Background
Transparent Election Initiative (TEI) is sponsoring CI-135, a proposed amendment to Article XIII of the Montana Constitution that would limit the powers of “artificial persons” — corporations, nonprofits, unions, partnerships, and similar entities — to those expressly granted by statute, and would specifically exclude “political spending power” from those powers. Entities that violate the restriction would face withdrawal of all state-conferred charter privileges. TEI submitted a proposed ballot statement to accompany the initiative.
Attorney General Austin Knudsen rejected TEI’s proposed statement on three grounds: it named only corporations as examples of artificial persons (misleading as to scope), failed to convey that CI-135 removes all constitutional powers from artificial persons, and omitted a definition of “political spending power.” He submitted a substantially rewritten alternative statement to the Secretary of State. TEI challenged that rewrite under § 13-27-605(1), MCA, arguing the AG exceeded his authority and that the revised statement was inaccurate, argumentative, and prejudicial. This case was a companion to an earlier ruling — TEI I, 2026 MT 87 — in which the Court had already held that CI-135 was legally sufficient to proceed.
The Court accepted the petition as an original proceeding and considered three issues: whether the AG exceeded his statutory authority in rewriting the statement wholesale; whether the revised statement violated § 13-27-212, MCA’s requirement of a true, impartial, and non-argumentative explanation; and what corrective action the Court should take.
The Court’s Holding
The Court held that the Attorney General did not exceed his authority by substantially rewriting TEI’s proposed ballot statement. Once the AG articulates a statutory basis for finding a proponent’s proposed statement noncompliant — which he did here — he has broad discretion in how he drafts a replacement, and no authority requires him to tether each revision to a specific identified deficiency. His discretion is bounded only by the requirement that the final statement be true, impartial, and non-argumentative under § 13-27-212, MCA.
The Court largely upheld the AG’s revised statement, rejecting TEI’s objections to the use of the word “prohibits” (finding it an accurate plain-English description of CI-135’s effect), the inclusion of the definition of “political spending power,” and the use of “revoking” and “contributing” (finding those words conveyed the initiative’s consequences in ordinary language). However, the Court found one sentence — “Artificial persons would not have any other powers under the Montana Constitution” — to be argumentative and potentially misleading, because it echoed the AG’s earlier legal interpretation that CI-135 revokes constitutional rights, an interpretation the Court had already rejected in TEI I. That sentence added nothing not already expressed in the preceding sentence and risked leading lay voters to believe CI-135 expressly strips constitutional rights.
Exercising its authority under § 13-27-605(3)(c)(ii), MCA, the Court deleted the offending sentence and certified the remainder of the AG’s revised statement — unchanged in all other respects — to the Secretary of State.
Key Takeaways
- An Attorney General who articulates a valid statutory basis for rejecting a proponent’s proposed ballot statement has broad discretion to rewrite it from scratch; he need not confine his revisions to curing only the deficiencies he enumerated.
- A ballot statement that uses the word “prohibits” to describe an initiative that removes a power from entities is not inaccurate or argumentative, even if the proponent prefers framing the measure as a definitional limitation rather than a prohibition.
- A single argumentative or misleading sentence is enough for the Montana Supreme Court to intervene; the Court may surgically remove that sentence and certify the corrected statement itself rather than remanding to the AG.
- Ballot statement review asks only whether the statement complies with § 13-27-212, MCA — not whether a better statement could have been written.
Why It Matters
CI-135 is a significant campaign-finance initiative that would amend the Montana Constitution to strip corporations, unions, nonprofits, and other state-chartered entities of the power to spend money to influence elections — with loss of their state-conferred legal status as the penalty for violation. The certified ballot statement the Court approved will be what Montana voters read before deciding whether to enact those sweeping restrictions, making the precise wording consequential for both the initiative’s chances and its ultimate interpretation.
Beyond CI-135 itself, the decision clarifies the boundaries of the Attorney General’s authority over ballot statements in Montana. Proponents can expect that a finding of any statutory deficiency in their proposed language opens the door to a comprehensive AG rewrite, while the courts will police the outer limits — striking language that imports the AG’s contested legal views or that crosses from explanation into argument. The ruling reinforces that the standard is statutory compliance, not editorial perfection.