Courts will not block campaign law

HELENA — A federal appeals court on Thursday rejected a request that would have allowed certain tax-exempt groups to release campaign-related ads in Montana before Tuesday’s election without disclosing their donors or spending.

Without comment, a two-judge panel from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied Montanans for Community Development’s emergency motion for an injunction.

The Billings-based group wants to prevent the state from enforcing laws that define campaign contributions, expenditures and political committees. It says the legal definitions are too vague, the disclosure requirements of political committees are too cumbersome, and the laws infringe upon its free-speech rights.

Commissioner of Political Practices Jonathan Motl said the effect would have been a collapse of the regulations that keep outside groups from coordinating with candidates and spending money to boost or oppose those candidates’ campaigns

“On behalf of the people of Montana, I’m pleased because it keeps our election process in 2014 orderly,” Motl said. “That’s a far cry from what happened in 2012.”

In 2012, less than a month before the election, groups and individuals challenging Montana’s campaign contribution limits won an injunction from U.S. District Judge Charles Lovell to block the limits. The 9th Circuit reinstated those limits a little more than a week later.