Bills Barring Foreign Money From Ballot Campaigns Pick Up Steam

Riding high on their party’s 2024 election wins, Republican lawmakers in several states are making a concerted effort to keep foreign money out of ballot initiative campaigns.

On Monday, the Missouri Senate Local Government, Elections and Pensions Committee advanced legislation (SB 152) designed to restrict noncitizens’ ability to affect the outcome of ballot measures considered by voters. Specifically, the bill includes provisions prohibiting foreign nationals from “directly or indirectly” giving monies to such causes with the intent to “influence a ballot measure.”

SB 152 will now head to the full Missouri Senate for consideration.

While federal law bans the acceptance and use of foreign money in candidate elections, such safeguards are not in place in many states when it comes to ballot initiative campaigns.

This issue rose to prominence during recent elections in Ohio, where the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a left-wing dark money group, poured millions of dollars into Democrat-aligned organizations involved in statewide ballot campaigns. As noted in a 2024 Americans for Public Trust report, the Sixteen Thirty Fund has received “hundreds of millions of dollars” from the Berger Action Fund, a 501(c)(4) organization bankrolled by left-wing Swiss national Hansjörg Wyss.

According to a local ABC affiliate, the Sixteen Thirty Fund dumped more than $11 million into the pockets of left-wing groups backing a 2023 Ohio pro-abortion ballot initiative and aiming to defeat a ballot measure that sought to raise the threshold to amend the Ohio Constitution. The Sixteen Thirty Fund’s influence was also notable in Ohio’s 2024 elections, in which the organization gave $6 million to the group behind a Democrat-backed redistricting amendment on the same day Gov. Mike DeWine announced a special legislative session to pass legislation prohibiting foreign money in ballot campaigns.

DeWine ultimately signed such a bill into law, which was later upheld by a federal appellate court following a legal challenge brought by left-wing activists.

But Missouri is hardly the only state where Republicans are following in Ohio’s footsteps to close loopholes exploited by foreign actors who are seeking to interfere in U.S. elections.

On Wednesday, a Kansas Senate committee is slated to consider a bill (HB 2106) that would bar contributions made by noncitizens in state constitutional amendment campaigns. The measure previously passed the House earlier this month with broad support (94-25).

In Indiana, House lawmakers overwhelmingly passed (92-4) a bill (HB 1467) last week that aims to prohibit the use and acceptance of foreign money in elections concerning a “public question.” The measure will now be considered by the GOP-controlled Senate.

[RELATED: Can These Republican Bills Thwart Democrats’ Weaponization Of Ballot Initiatives Before It’s Too Late?]

Republicans in Kentucky, Mississippi, Tennessee, Utah, and Wyoming have introduced and advanced similar legislation in recent weeks. A constitutional amendment proposal specifying that only “qualified [state] voters” may contribute to ballot initiative campaigns has also been introduced in Oregon, although passage of the measure seems unlikely given Democrats’ control of the legislature.

For more election news and updates, visit electionbriefing.com.