Organizers of I-194 expected a multimillion-dollar campaign to defeat their proposal, which would block corporations from spending directly in Montana elections.
It never arrived.
With Election Day approaching, organizers of I-194, also known as the Montana Plan, say opposition has instead surfaced largely through op-eds and business organizations.
“We anticipated opposition in the tens of millions,” said Russ Cleveland, an I-194 spokesperson. “I think with the number of signatures that came back, that certainly played a portion of it. There’s been three or four different polls done that show it in the 60s and 70s, percentagewise, as far as voter approval goes.”
RELATED
Initiative banning corporate money in elections gets a spotlight in Billings
Supporters of a ballot initiative to ban corporate spending in Montana elections hosted a Q-and-A at the Alberta Bair Theater in downtown Billings.
Cleveland was also an unsuccessful Democratic primary candidate in Montana’s Western Congressional District.
Among the organizations that are making a case against I-194 is People United for Privacy, a nonprofit that’s advocating nationwide against similar efforts in multiple states. PUFP wants the identities of donors to nonprofit organizations protected.
In op-eds that have appeared in Montana newspapers in the weeks leading up to the election, PUFP has argued that forcing anonymously funded nonprofits out of election-related spending leaves wealthy individuals and political action committees with greater influence, while potentially exposing nonprofit donors to harassment as a cost of having their voices heard.
The group’s CEO, Heather Lauer, argued in the Bozeman Daily Chronicle on Oct. 10 that I-194 would affect nonprofits, charities, churches and unions — all organizations in which members pool resources behind a political message. The privacy of those members is central to the PUFP argument.
Zac Morgan, senior legal fellow at PUFP, told Montana Free Press that the initiative raises Constitutional problems around free speech and privacy.
“I think the thing is a dead letter when it gets reviewed, assuming it passes,” Morgan said. He pointed to a Hawaii law similar to the Montana Plan that is intended to restrict the kind of corporate political spending that proliferated following the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision equating money with free speech. Hawaii’s Act 11 is facing two federal lawsuits. The Grassroot Institute of Hawaii sued the state in June, arguing that the law violates First Amendment protections of free speech and association. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce filed a second challenge in September, arguing that the law violates the Citizens United decision.
The Grassroot case had a preliminary injunction hearing on Oct.13, with a ruling yet to come. The U.S. Chamber case is also still in court.
Waiting to challenge the legality of I-194 if and when it passes, rather than pouring money into a campaign attempting to prevent it from passing, could be “an economically rational choice,” Morgan said.
PUFP’s own financing displays the kind of donor privacy the organization is defending. Financial records show an overlap between PUFP’s charitable affiliate, People United For Privacy Foundation, and the Grassroot Institute group that is challenging Hawaii’s corporate spending ban. Both organizations are funded through DonorsTrust, a $1.36 billion donor-advised fund that channels grants to conservative, faith-based and libertarian causes without identifying its donors. The Center for Media and Democracy identifies DonorsTrust as the preferred donor-advised fund of the Koch political network. DonorsTrust tax filings for 2024 show the PUFP Foundation receiving $1.56 million for general operations, while the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii received $20,000 for an “open hearings” project, $38,810 for a “founders campaign” and $547,660 for general operations. The tax records are available through ProPublica’s Nonprofit Explorer.
The tax records confirm a common funding source, but don’t show whether DonorsTrust financed the lawsuit, or if the groups coordinated efforts.
The same organizations also appear in the directory of the State Policy Network, a $9.8 million DonorsTrust funding recipient in 2025. SPN describes itself as a national network of 63 state-based affiliates and more than 130 nonprofit partners that provide SPN organizations with strategy support, grants, training and connections within the network.
Tax filings for 2019 show that the People United for Privacy Foundation delegated management duties to SPN, which also, according to tax filings, provided a combined $405,000 to the foundation in 2021 and 2022. The foundation’s president in 2020 was Tony Woodlief, who is also senior executive vice president for SPN. The Bozeman-based Frontier Institute is an SPN affiliate, as is the Idaho-based Mountain States Policy Center, which is advocating for a rewrite of the Montana Constitution in 2030.
Morgan said that requiring organizations engaged in political advocacy to disclose their donors could discourage public debate. PUFP’s argument treats donor anonymity not as a flaw, but rather as a protection for free association. The group’s website says it works to protect donors, members and volunteers from being identified in association with the causes they support.
“I’m not sure that routing all political activity through fully disclosed donations is the wisest course,” Morgan said.
DonorsTrust grants show the limits of what tax filings reveal about original donors to nonprofits. Other money supporting People United for Privacy can be traced to organizations associated with Leonard Leo, a conservative legal activist, though underlying donors aren’t fully disclosed.
Federal tax records show that one of PUFP’s financial supporters was the BH Fund. The nonprofit dissolved in 2023, but had previously appropriated funds to other nonprofits promoting President Donald Trump’s first-term Supreme Court nominations. The BH Fund president was Leo, a former Trump adviser and co-chair of the Federalist Society board of directors. BH Fund’s federal tax filing reports a $600,000 grant for general operations to People United for Privacy. Another nonprofit widely associated with Leo, the Concord Fund, separately reported a combined $1.3 million in operational grants to People United for Privacy, according to tax filings in 2022 and 2023.
The financial trail becomes more difficult to follow further upstream. A separate federal tax filing shows the Marble Freedom Trust provided the Concord Fund $33.45 million for general operating purposes. The filings do not establish that any of that money was subsequently used for the Concord Fund’s grant to PUFP. Leo is the principal officer of Marble. Concord was previously known as Judicial Crisis Network.
Cleveland said I-194 isn’t intended to prevent wealthy interests from participating in Montana politics. Its purpose, he said, is to make the source of that influence apparent to voters. Depending on their outcomes, the Hawaii lawsuits could work favorably for the Montana Plan, he said, because the two states are both in the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
“If a donor wants to spend that kind of money, and not put their name on it, and by putting their name on it they will no longer donate, then we’ve done our job,” Cleveland said. “If you’re going to pay to influence my vote, you should put your name on it.”
LATEST STORIES
Yellowstone County signs deal for data center developer to pay road costs
“In no way is this agreement any sort of approval for land use, water, electricity,” the Public Works director said. “We are talking about the condition of the road and the use of the road.”
University of Providence in Great Falls to close at end of school year
The Catholic liberal arts school, nearly a century old, had been undergoing a financial restructuring. On Tuesday, its president said that the university had exhausted all viable paths forward.
Charges filed in Cascade County over forged voter signatures
Authorities in Cascade County issued a warrant for Nathan Ross Harlan for allegedly forging signatures on petitions to get two independent candidates on the fall ballot.
