right after the crazy alert i don't hate that time got to break up the show a little bit ok montana state supreme court just tell upheld a law that right has back in the era of the copper kings and in that ruling they wrote this is a quote from the montana state supreme court ruling sure you're familiar with it they wrote anaconda company controlled ninety percent of the press in the state and a majority the legislature one thousand nine hundred fifteen the company clearly dominated the montana commie and political order and local folks now found themselves locked in the grip of a corporation controlled from walls. and insensitive to their concerns even at that time it was evident that industrial corporations controlled the state those converting the state government into a political instrument for the furthering accomplishment of legislation and execution of laws favorable to the absentees stockholders of the large corporations and inimical bowl inimical second in the river so they were to the economic interests of the wage earning and farming classes of cars two by far the large population of populat

for a constitutional amendment there to overturn citizens united and just last week the montana state supreme courtpheld a 99-year-old law banning corporations from donating to political campaigns in that state. that's a big deal, as the expected appeal of that ruling, putting money in montana politics may become the vehicle that people are looking for to take this issue back to the supreme court because does the state have the right to override the supreme court? well, that will become the debate. that is lawsuit. we may be heading back to the big court. john bonifaz leading on the battle to get money out. joins us on the hotline to share in the exciting developments. let's start a celebratory if you could. got to love new york stepping up aside l.a. and monitoring the municipal engagement imperative in the short term for people to be heard. >> absolutely, dylan. great to be with you. a great victory for democracy today to have the new york city council pass this resolution, and it shows that this movement is only going to continue to build as people across the nation stand up to protect our publi

place in united states are the state and local levels which is what the nine hundred twelve corrupt practices law in montana specifically addressed but after the supreme court's ruling of citizens united conservatives in montana got a little cocky groups within the state took aim at that law claiming that it violated their first amendment rights but luckily for montana their supreme court disagreed they argued the supreme court ruled in favor of citizens united only because the d.o.j. failed to make the case the government had a compelling interest in the meeting speech but they being the montana supreme court ruled the while the d.o.j. could not make their case the state of montana could stay argued they had a compelling interest in limiting direct corporate political expenditures for four reasons one a small population to low costs of elections in the state three large out of state interest in the state like mining companies and lastly judicial independence now the court also ruled that corporations which bought the suit such as the american tradition partnership quote act as conduits for anonymous spending by others and represent a threat to the political

supreme court and ruled the citizens united only applies to federal elections and those montana can do whatever it wants and state elections and put whatever restrictions they want on corporate electioneering so the montana supreme court kept intact a one hundred year old election law that prevents direct spending by corporations in state elections the judges argued that corporate election spending quote represents a threat to the political marketplace and quote so what does this latest victory in the fight against corporate personhood mean could this be a stepping stone to overturning citizens united all together david cobb joins me now from california he's a spokesperson for move to amend and national projects director of democracy unlimited david welcome back. thank you so much tom it's a pleasure to be back on great to have you with us how can a state supreme court overrule the u.s. supreme court or do they not. in a nutshell this state supreme court can't overrule the u.s. supreme court however what we're seeing is that developing crisis of jurisdiction the citizens united versus federal election case was so

only one state, montana, defended its own law. and now the montana supreme court has agreed. guarantees a big showdown. but the the united states supreme court recognizes the succession, it would lessen the terrible impact of citizens united. i'm joined by montana attorney general steve bullock who led the fight to defend montana's law. steve, thanks for being with us tonight. this is something that's really going to catch the attention of the american people because of so much money that is just pouring into these campaigns. if and when this case goes up to the supreme court. is there any chance they would strike it down. >> i think there is. at the end of the day, the citizens united dealt with a different system. the federal elections and federal laws. the vast majority of elections are at the state and local level. and there's real differences there. and that's what we pushed, and that's -- you know, i think the court would recognize that. >> the state's rights crowd like to talk about the importance of the 50 rights in the country. your state has a story to tell about wh

rights so of course you should be an activist judge and try to overturn what the state supreme court decided in montanar in other states so it's not a bad way to approach it at the local level but remember that doesn't stop federal politicians from being bought at all so that you can still buy the senators and montana you still buy the congressman in montana you just can't buy the state officials. well so that's something that i wonder you know when the first amendment was even proposed by six democratic senators back in november for citizens united to be overturned i got a chance to speak with anna about it and her take was that she was still pretty skeptical because what is actually would do if we went by this amendment here is it would put the power into the hands of congress and she said well i don't know because is congress actually going to go and bite the hand that feeds that which is of course the corporations what's your take well you know we sort of will go into action committee wolf and then members we want to pass publicly finances all watch not only those who killed corporate personhood is

resolution calling on congress to send the people's rights amendment to the states for ratification we've got montana supreme court pushing back saying well in montana anyway we're going to regulate corporate money in our elections and that will probably make its way to the supreme court so we just have all of these different places where americans are coming together to say enough we are this is breaking our country it's breaking our democracy we the people means we the people and we need to get back to that article three of the constitution defines the court the judiciary and section two of article. as the the supreme court itself that specific court the high court will operate within. the use of the word regulation of congress or within basically within rules defined by congress for the exact wording wouldn't be possible and the last president to really seriously take the seriously as franklin roosevelt. would have been possible instead for congress to pass a law saying that the supreme court does not have the power to say that corporations are persons well you know that even more politically impractical in my

state like vermont to do it. but coming out of montana, it's huge. think about it. you have a state supreme courta very e recent supreme court decision. they are not overturning something that occurring 15 or 20 years ago when we lived in a different mind set or cultural era. this was two years ago. they are already saying, forget it. we have every right to regulate money and politics in this country. >> and joining us now is jimmy williams, susan del percio, and david. very nice to have you here. susan, you're probably the most skeptical of this entire undertaking, which is why i will come to you first. i learn more when i talk to you about this. if they don't support the resolutions, there you protest against them? or only vote for candidates that support this resolution. i just wonder until you force people really into doing something more than signing up, i think you're not going to have any real traction on the issue at hand, which is that constitutional amendment. >> and jimmy, you spend a lot of your career transitioning sentiment or desire, whether it was as a citizen working for your com

montana avenue. >> this is not big brother. this is living in america. >> shoppers say that supreme court made the right call. >> that is starting to move into as being a police state. >> metropolitan police department did not have much to say about this other than to say they will comply. several national law enforcement agency says this will limit what they can do to catch the bad guys. >> thank you for that. also, police are releasing the identity of a woman who was struck and killed by a maintenance man. burnett butler was hit this morning. he was walking behind that a van attempting to cross the parking lot. a tsa controversy involving a u.s. senator detained at the national airport after refusing to let security pat him down. >> when i did step out of the cubicle i was surrounded and put back in the cubicle. it seems like there was being detained. >> senator rand paul of kentucky, the son of ron paul said his legs out of the scanner. he asked to be re-scanned and the refused and requested a pat down. he refused and he was led away and released. he believes he was the target of a random screamingscreening. this led to dozens of responses on our facebook page.

the montana supreme court as a new year's gift to the nation decided they would uphold the ban on century's old ban on corporate spending in statet a lot of time talking about citizens united. >> i was talking with a political scientist who studies -- she was talking about the corruption in montana at the turn of the century around senatorial elections going into capitol hill. it was a state legislature and handing out bags of cash. it was a well-known thing. this was how it functioned. a long history to that. >> and a conservative one in the sense that teddy roosevelt was one of the fathers of banning contributions. >> i was in center county yesterday in pennsylvania. the senator of the keystone state who delivers the messages for washington, of two million jobs that have been created in the last 12 months. almost all of them were created by small business. what i noticed the other day is that the small business administration was raised to a cabinet level by the president to propose. i also noticed as we talked here shall the government accounting office did a study that said the vast -- the majority of all of the set asides f