First major court setback for American Tradition Partnership

A state judge last week ruled against a conservative political group opposed to many state election laws after the group refused to produce court-ordered documents.

Up until now, the “social welfare nonprofit” organization American Tradition Partnership, formerly known as Western Tradition Partnership, has been quite successful in its effort to de-regulate Montana’s campaign finance regulations.

Founded in May 2009 by former Republican U.S. Representative for Montana Ron Marlenee and former Republican state legislator John Sinrud, ATP claims to be a “grassroots organization” that promotes responsible natural resource development, private property rights and multiple use of public lands.

ATP’s biggest victory came on Oct. 18, 2010, when Lewis and Clark County District Court Judge Jeffrey Sherlock agreed with ATP that, in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling earlier that year, Montana’s 1912 Corrupt Practices Act was unconstitutional. That ruling opened up Montana elections to unlimited contributions by corporations so long as the money did not go directly to candidates or was coordinated with candidates’ campaigns.

Sherlock’s Dec. 11 ruling against ATP, however, on top of allegations presented in an Oct. 30 PBS Frontline documentary about coordination between ATP and Montana candidates, mark the first major setbacks for the secretive political group.

ATP’s lawsuit grew out of a Montana Commissioner of Political Practices ruling two years ago saying that ATP is a “political committee” and therefore must report its donors and spending. ATP responded by suing the state to block the ruling.

ATP’s lawsuit was scheduled to go to trial in March 2013 but, as Sherlock said in his ruling, ATP had engaged in “long-standing and pervasive” abuse of the pre-trial discovery process by refusing to turn over court-ordered information on the group’s structure, finances and members. ATP did not respond to Sherlock’s orders to produce the information until Nov. 1, and even then it did not answer all the questions.

“This is an unusual case,” Sherlock said. “Never in (my) 24 years on the bench has ... a litigant flatly refused to comply with two discovery orders.”

Sherlock agreed with the state’s request to dismiss much of ATP’s lawsuit, but he gave the political group 10 more days to comply. If ATP fails to produce the required documents, he said, he’ll rule ATP is a “political committee” and must comply with state election laws and pay penalties for not complying earlier.

In a public statement on Dec. 11, ATP executive director Donald Ferguson said his group was “disappointed that we are being sanctioned for properly asserting our donors and our organization’s first amendment right to have our information protected from government and public disclosure during the pendency of our lawsuit to vindicate our constitutional rights to engage in free speech and association from interference by the state of Montana and its officials.”

Ferguson went on to say that the law was on ATP’s side.

“Extensive constitutional case law makes clear that we are not required to turn over our donors’ names and our financial information until such time as it is actually established by a court of law that we can constitutionally be regulated by the state of Montana,” he said. “That legal determination is still pending.”

Ferguson noted that ATP was in a no-win situation — it could lose its case without even going to trial by handing over all the information it seeks to protect, or it could object to disclosure and producing the documents and end up being sanctioned for doing so.

He also claimed ATP had produced enough documentation to “to determine whether the state of Montana even has jurisdiction over our speech and association activities.” Nonetheless, he said, ATP will honor Sherlock’s ruling.

Montana Attorney General Steve Bullock, who won this year’s gubernatorial race and has been a target of ATP’s “Montana Statesmen” newspaper, has defended the state’s election laws against three ATP lawsuits since 2010. He called Sherlock’s ruling “the beginning of the end of ATP’s lawless activities in the state of Montana.”

ATP has shown “disdain for the entire (legal) process that we have, and that it’s time for the group to comply with state law and report its political spending,” Bullock said. “At this point, they will have to disclose and be transparent.”