Saying No to Corruption: Why Montana Is Fighting The U.S. Supreme Court

Despite strong protections against corporate intrusion in state elections, Montanans still were forced to defend against corporate assaults at the ballot box. In 2004, Canyon Resources Inc. instigated a ballot initiative a state ban on the practice of extracting gold via spraying cyanide over ore piles. Thanks to the 1978 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, the corporation was free to spend more than $2 million promoting its own agenda. Apparently every one of 22 donors to the pro-cyanide campaign was a corporation.

Montanans narrowly upheld the cyanide ban, but at great cost to grassroots organizations. All of this helps explain Montana’s tenacious refusal to kill the Corrupt Practices Act. In defending the Act at the Montana Court, the state presented extensive evidence of actual corruption in elections, which the U.S. Supreme Court found lacking in Citizens United.

The justices also noted that Citizens United did not address non-partisan and judicial elections and quoted the U.S. Supreme Court’s own ruling in Caperton v. Massey Coal (2009). In Caperton, Justice Kennedy’s majority opinion said, “Judicial integrity [is] a state interest of the highest order,” and large independent expenditures on behalf of a judicial candidate creates “a serious, objective risk of actual bias” that could violate litigants’ due process rights.

Just months later, Justice Kennedy asserted the opposite in Citizens United, “Independent expenditures, including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption.”

Given these incoherent opinions, many citizens suspect the five-man majority placed personal ideology above their duty to honestly interpret the constitution. Not surprisingly, public approval of the Court dropped from 61 percent pre-Citizens United, to 46 percent by last fall.

The forthcoming appeal of the Montana Supreme Court ruling presents those justices an opportunity to weigh recent evidence (like the enormous growth and power of super PACs) and mitigate damage already inflicted. If they fail to self-correct, the Court’s legitimacy may be marred for decades and surely will fuel the growing movement to revoke the Court’s creation of “corporate personhood” via constitutional amendment.

Rather than sit and wait, Americans might learn from Montana’s history. While relatively few states have experienced such severe corporate exploitation, we all can choose to shift our time and money from reactive measures and electoral politics to proactive, movement-building initiatives and organizations.

Rather than merely hoping Justice Kennedy flops back to the side of reason, Montanans again are seizing the initiative, building support for a constitutional amendment to overrule the Supreme Court, with support from national groups like Move to Amend, Free Speech for People and Common Cause of Montana. A statewide ballot initiative to call for such an amendment may provide national precedent.

We may never spend 56 days discussing democracy with a broad cross-section of fellow citizens, but we should consider the lessons of Montana’s remarkable constitutional convention. Perhaps we should invite personal dialogue with those whose politics differs from ours and explore our common ground.

Desire for self-governance and freedom from corporate corruption defy any partisan loyalties. George Harper, a delegate to the Montana constitutional convention, recalled, “Most of the time I had no idea if the person making a proposal was a Democrat or a Republican…that’s what I loved about it.”

Link to original article from AlterNet