Ban foreign spending.

To those in other states, in other legislatures, it may have seemed impossible. But in 2015, Democrats and Republicans in Montana came together to past the DISCLOSE Act — one of the most transparent campaign finance laws in the nation. The Act requires that any group intending to spend money to influence an election within 90 days of a state election day disclose how they are spending money, and the source of it.

In other words, dark money groups can’t hide behind their tax status any longer in Montana. Since the act was passed, many of them folded up their tent and left our state altogether.

We’ve made real strides in Montana towards ensuring that our elections are truly for the people, by the people. But we still have one glaring omission: Montana law doesn’t actually make it illegal for foreign corporations or foreign nationals to spend money to influence our elections.

Today, that begins to change.

Many are familiar with the disastrous Citizens United decision, but too many have never heard of the huge loophole it created for foreign governments and foreign corporations to influence American elections.

By allowing corporations to make direct contributions to PACs, Citizens United made it legal for a foreign national to simply set up an American LLC and, all of a sudden, have an “American” corporation that can spend money to influence our elections. You can literally do it online in ten minutes and for $140.

Just this week, it was revealed that this loophole was used when an American super PAC solicited over $1 million dollars from a Chinese-owned corporation. The risk of foreign governments and corporations using this loophole to influence our elections isn’t just speculative, it’s real and it’s happening.

That’s why I’m proposing to expressly outlaw foreign spending in Montana elections. We’ll close the Citizens United loophole by defining corporations, governments, and nationals as “foreign influenced” if their true owners can’t spend in our elections, and are using domestic shell corporations to evade the law.

Our democratic elections are one of our country’s great equalizers — but only if they are truly elections, not auctions that are sold to the highest bidder. Montanans and Americans must be able to trust that their government works for them, not dark money interests or foreign countries.