How Unidentifiable Donors are Funding Montana's Anti-Dark Money Initiative

The Montana-based group promoting a ballot initiative to make campaign finance more transparent obscures its own financial backers through a murky fundraising structure, according to publicly available campaign finance filings reviewed by Montana Free Press.

The Transparent Election Initiative is a nonprofit organization pushing to “stop corporate and dark money cold” in elections. The group is currently aiming to pass a citizen’s initiative — known as The Montana Plan, or I-194 — that would prohibit political spending by “artificial persons” such as nonprofits, corporations, trusts, trade ass...