Montana

Corporations, trade associations, non-profits, other organizations, and individuals face significant penalties and reputational harm if they violate state laws governing corporate and personal political activities, the registration of lobbyists, lobbying reporting, or the giving of gifts or items of value to government officials or employees. To help organizations and individuals comply with these rules, Covington

Companies doing business with state and local governments or operating in regulated industries are subject to a dizzying array of “pay-to-play” rules. These rules effectively prohibit company executives and employees (and in some cases, their family members) from making certain personal political contributions. Even inadvertent violations can be dangerous: a single political contribution can, for

The Internal Revenue Service today announced proposed regulations to eliminate donor information disclosure requirements for certain nonprofits.  The proposed regulations provide “relief from requirements to report contributor names and addresses on annual returns filed by certain tax-exempt organizations, previously provided in Revenue Procedure 2018-38.”  Once the notice is published in the Federal Register, the

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) must adhere to public notice-and-comment procedures before it can relieve certain tax-exempt organizations of the burden of reporting the names and addresses of their donors to the IRS, a Montana federal court ruled this week.  Last year’s Revenue Procedure 2018-38 provided that tax-exempt organizations, other than 501(c)(3) charities, were no

Companies doing business with state and local governments or operating in regulated industries are subject to a dizzying array of “pay-to-play” rules.  These rules effectively prohibit company executives and employees (and in some cases, their family members) from making certain personal political contributions.  Even inadvertent violations can be dangerous:  a single political contribution can, for

A new corporate political disclosure trend is coming. For years, those advocating increased corporate political disclosure have looked for ways to force companies to publicly reveal the names and amounts of corporate contributions to so-called “dark money” 501(c)(4) social welfare nonprofits and 501(c)(6) trade associations. To date, these initiatives have had, at best, limited success. 

With respect to the upcoming presidential election, it appears that the dust has settled on the Montana contribution limits litigation.  As a refresher, the district court invalidated the State’s contribution limits and the State appealed the ruling to the Ninth Circuit and requested an emergency stay pending appeal.  Yesterday the Ninth Circuit granted the

As we noted last week, the Montana contribution limits case was headed to the Ninth Circuit.  Without ruling on the merits of the suit, the Ninth Circuit today “temporarily stayed” the district court’s order, which had invalidated Montana’s campaign contribution limits.  The Ninth Circuit stated that its review was “severely constrained” by the

Montana, which has become somewhat of a hotbed for campaign finance litigation, saw another one of its laws struck down yesterday.  Following a bench trial, a U.S. District Court determined that “Montana’s contribution limits in Montana Code Annotated § 13-37-216 are unconstitutional under the First Amendment” because they “prevent candidates from ‘amassing the resources necessary