The misconception that the Supreme Court case enabled independent campaign supporters to indulge in political expenditures is pervasive and probably un-correctable.
Facts matter, Montana Attorney General Steven Bullock argues to the Supreme Court in ATM v. Bullock, defending a state court decision upholding Montana's ban on independent corporate expenditures, which defies Citizens United. The plaintiffs/petitioners in ATM argue that Montana's high court acted in "blatant disregard" of its duty to follow Supreme Court rulings on constitutional rights, Bullock notes. But "that can only be true if facts are irrelevant." The fact is that Montana's law is effectively consistent with Citizens United, he argues: As a practical, factual matter, it operates to impose disclosure requirements that Citizen United upheld; and unlike the abstruse, federal regulatory scheme at issue in Citizens United, Montana law is "minimally burdensome" and enforced through civil rather than criminal sanctions.
It seems unlikely that the Supreme Court will be persuaded by this effort to distinguish Montana's ban on corporate speech from the federal ban struck down only two years ago. (Justices Ginsburg and Breyer, who dissented in Citizens United, joined in issuing a stay of the Montana court ruling, noting that state courts are bound by Supreme Court decisions.) The Court's Citizens United majority seems equally unlikely to reconsider, narrow its ruling, and limit the First Amendment rights of corporations to engage in political speech, although Breyer and Ginsburg have urged them to do so, citing the "huge sums currently deployed to buy candidates' allegiance."