.
For Jeff Mangan, founder and president of Montana’s Transparent Election Initiative, this latest round of unprecedented spending offers yet another reminder of the need for limits. “Montana just saw the most expensive primary election in state history,” he told me. “We’ve all realized there’s too much money, and we’ve lost control of our politics.”
Mangan created the nonprofit Transparent Election Initiative, a 501(c)(4) organization, and used it to launch a statutory ballot measure last summer that he dubbed “The Montana Plan.” Officially titled Initiative 194, it aims to strip political spending power from “artificial persons” — including corporations and 501(c)4 organizations — unless they’re registered as political committees under state or federal law. After spending six years overseeing elections as Montana’s commissioner of political practices, he believes the initiative represents the most serious attempt nationwide to push back against Citizens United v. FEC, the 2010 decision by five U.S. Supreme Court justices that made unlimited political spending by corporations a First Amendment right.
Mangan’s measure currently has some wind in its sails. In June, he announced I-194 had gathered at least 20,000 more signatures than required to qualify for the ballot, and Montana Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen officially certified the measure in August. But questions remain. Will voters in this deep red state approve it? If they do, will it survive the inevitable legal and political challenges to come? And if it is finally implemented, will it be as effective as its supporters claim?
MONTANANS HAVE A HISTORY of popular resistance to corporate influence in public elections. In 1912, voters approved four citizens’ initiatives, including the Corrupt Practices Act, which curtailed political spending by candidates and corporations. It was the first time Montana voters — almost entirely white men at the time — had exercised a new right to pass laws by direct vote, and the upshot was a dramatic reduction in the power of political parties and their financial backers.
Nearly a century later, Citizens United abolished those spending limits along with campaign finance reforms in 23 other states, creating durable legal protections for unlimited spending that can only be overturned through a constitutional amendment or a reverse ruling. Because neither outcome is imminent, Thomas Moore, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, developed the “Corporate Power Reset,” a strategy to moderate spending by limiting the powers that states grant to corporations. Two years ago, Moore sent a white paper on the strategy to Mangan, and soon after, Mangan launched the nonprofit that became the Transparent Election Initiative.
“We’ve all realized there’s too much money, and we’ve lost control of our politics.”
The Montana Plan’s all-volunteer canvassing effort — unusual in an era when many signature gatherers are paid by private firms — is one indication of the proposal’s public support. Though Mangan has not polled the specific ballot language in I-194, an Issue One poll from last October found that 74% of Montanans supported a hypothetical ballot measure to limit political spending.
But sizable challenges lie ahead. The Montana Chamber of Commerce and other industry groups oppose the initiative, and the Montana Republican Party recently passed a resolution against it, an influential partisan signal in a red state that Donald Trump won by an average of 19 points in the past three presidential elections.
the state. Credit: Louise Johns/High Country News
TO SUCCEED, MANGAN has to convince around 10% of Republican voters to ignore the opposition, and even if he succeeds, other challenges await. The measure is statutory, not constitutional, so Republican legislators, who recently made it more difficult to qualify and pass citizens initiatives, could use their legislative majorities to overturn it in 2027. Its implementation could also be hindered by Jacobsen, who sought to disqualify valid signatures on initiative petitions in 2024, or Attorney General Austin Knudsen, who tried unsuccessfully to rewrite two ballot initiatives last year.
It will also likely face new lawsuits from industry groups that could reach the U.S. Supreme Court. “I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it passed,” said Rob Saldin, a political science professor at the University of Montana. “The bigger question in a Citizens United era is ‘Does this thing pass constitutional muster?’”
Mangan and Moore believe it will because it depends on the 10th Amendment, which allows states to regulate the powers of corporations and political organizations, rather than the First Amendment, which was the legal basis for Citizens United. The Supreme Court’s conservative majority, however, seems likely to reject attempts to restrict anyone’s political spending powers for any reason. In July, the court issued a 6-3 ruling that removed limits on the amount political parties can spend to support their candidates, a last vestige of the pre-Citizens United era.
“For opponents of unregulated campaign spending, there may still be some reasons to do this.”
Even if The Montana Plan manages to leap all these hurdles, some opponents have argued that large loopholes for political spending will persist, such as a law that allows organizations to register as “incidental committees” without being required to disclose their donors — a workaround that Mangan himself has used.
Regardless, advocates for reform see potential. “For opponents of unregulated campaign spending, there may still be some reasons to do this,” Saldin said. “Taking on Citizens United is a long-term project, and relatively small-scale things like this can help build momentum.”
That momentum is apparent in at least 19 states where lawmakers are considering similar proposals, including Hawai’i, where legislators have already passed a measure modeled on The Montana Plan. That law, though, was immediately challenged by the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii, a politically conservative think tank based in Honolulu.
Tiffany Muller, president of End Citizens United, a national nonprofit fighting big money in politics, expects similar resistance to The Montana Plan. “We know this is going to be challenged when it passes,” she said. Still, she thinks there’s too much at stake not to try.
“When you have billionaires and corporations spending unlimited amounts of money in our elections, then you end up seeing public officials and candidates that are more responsive to the needs and wants of those corporations and billionaires rather than the needs of the people,” she said. As evidence, she pointed to the record-breaking $275 million that was spent to reach 600,000 voters in Montana’s 2024 U.S. Senate election and the role that well-connected billionaires played in that race.
In the absence of congressional action, Muller argued that it makes sense for Montana voters to take matters into their own hands. “In this moment we are in, it’s important that states continue to be the laboratories of democracy.”
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