Hill ordered not to spend $500,000 contribution
A state judge has ordered former Congressman and Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Hill not to spend any of the $500,000 his campaign received from the Montana Republican Party on Oct. 5.
Lewis and Clark County District Court Judge Kathy Seely issued a temporary restraining order on Oct. 24, the same day U.S. District Court Judge Dana Christensen remanded the case to state court.
Hill claims it’s legal for him to use the money for his campaign even though it exceeds the $22,600 limit state law places on contributions from all political parties in gubernatorial campaigns.
He claims his campaign received the money in the six days between U.S. District Court Judge Charles Lovell’s Oct. 10 conclusion that called the limits unconstitutional and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals’ Oct. 16 ruling that kept the state’s campaign limits in force through this year’s election.
Shortly after Hill received the $500,000 donation on Oct. 5, he spent more than $620,000 on new advertising, including $392,881 on Oct. 16 and $99,945 on Oct. 22.
Montana Attorney General and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Steve Bullock filed suit in Lewis and Clark County District Court on Oct. 18 to stop Hill and his campaign organization, A Lot of Folks For Rick Hill, from spending the money.
The next day, Hill asked the federal courts to take over the case, saying that’s where arguments over whether the state’s campaign contribution limits are constitutional should be decided. Judge Christensen, however, disagreed.
“Interpretation of the statute is a matter of state law, and the state court is better suited to engage in that exercise,” he wrote.
Plaintiffs in the suit to eliminate Montana’s campaign contribution limits were led by Doug Lair of American Tradition Partnership, formerly Western Tradition Partnership, a conservative group now based in Washington, D.C. The group is also fighting Montana election officials to withhold the names of its donors.
Other plaintiffs included Montana Right To Life, Sweet Grass Council for Community Integrity, Lake County Republican Central Committee, Beaverhead County Republican Central Committee, Jake Oil LLC, Champion Painting Inc. and individuals Steve Dogiakos and John Milanovich.
James Bopp, the attorney representing ATP and the other plaintiffs, wrote to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy on Oct. 18 requesting an intervention. Kennedy, however, said on Oct. 23 the high court will not stop Montana’s contribution limits from staying in effect through the November general election. The conservative groups have also turned to Lovell, asking him to find Bullock in contempt for filing his lawsuit.
Bopp, who’s spent 30 years fighting campaign regulations across the U.S., was a legal adviser for Citizens United in their 2010 landmark case. The Supreme Court ruled in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission that the First Amendment prohibits government from restricting independent political expenditures by corporations and unions. The ruling has been cited by Lovell and other state and federal judges overseeing campaign regulation cases.