The court held that Ballot Issue 9, which would amend the state constitution to strip artificial persons of the power to expend money or anything of value to influence election outcomes, constitutes a single constitutional amendment.
Petitioners Transparent Election Initiative and Jeff Mangan sought declaratory judgment after Attorney General Austin Knudsen determined the measure legally insufficient. The Attorney General argued the proposal violated Article XIV, Section 11 of the Montana Constitution by bundling multiple substantive changes that voters must be allowed to vote on separately.
The Attorney General contended the initiative effected three distinct changes: adding a new section to Article XIII, limiting artificial-person powers to those necessary for lawful business or charitable purposes, and extending the ban beyond corporations to nonprofits, religious organizations, trade associations, labor unions, partnerships, and societies.
The court rejected the argument that adding new matter to the constitution counts as a separate change from the operative content of that new matter. The court noted that every constitutional initiative adds new matter, and a separate-vote problem arises only if the initiative makes at least one additional substantive constitutional change that is not closely related.
The court also addressed the Attorney General’s concern regarding the breadth of entities covered by the definition of "artificial person." Relying on its prior decision in Montanans for Election Reform Action Fund v. Knudsen, the court reasoned that defining which entities are barred from political spending is functionally similar to specifying which offices fall under a new election system.
The court distinguished the measure from its prior rejection of Ballot Issue 4, which it found violated the separate-vote requirement because it forced voters into an impermissible bundled choice by broadly revoking powers of various entities in unspecified ways. Ballot Issue 9 differs because it does not revoke or restore corporate charters and defines powers by reference to existing statutory frameworks.
Finally, the court rejected claims that the initiative implicitly amends other constitutional provisions regarding free speech and corporate charter procedures. The court held that the Attorney General cannot create a separate-vote infirmity by employing a subjective interpretation of a ballot initiative and that questions regarding how the measure might affect current jurisprudence lie outside the scope of a legal sufficiency review.
The court ordered the Attorney General to prepare and forward ballot statements to Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen within five days.