A federal judge in Billings heard arguments Friday over a Montana law restricting the use of artificial intelligence in political advertising, in what amounts to the first significant legal challenge to the 2025 statute. U.S. District Judge Susan Waters presided over the hearing and indicated she expects to issue a ruling by early September.
The Law and the Lawsuit
Montana’s legislature passed Senate Bill 25 in 2025, barring the distribution of AI-generated content designed to deceive voters within 60 days of an election. The law also requires any political communication that uses AI-generated deepfake content to carry a clear disclosure.
The challenge comes from former state Sen. Dan Bartel and his organization, Accountability In State Government. Bartel’s legal team argues the law runs afoul of First Amendment free speech protections and basic due process guarantees. His attorney, Adam Schulman, contends the state has overstepped its authority by positioning government as the arbiter of what political speech is permissible.
“The problem is when a state comes in and views that its mission to arbitrate the truth and, for the sake of free and fair elections, we need to limit the amount of speech,” Schulman told KTVQ. He added that competitive elections have always involved blunt and sometimes uncomfortable expression, arguing that such rough edges are a feature of democratic participation rather than a problem to be regulated away.
The Mailers at Issue
The dispute centers on campaign mailers Bartel sent depicting three political candidates holding pride flags and wearing pronoun buttons. Three of the candidates shown in the materials filed complaints against Bartel with the Montana Commissioner of Political Practices.
Bartel’s legal team insists the images do not qualify as deepfakes under any reasonable definition and that he violated nothing in the statute. Commissioner Chris Gallus appears to agree with that position, having indicated he plans to dismiss the complaints and classify the mailers as political satire rather than deceptive AI-generated content. Gallus determined that satire of this nature falls outside the disclosure requirement the law establishes.
Despite the pending federal ruling, Bartel has signaled he intends to keep sending AI-generated campaign mailers, underscoring that the outcome of Judge Waters’s decision will have immediate practical consequences.
What the Court Must Weigh
The case puts two competing values in direct tension: the state’s interest in protecting voters from manipulative synthetic media close to an election, and the longstanding constitutional principle that political speech — including satire and exaggeration — receives robust First Amendment protection.
Schulman’s core argument is that SB 25 effectively hands government officials the power to police the line between protected political commentary and impermissible deception, a line that courts have historically been reluctant to let legislatures draw in the domain of electoral speech.
The Commissioner’s decision to treat the Bartel mailers as satire rather than illegal deepfakes suggests at least some state officials see practical limits in the law’s reach, even before the court weighs in.
What Comes Next
Judge Waters’s ruling, expected in the weeks before Montana’s November 3 general election, could shape how the law is enforced heading into the final stretch of the 2026 campaign cycle. A ruling striking down or enjoining any part of SB 25 would likely reopen the broader legislative debate about how Montana regulates emerging technology in political advertising when lawmakers return for the 2027 session.
The outcome will be closely watched by campaigns, political organizations, and state officials alike, as Montana joins a growing list of states where AI-generated political content has moved from a hypothetical concern into active litigation.
