Montanans speak out against big money in Congressional election

$17 million dollars in just 3 months. That’s how much candidates and outside groups spent on the recent congressional race in Montana between Republican Greg Gianforte and Democrat Rob Quist. It’s a record-breaking amount; by comparison, Montana’s previous congressional election cost $9 million. MAYDAY supporters all across Montana voiced their concerns about big money politics in letters to the editor leading up to the election. 


Montanans have long stood up against elites hoping to buy their way into power. In the late 1800s, copper barons spent huge sums to purchase voters, judges, and offices. In the most egregious example, “Copper king” W.A. Clark infamously bribed his way to a seat in the U.S. Senate, remarking afterwards, “I never bought a man who wasn’t for sale”. To fight corruption, in 1912 Montanans passed the Corrupt Practices Act, which for over 100 years prohibited direct corporate spending on campaigns. Unfortunately, in 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the 100-year-old act. (On what basis? That it interfered with corporations’ right to free speech as set out by Citizens United).


Given Montana’s history, the record-smashing spending by candidates and outside groups alike in the recent race reeked to many of the corruption of yore. MAYDAY supporters took particular issue with the spending by Greg Gianforte, a multi-millionaire who had already spent a record $6 million of his own money in a failed race for governor in 2016.


Although Quist and Gianforte both raised boggling amounts of money for the short time span, Gianforte’s average donors were $2,000 and up – including a $1.5 million donation he gave himself. Gianforte also received help from huge outside superPACs, which spent 6.3 million (the majority of the $7.1 million in outside spending) on his behalf.


Chris, a member from Missoula, alluded to Montana’s anti-corruption history in calling out the obscene spending in the race:


“Both Greg Gianforte and Rob Quist are spending huge amounts of money to get elected to Congress, and are supported by millions from outside (and out-of-state) groups. The money corrupts our political system and leads our elected officials to depend on their big donors, instead of the vast bulk of their natural constituency…

Montana has a strong history of opposing people who try to buy political power, and I’m fairly sure that a large majority of Montanans don’t want dark money to overpower the voices of regular voters.”


Jon, also from Missoula, did the same, drawing a direct line from Citizens United to the glut of money in the race:


“In politics, money buys access and influence. Our Supreme Court has said that this is not corruption. But common sense leads to a different conclusion…We need a representative in Congress who hasn’t been bought by corporate interests or by the wealthiest Americans; someone who will tend to the interests of the common folks of Montana and to those who are most vulnerable.”


Evan, a supporter in Butte, voiced his concerns about Gianforte’s wealth in an op-ed published in multiple news outlets:


“Remember, in 2016 he wrote a personal check for nearly $6 million, buying tens of thousands of TV ads to persuade you he was a regular guy who should be governor. Now he’s buying ad after ad to bash his opponent and tell you he’ll go to Washington, D.C., and “drain the swamp” of big-money influence – while he supports tax cuts for the rich…

The average Montana worker would need to work 222 years to equal Gianforte’s one year earnings. Given his immense wealth, whose interests do you think Gianforte will represent back in the D.C. swamp? Yours? Or will he help continue tilting the economic playing field toward people like himself?”    


Jonathan, another supporter, decried a system in which millionaires, not ordinary folks, frequently run for office:


“If you’re someone who is thinking about what is best for Montana, think about this. Values are not something you discover when you decide to run for office. Do you want someone to represent us whose goal in life was to get rich so he could buy himself power? Someone who has lived in a world that is worlds apart from most of us (and I’m not just talking about dinosaurs)?”


In the end, Gianforte pulled out a 20,000 vote victory against Quist and a Libertarian challenger. However, MAYDAY supporters stayed optimistic about the impetus for change in the way that elections are run. 


One supporter, Chris from Missoula, pointed to solutions in his letter to the editor that the newly-elected Gianforte can support. In Congress, Chris wrote, Gianforte can “make fighting big money in politics a priority, support the Government by the People Act (to create a system of small-dollar funding for congressional elections).” The bill, HR 20, would go a long way in weaning campaigns off huge donors and outside interests.


Will Gianforte support the bill? Given the financial factors that helped elect him, it’s unlikely.


Chris realizes, like MAYDAY supporters across the country, that overhauling campaign finance is “a big ask.” “But,” he wrote, “nothing less will begin to address some of the most core problems of our current political situation.”