Court: Firms can back super PACs at state level
Updated at 11:35am ET The Supreme Court overturned Monday a Montana state law which banned independent political spending by corporations.
The decision reversed a ruling by the Montana Supreme Court which had upheld the 1912 law.
Monday’s ruling dashed the hopes of campaign finance reformers who wanted the justices to put the Montana case on the docket for argument in the term which begins in October.
They’d hoped this might lead to a reconsideration of the high court’s 2010 Citizens United decision which held that a federal ban on corporate independent political spending was unconstitutional under the First Amendment.
“There can be no serious doubt” that the Citizens United decision applies to the Montana state law, the majority wrote in an unsigned opinion.
Dissenting from that reversal of the Montana court were four justices: Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan.
“Montana’s experience, like considerable experience elsewhere since the Court’s decision in Citizens United, casts grave doubt on the Court’s supposition that independent expenditures do not corrupt or appear to do so,” Breyer wrote for the dissenters.
Summary reversal of the Montana court – which is what the Supreme Court did on Monday -- is the quickest and most emphatic way for the justices to tell a lower court that it got something wrong (i.e., that it had ignored or misinterpreted a ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court).
In its ruling in 2011, the Montana Supreme Court affirmed the state’s right to impose its own ban on independent spending by corporations. The Montana court said, “Unlike Citizens United, this case concerns Montana law, Montana elections and it arises from Montana history.”
The Montana court also said, “Issues of corporate influence, sparse population, dependence upon agriculture and extractive resource development, location as a transportation corridor, and low campaign costs make Montana especially vulnerable to continued efforts of corporate control to the detriment of democracy and the republican form of government. Clearly Montana has unique and compelling interests to protect through preservation of this statute."
But the corporations challenging the Montana law said that state laws which ban independent political spending by corporations are in conflict with the Citizens United decision and must be struck down
The challengers said in their petition to the justices: “The Montana Supreme Court simply disagreed with the holdings of Citizens United, which it felt justified in disregarding…But only this Court can overturn its own precedent ….”
The decision reversed a ruling by the Montana Supreme Court which had upheld the 1912 law.
Monday’s ruling dashed the hopes of campaign finance reformers who wanted the justices to put the Montana case on the docket for argument in the term which begins in October.
They’d hoped this might lead to a reconsideration of the high court’s 2010 Citizens United decision which held that a federal ban on corporate independent political spending was unconstitutional under the First Amendment.
“There can be no serious doubt” that the Citizens United decision applies to the Montana state law, the majority wrote in an unsigned opinion.
Dissenting from that reversal of the Montana court were four justices: Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan.
“Montana’s experience, like considerable experience elsewhere since the Court’s decision in Citizens United, casts grave doubt on the Court’s supposition that independent expenditures do not corrupt or appear to do so,” Breyer wrote for the dissenters.
Summary reversal of the Montana court – which is what the Supreme Court did on Monday -- is the quickest and most emphatic way for the justices to tell a lower court that it got something wrong (i.e., that it had ignored or misinterpreted a ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court).
In its ruling in 2011, the Montana Supreme Court affirmed the state’s right to impose its own ban on independent spending by corporations. The Montana court said, “Unlike Citizens United, this case concerns Montana law, Montana elections and it arises from Montana history.”
The Montana court also said, “Issues of corporate influence, sparse population, dependence upon agriculture and extractive resource development, location as a transportation corridor, and low campaign costs make Montana especially vulnerable to continued efforts of corporate control to the detriment of democracy and the republican form of government. Clearly Montana has unique and compelling interests to protect through preservation of this statute."
But the corporations challenging the Montana law said that state laws which ban independent political spending by corporations are in conflict with the Citizens United decision and must be struck down
The challengers said in their petition to the justices: “The Montana Supreme Court simply disagreed with the holdings of Citizens United, which it felt justified in disregarding…But only this Court can overturn its own precedent ….”
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