(The Center Square) – Montana recently became the sixth state this year to pass a ban on foreign spending on ballot measures. Watchdog organizations, however, say the state’s new law is inadequate.
Montana’s new law bars non-U.S. citizens, foreign governments, foreign political parties and foreign-owned entities from contributing to campaigns surrounding ballot measures. The legislation passed mostly along party lines, with near-unanimous Republican support and limited Democratic backing.
The new law, however, carves out an exemption for U.S.-based companies with foreign ownership if they pay state taxes and use only domestically generated funds from citizens or permanent residents.
Additionally, the measure doesn’t stop American political advocacy groups that receive money from foreigners from taking sides in ballot questions, watchdogs say.
“The problem that Montana failed to address is that you can have these intermediary groups that act as essentially money launderers, like the Sixteen Thirty Fund, raising enormous sums from foreign nationals, while simultaneously spending money on ballot measures,” Honest Elections Project executive director Jason Snead told The Center Square in a Zoom interview. “That’s why some of the measures we’ve seen passed this year, like in Missouri, for instance, require groups that spend in support of or against ballot measures have to certify that they have not taken above a certain threshold of foreign money over a four-year period. And the reason for that is to avoid this money laundering type of activity. That’s what’s missing from the Montana law.”
The Sixteen Thirty Fund, an American progressive political advocacy organization, has received at least $280 million from Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss since 2016, according to the New York Post.
The organization, for example, has actively participated in Montana’s politics. It spent over $3 million supporting a ballot initiative in Montana last year that made abortion a constitutionally protected right, according to Ballotpedia.
The Sixteen Thirty Fund has spent over $130 million on ballot questions in 25 U.S. states in the past decade, according to RealClearPolicy.
Since the Sixteen Thirty Fund is an American-based company that Wyss donates to – and doesn’t tell the organization how to spend its money – Montana’s new law won’t prevent it from spending on the state’s ballot questions.
Americans for Public Trust executive director Caitlin Sutherland said Montana should look to other states for model legislation.
“Yes, absolutely,” she told The Center Square in a Zoom interview. “Starting with Ohio last year, we have seen that foreign funding bans have really swept state houses across the country. They’re all slightly similar with the goal of banning foreign money – direct and indirect – on ballot issues. We saw that Wyoming passed a very strong ban, as did Kansas, Arkansas, Kentucky and Indiana all this year.”
Once Ohio’s ban on foreign funding of ballot initiatives took effect last year, the Sixteen Thirty Fund stopped spending on The Buckeye State’s ballot questions and turned its attention elsewhere, as RealClearPolitics reports.
Heritage Action for America Montana State Director Kristen Christensen said her group wanted Gov. Greg Gianforte to veto the measure
“Montana HB 818 was intended to safeguard Montana elections but unfortunately stopped short in protecting the integrity of elections in the Treasure State,” Christensen said. “Heritage Action urged Governor Gianforte to veto this weak legislation. It leaves loopholes open for foreign actors to pour millions of dollars into Montana’s electoral process, and leaves Montanans’ voices vulnerable to being drowned out by illegitimate and foreign influence.”
Snead also worries that foreign adversaries, like Russia and China, may one day capitalize on this campaign finance loophole and fund American ballot initiatives.
“Any loopholes that exist in our current laws or that we create with new laws can and probably will be exploited by adversarial foreign powers, like China, like Russia, that clearly mean the U.S. ill,” he said. “That’s why we should never risk playing with fire by allowing foreign powers to meddle in our politics. We need to build the protections now and make sure that money’s out of our state politics forever.”