text: Twenty-two states and the District of Columbia are backing Montana in its fight to prevent the U.S. Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United decision from being used to strike down state laws restricting corporate campaign spending. 
   
   The states led by New York are asking the high court to preserve Montana's state-level regulations on corporate political expenditures, according to a copy of a brief written by New York's attorney general's office and obtained by The Associated Press. The brief will be publicly released Monday. 
   
   The Supreme Court is being asked to reverse a state court's decision to uphold the Montana law. Virginia-based American Tradition Partnership is asking the nation's high court to rule without a hearing because the group says the state law conflicts directly with the Citizens United decision that removed the federal ban on corporate campaign spending. 
   
   The Supreme Court has blocked the Montana law until it can look at the case. 
   
   The Montana case has prompted critics to hope the court will reverse itself on the controversial Citizens United ruling. The 22 states and D.C. say the Montana law is sharply different from the federal issues in the Citizens United case, so the ruling shouldn't apply to Montana's or other state laws regulating corporate campaign spending. 
   
   But the states also said they would support a Supreme Court decision to reconsider portions of the Citizens United ruling either in a future case or in the Montana case, if the justices decide to take it on. 
   
   Legal observers say don't count on the Supreme Court reconsidering its decision. 
   
   "It is highly unlikely that the Court would reverse its decision in Citizens United," said law professor Richard L. Hasen of the University of California-Irvine. 
   
   At best, the court would listen to arguments and might agree a clarification is needed to allow the Montana law to stand. But even that is a long shot, Hasen said. 
   
   Montana Attorney General Steve Bullock argues that political corruption in the Copper King era led to the state ban on corporate campaign spending. A clarification of Citizens United is needed to make clear that states can block certain political spending in the interest of limiting corruption, he said. 
   
   American Tradition Partnership argues that the state bans unfairly restrict the ability of corporations to engage in the political process that also affects them. 
   
   Bullock wrote in a brief to be released Monday that the state does not "ban" corporate political speech, rather, it regulates that speech by requiring the formation of political action committees. 
   
   The Democrat, who is running for governor, said the upstart political corporations hoping to take advantage of unfettered spending are merely "an anonymous conduit of unaccountable campaign spending." 
   
   Montana and the other states are asking the court to either let the Montana Supreme Court decision stand or to hold a full hearing. They argue laws like the one in Montana that bans political spending straight from corporate treasuries are needed to prevent corruption. 
   
   The other states, many with their own type of restrictions hanging in the balance, argue local restrictions are far different than the federal ban the court decided unconstitutionally restricted free speech. Further, state elections are at much greater risk than federal elections of being dominated by corporate money, requiring tailored regulation, the states' court filing says. 
   
   "The federal law struck down in Citizens United applied only to elections for President and U.S. Congress," New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman wrote on behalf of the states. "By contrast, Montana's law applies to a wide range of state and local offices, including judgeships and law enforcement positions such as sheriff and county prosecutor." 
   
   The joining states, unlike Montana, ask the court to go further and reconsider core findings in Citizens United. They argue, for instance, it was wrong for the court to say unlimited independent expenditures rarely cause corruption or the appearance of corruption. 
   
   And other critics of the Citizens United decision who believe the court was wrong to grant corporations constitutional rights, have intervened and asked the court to reverse itself. 
   
   "There is a growing bipartisan consensus that Citizens United needs to be overturned, and Montana is leading the way," said Peter Schurman, spokesman for a group called Free Speech For People. "The Supreme Court has an opportunity to revisit Citizens United here. That is important because there is evidence everywhere that unlimited spending in our elections creates both corruption and the appearance for corruption." 
   
   On Friday, Montana's case was given a boost when U.S. Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., signed on in support. The senators argue evidence following the Citizens United decision, where millions in unregulated money has poured into presidential elections, shows that large independent expenditures can lead to corruption. 
   
   The states who filed the brief in support of Montana are New York, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia and the District of Columbia. 
   
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   Associated Press writer Mark Sherman in Washington contributed to this report. ||||| Nearly half of US states have thrown their weight behind a legal defence of local laws restricting corporate money in politics by asking the supreme court to revisit its widely-criticised ban on similar national legislation. 
   
   The states filed a brief with the supreme court on Monday in support of a century-old law in Montana – the Corrupt Practices Act – against companies pumping money into elections. 
   
   The law was struck down by a Montana court following the US supreme court ruling two years ago in the Citizens United case, which lifted most restrictions on corporations spending money on political advertising. However, the Montana supreme court has since upheld the state law, putting it in conflict with the Citizens United ruling. 
   
   If the supreme court agrees to take up the case, it is not likely to overturn Citizens United, but it could hand down a decision that would give state legislatures greater leeway in limiting corporate money in politics. 
   
   The states argue that corporate money can have an even more corroding effect at a local level than on national politics. 
   
   The Montana supreme court ruled that the ban was justified because of a history in the state of powerful corporate interests, copper mining companies, distorting politics with money. The ban was passed by a referendum in 1912. 
   
   That position has been challenged by a conservative interest group, American Tradition Partnership, which has asked the US supreme court to overturn the Montana ruling. The court blocked its implementation in February and is now considering whether to hear arguments in the case or simply issue a ruling reversing the Montana judgement. 
   
   In a submission to the supreme court on Monday, attorneys general from 22 states and Washington, DC representing both major parties called for the Montana law to be upheld. 
   
   "The Montana law at issue here, like many other state laws regulating corporate campaign expenditures in state and local elections, is sharply different from the federal law struck down in Citizens United, and the Court need not revise its ruling in Citizens United in order to sustain the challenged Montana law," wrote New York's attorney-general, Eric Schneiderman, in the brief. 
   
   The challenge over the Montana action has been backed by Senator John McCain, who authored the campaign finance law struck down by the US supreme court in Citizens United. In that ruling, Justice Anthony Kennedy's majority opinion said that money does not "give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption". 
   
   In his brief in the Montana case, McCain argued that there is already evidence since the Citizens United ruling that large sums of money thrown into the political process is having a corrupting effect. 
   
   "A problem does exist. Evidence from the 2010 and 2012 electoral cycles has demonstrated that so-called independent expenditures create a strong potential for corruption and the perception thereof. The news confirms, daily, that existing campaign finance rules purporting to provide for 'independence' and 'disclosure' in fact provide neither. 
   
   "Regulatory filings show that much of the funding for independent expenditures comes from shell companies, pass-through entities, and non-profit organizations that conceal the true source of the individuals and companies supporting them," said McCain's brief. 
   
   But ATP said in its petition to the supreme court said there is no evidence Citizens United has corrupted the political process and that Montana's history of past abuses has no bearing on the law today. 
   
   "Citizens United has not proven unworkable, as evidenced by those who have exercised their liberty under it. Lower courts, except for the decision below, have uniformly followed this court's holding, and legislatures and government agencies, with few exceptions, have implemented the protections of Citizens United," it said. 
   
   "Is this court going to limit the right of speakers to engage in core political speech because they spend huge sums in doing so? Or because the state they happen to be in had corruption problems, or a corporation employed a lot of people, over a century ago? Or because the same corporation owned a lot of newspapers in the state in the 1950s? Or because the state they happen to be in has few people, a tradition of low-cost elections, or considerable candidate-voter contact?" 
   
   Two of the supreme court justices, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer, have welcomed the opportunity to revisit the Citizens United case. 
   
   "Montana's experience, and experience elsewhere since this court's decision in Citizens United … make it exceedingly difficult to maintain that independent expenditures by corporations 'do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption,'" Ginsburg wrote. 
   
   She added that a further supreme court hearing "will give the court an opportunity to consider whether, in light of the huge sums currently deployed to buy candidates' allegiance, Citizens United should continue to hold sway".
target: – Montana's attorney general is fighting to preserve his state's ability to curb corporate political spending, and almost half of America's states are backing him. Some 22 states and the District of Columbia have filed a brief urging the Supreme Court not to use its Citizens United decision to strike down Montana's law limiting corporate money in politics, reports the Guardian. Montana's century-old Corrupt Practices Act, which was introduced to curb the power of copper barons, has been upheld by the state's highest court, putting it in conflict with Citizens United. The states, led by New York, argue that laws like Montana's are needed to prevent corruption at the state level. They say the court should reconsider some of its findings in the Citizens United case, arguing that the court was wrong when it claimed that unlimited independent political spending does not "give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption," AP reports. Experts say that while it is highly unlikely that the court will reconsider Citizens United, it may clarify the ruling to allow Montana's law to stand—or simply issue a ruling reversing Montana's decision to uphold its law.