June 26, 2012 3:55PM # The Message from Montana By [Caleb O. Brown](https://www.cato.org/people/caleb-o-brown) --- SHARE The Supreme Court issued a [summary opinion](http://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/062512d4f1zor.pdf) overturning Montana’s restrictions on corporate spending on electoral speech. The court did so 5–4 along the lines you might expect. As [John Samples](https://www.cato.org/people/john-samples) points out in [this short video](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhmBPGaDQUQ), the court’s opinion in *Citizens United* that “political speech does not lose First Amendment protection simply because its source is a corporation” is not as settled as fans of freewheeling political communication might hope. To overturn *Citizens United*, lawmakers might pursue a Constitutional amendment that would allow Congress to prohibit funding of electoral speech. But as Samples notes, a number of proposed amendments go far beyond banning *corporate* political speech and simply outlaw all private spending to influence elections. One should presume that such a ban could include Sharpies and posterboard for your standard-issue homemade political sign or [the purchase of certain Shepard Fairey prints](http://www.obeygiant.com/headlines/obama). ##### Related Tags [Government and Politics](https://www.cato.org/government-politics), [Constitutional Law](https://www.cato.org/constitutional-law), [Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies](https://www.cato.org/robert-levy-center-constitutional-studies) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).