As Rehberg defends Citizens United secrecy, special interests return the favor

Kochs’ Americans for Prosperity launches out-of-state bailout of Congressman

BILLINGS, Mont. – Days after Congressman Dennis Rehberg defended the U.S. Supreme Court’s unpopular Citizens United decision, the rightwing special interest organization Americans for Prosperity is returning the favor.

Americans for Prosperity, a secretive organization founded by Big Oil billionaires Charles and David Koch, today launched a new TV attack ad in Montana. HERE is a fact-check of the new ad.

Like most Montanans, farmer Jon Tester is an outspoken critic of the Citizens United decision. It allows unlimited, secret spending in political elections. Since the decision, secretive out-of-state organizations have spent nearly $3 million on Rehberg’s behalf.

During their first debate in Big Sky Saturday, Rehberg defended secretive corporate campaign spending.

“When it comes to federal government and money coming in and out of the state, Citizens United was the right decision on the part of the Supreme Court,” Rehberg said.

“Newsflash,” Tester responded, “Corporations are not people.”

Tester has long said that the Citizens United decision undermines American elections.

The organization Citizens United endorsed Rehberg last fall.

“The Citizens United case absolutely puts our democracy at risk,” Tester said during the debate. “The amount of secret money that’s coming into this campaign alone, whether it’s from corporation on shore, or off shore, which by the way is patently illegal, we don’t know because there’s no transparency whatsoever, it just absolutely corrupts the whole process of the elections.”

“Congressman Rehberg has a long history of protecting tax breaks for millionaires, billionaires and corporations that ship jobs overseas—so it’s no surprise that they’re returning the favor by dumping a lot of secret cash into Montana to try and buy votes for him,” said Montanans for Tester spokesman Aaron Murphy.

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