Money Out Of Politics!

Citizens in Montana this week added a splash to the Big Blue Wave when they ratified Constitutional Initiative 194 which will prohibit corporations and dark money PACs from spending to influence state elections starting on January 1, 2027.

Montana is a deep red state where 44% of voters register as Republicans, compared to only 26% who are Democrats. But folks in both parties understand there’s too much money and influence peddling in politics.  

Hawaii is a mirror image of Montana, where liberals outnumber conservatives almost three to one, but the state legislature there passed a law in 2025 much like the Montana Initiative, prohibiting corporate cash from corrupting our elections.  

This past midterm was the most expensive election in American history, with twelve billion dollars spent on campaign ads. That’s more than the presidential race cost in 2024 and it’s only going to get worse unless more states follow Montana and Hawaii’s example.  

Now a newly formed organization called Money Out Of Politics New Mexico aims to do just that. Attorney Natalie Wright Curley, who spearheads the effort, explains that the flood gates of dark money opened in 2010 with the disastrous Citizens United decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that corporations pouring gazillions into Super PACs were “persons” engaging in protected political speech. Most of this money is untraceable, hidden behind shell organizations that conceal where the cash is really coming from. Thanks to the Supreme Court, even companies that are foreign owned can try to buy U.S. elections so long as they funnel their booty through an American-based shell.  

But there is a way around the Court, even without a Constitutional Amendment. States like New Mexico, Hawaii and Montana all have the power to charter corporations and in that charter define and regulate what companies can and can’t do. And that’s the legal theory behind the “Corporate Money Out Of Politics Act” that Natalie Curley’s group is advocating in the next session of the New Mexico legislature that starts January 19. It would put an end to the millions in “dark money” saturating the airwaves in our state.

Face it, corporations aren’t people. They can’t get married or have kids. They don’t get sick or die. They can’t fall in love. Pretending that corporations should have all the same rights as ordinary people is a legal fiction. And giving them more power at the ballot box than ordinary citizens is a twelve billion dollar threat to our democracy.  

Email or call your state legislator to tell them to support the “Corporate Money Out Of Politics Act.” After all, this is an issue where patriotic Americans can all agree! More than a dozen states besides Montana and Hawaii have initiatives like this one already pending, from ruby-red Oklahoma to baby-blue Rhode Island, from rural Iowa to urban New York. Let's add New Mexico to the list.