Ron Marshall knew that he was beat. The vape shop owner-turned-state lawmaker had been in plenty of political scrapes over nicotine products during his tenure at the Montana Legislature, but this time was different. 

As chair of the House Human Services Committee in the 2025 session, he’d heard from both Big Nicotine and what the Republican from Hamilton categorically refers to as the “organ lobby” — the heart and lung associations — pushing hard against products that are harmful to users’ health.

But Marshall wasn’t ready for the tidal wave of spending by tobacco companies advocating for House Bill 525, legislation that winnowed the list of vape products sold in Montana, in what was one of the more high-dollar lobbying efforts of that legislative session.

All told, 474 groups spent more than $9.3 million to influence lawmakers as they decided the fates of hundreds of pieces of legislation during the first four months of the year. The data comes from principal spending reports filed with the Montana Commissioner of Political Practices. Total spending was similar for the 2023 legislative session.

Combined, tobacco companies spent $219,151. Spending by Altria, the largest tobacco company in the United States with Philip Morris brands like Marlboro in its portfolio, had more than doubled since the 2023 session. 

“They have this PMTA list of approved products, 26 approved,” said Marshall in a recent interview with Montana Free Press. PMTA is shorthand for Premarket Tobacco Product Application. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s PMTA list consists of new nicotine products that can be sold while the government weighs permanent approval. Big Nicotine is very effective at muscling its products onto the list, Marshall said.

Not quite halfway through the 2025 legislative session, Marshall quit, insisting that his adversaries’ lobbying reach was too great. HB 525, which died in process after Marshall resigned, would have put refillable vapes in the loss column by clearing shelves to make space for Big Nicotine’s PMTA-approved products.

Nicotine, labor issues and the politicization of judicial races and elections were top spending issues for principals attempting to influence the Montana Legislature. The top spenders from 2025 are a mix of in-state stakeholders and nonprofit issue advocacy groups tied to Republican influencers. Occasionally, these groups clashed over the same policy matters. 

The Montana Federation of Public Employees, the state’s largest union of public employees, was the top spender of the session with $179,079 in total expenditures. 

The number of bills MFPE lobbied numbered 262. Their success rate — when a bill’s fate matched the organization’s support or opposition — was about 65%, according to state lobbying reports and the Montana Free Press Capitol Tracker. For perspective, the Montana Chamber of Commerce, which spent $122,000 lobbying on 164 bills including everything from Medicaid expansion (which it supported) to the version of residential and small business property tax relief that lawmakers passed (which it opposed) had a 75% success rate. 

MFPE President Amanda Curtis said in an early July email that union members write and vote to select subjects to lobby, or as Curtis calls it a “member-driven and member-approved” process. The list ranged from support for Medicaid expansion and public lands to increasing pay for public school teachers and opposition to partisan judicial elections.

The Service Employees International Union 775 was third in total spending at $138,045. The bills lobbied by SEIU went the way of its position about half the time.

Sandwiched between the two unions at No. 2 was Montana Citizens for Right to Work, which reported total spending of $139,541, while listing work on just one bill, Senate Bill 376, which would have ended requirements that employees pay union dues as a term of employment in organized businesses.

The right-to-work bill was voted down twice in the same day in February, first in committee and second on the Senate floor, where sponsor Sen. Mark Noland, R-Bigfork, couldn’t persuade 26 lawmakers to blast the bill out of committee for a vote.

Before the bill was heard in the Senate Business, Labor and Economic Affairs Committee, union advocates lined the path from the Capitol’s second-floor rotunda to where the committee was meeting one floor above.

Noland recognized the union backers’ strength in numbers, granting them the majority of the time during the SB 376 hearing. More than 200 people signed up to speak against the bill. The only supporters of the bill were two right-to-work organization reps.

“We’re going to give you a little more time, because there’s more of you. And you know, I’m all about fairness,” Noland said at the hearing’s start. Spending reports for Western States Right to Work, lobbying as Montana Citizens for Right to Work, show they spent more than $100,000 on printing and postage, on-brand for an organization whose national parent, National Right to Work, is known for mail campaigns to pressure lawmakers and voters, including a secretive campaign in Montana’s 2010 Republican primaries.

A voicemail placed to Montana Citizens for Right to Work President Randy Pope wasn’t returned before the publication of this story.

Other single-issue big spenders include Americans for Citizen Voting, a Missouri-based group that’s proposed amending several state constitutions to say that only citizens vote in local elections. Voting is already restricted to citizens in state and federal elections.

ACV was once a nonprofit but the IRS revoked that tax status in 2022, citing several years of not reporting their finances. When it was a nonprofit, the group was funded by Liberty Initiative Fund, which in turn received money from Restoration of America, an organization that has funded the use of discredited techniques for finding voter fraud, according to a 2022 report by ProPublica. Richard Uihlein, a large Republican donor and shipping supplies magnate, is the primary contributor to Restoration’s efforts.    

ACV Director Jack Tomczak traveled to Montana twice to testify for Senate Bill 185, the citizen vote bill sponsored by Sen. Theresa Manzella, R-Hamilton. ACV’s total spending was $111,881. The bill died in the House. Afterward, ACV ran attack ads against Billings Republican Sherry Essmann for voting against the bill. 

Essmann told Montana Free Press in June that Montana already limits voting to citizens, which is why she voted against it. 

A slate of bills to weaken the political firewall between Montana courts, the Legislature and the executive branch drew top spenders. Combined, the American Civil Liberties Union and ACLU of Montana spent nearly $250,0000. The two groups opposed a bill to make Montana judicial races partisan, while also opposing bills that they said violate constitutional rights like freedom of religion. Likewise, the Montana State Bar and Montana Trial Lawyers spent a combined $103,000 opposing bills to change the judiciary. 

Seven of 27 bills to change the judicial system passed. Registered principals supporting the bills were few in number, but Senate Bill 42, which called for partisan judicial races, did draw support from Montana Family Foundation, a Christian policy and advocacy group that mostly steered clear of bills challenging the judiciary. MFF reported spending $78,000 lobbying the Legislature in 2025.