Dark Money

Shadowy groups funded by out-ofstate special interests are plotting to swing elections for everything from the Legislature to the state Supreme Court. Sound familiar?

It should. But the story behind Kimberly Reed’s new documentary,

does not unfold in New Mexico — though in many ways, it easily could. Instead, it follows the invasion of Montana politics by special interest groups. These factions are out to reshape government with the help of new campaign finance laws that allow corporations to spend virtually unlimited sums on elections, leaving the public in the dark about who is pulling the strings behind their elected officials.

At stake is, well, just about everything: natural resources, schools, and the very future of small states that can be bought off for what amounts to chump change to big industries. For those who are asking whether there is any way of fighting back against the influence of money in local politics, the documentary offers a reassuring, if qualified, answer. Yes. In the course of 99 minutes, Reed does a sound job of moving through a subject that is admittedly not made for Hollywood. The film breezes through Montana’s stunning landscape and the state’s folksy capital city as local Republicans sound the alarm about new groups that are targeting some of their own grassroots candidates with underhanded campaigns. An overworked and at times out-of-work local journalist digs deeper, exposing the real breadth of some of these schemes. Meanwhile, a comically underfunded state regulator, along with a climber of a Democratic attorney general, prove they have the cojones to stand up to special interests in court (to New Mexicans, that last part may seem the most far-fetched).

There is even a bit of a caper, when a political operative’s car is stolen with sensitive documents inside. The files eventually turn up, having been squirreled away in the midst of a drug raid, and, as legend has it, deposited into the hands of a Colorado legislator.

As one lawyer tells Reed, you can’t make this stuff up. But where the film fails is in the details. Oddly, for all the esteemed experts Reed interviewed for this film, no one really explains very clearly what the term “dark money” means, and you may not come away with any clearer an understanding of what super PACs do or what the Supreme Court actually said in its ruling on For that, look to groups featured in the film, like the Campaign Legal Center or the National Institute on Money in State Politics.

But these would not be the most important lessons of the movie, anyway. Instead, offers a glimpse of what the fight against big money in local politics can look like in real life. It takes both Republicans and Democrats, in a time when working across the aisle is not rewarded. It takes a robust free press, in a time when newspapers are cutting back on investigative reporting. It takes regulators who are willing to do something.

Maybe the strength of Reed’s film lies in avoiding the idea that there is one simple solution to the issue, or that one party offers a solution over all others. You may not cry, as you would at the end of a Frank Capra movie. But you may come away with a better understanding of the biggest political fight of our time. After all, you are not just watching a documentary about dark money. As we head into another election season, you are living it, too. — Andrew Oxford