By: Dianne Post
Date: April 16th 2026 | Substack
Tom Moore, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, released a white paper on September 15, 2025 that said, “The states’ authority is absolute in terms of how they define their corporations and which powers they decide to give their corporations.” This is “basic foundational corporation law,” …
The Montana Commissioner of Political Practices Jeff Mangan jumped on it. 74% of Montana voters from all parties and 80% of all Americans support the initiative to restrict the power of corporations to donate money to elections that Mangan started called The Montana Plan. The Plan would apply to both instate and out of state corporations. Contrary to the hysterics in the media and our political parties, Americans are not that divided in many things.
Montana had a law since 1912 that banned corporate spending in state elections. In 2012, the Supreme Cult struck it down. States are often the Petrie dish for democratic invention as Montana is doing here.
The law has been clear since 1820 that states grant corporations their powers and may alter or revoke them at any time. Out-of-state corporations may have no different powers than an in-state corporation. Such a change as this petition would apply to existing and future corporations.
On October 30, 2025, the Montana Attorney General rejected the ballot initiative claiming it did not meet legal review standards and it would be expensive – one half time employee. He was most concerned that it would be “of significant material harm to business interests.” Oh, is that who the AG represents? Silly me, I thought it was the people.
The Transparent Election Initiative run by Mangan knew the attorney general would oppose the proposed ballot measure that would change the constitution to prohibit corporations from spending money or anything of value on elections or ballot issues. In April of 2026, the Montana Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Transparency Election Initiative and will allow it on the ballot.
Purportedly Oregon, Colorado, New Hampshire, and Minnesota are studying similar measures to limit corporate influence and reduce dark money in politics. Yet here in AZ the Democratic Party rejected a modest “People’s Primary” proposal for a pilot project to check out a new system to ensure that people here in AZ actually chose our candidates.
An early manifestation of this approach started in 1998. A coalition of environmental and human-rights groups petitioned California Atty. Gen. to revoke the corporate charter of Union Oil Co. of California and seize the oil giant’s assets because of alleged violations of state and international law going back 30 years. It was the first and far as I know the last time this has been done. The strategy is outlined in a book called “Challenging Corporate Rule: A petition to revoke UNOCAL’s Charter as a guide to citizen action” by Robert Benson the attorney, professor, and NLG member who brought it. The Attorney General refused to take up the petition, but it garnered publicity about the practices of UNOCAL who found themselves defending their actions in a number of venues. Sometimes attorneys bring cases we know we will lose but the point is the publicity it will bring and the resulting pressure for change that can be leveraged.
If I knew about this quote of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s from a 1932 speech to the Democratic National Convention, I forgot it. Heather Cox Richardson had it in one of her columns recently. “Let us now and here highly resolve to resume the country’s interrupted march along the path of real progress, of real justice, of real equality for all of our citizens, great and small. Out of every crisis, every tribulation, every disaster, mankind rises with some share of greater knowledge, of higher decency, of purer purpose. Today we shall have come through a period of loose thinking, descending morals, an era of selfishness, among individual men and women and among Nations…. Let us be frank in acknowledgment of the truth that many amongst us have made obeisance to Mammon, that the profits of speculation, the easy road without toil, have lured us from the old barricades. To return to higher standards we must abandon the false prophets and seek new leaders of our own choosing. … I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American people. Let us all here assembled constitute ourselves prophets of a new order of competence and of courage. This is more than a political campaign; it is a call to arms. Give me your help, not to win votes alone, but to win in this crusade to restore America to its own people.”
We have been interrupted. We need to return America to its people like Hungary just did. We have seen over and over again that believing in or relying on one person is the path to disaster. We each have to be that person to not worship money, not be lazy, but to be competent and have courage to take us into a New “New Deal.”
