Digitally altered political mailers spur lawsuit over Montana AI law

Two state lawmakers running in Republican primary elections have said that hundreds of mailers sent out depicting them waving a pride flag and wearing a button with pronouns on it violate a Montana law prohibiting the use of artificial intelligence to produce “deepfakes” in campaign materials. 

But a lawsuit filed in federal district court on Wednesday says the mailers are protected under free speech provisions of the First Amendment, and Montana’s law should be struck from the books. 

“Montana legislators are the biggest crybabies in the nation,” said Matthew Monforton, a Bozeman attorney who filed the federal lawsuit on behalf of the political committee Accountability in State Government. “That’s what’s generating these complaints. And their hostility towards any criticism by Montana citizens.”

The federal lawsuit, filed in Helena, names Attorney General Austin Knudsen, Lewis and Clark County Attorney Kevin Downs and Commissioner of Political Practices Chris Gallus as defendants. 

“Some Legislators took offense at images on the mailers that they claim were created using AI or digital technology purportedly regulated by Montana’s new law,” the complaint states. “So far, three legislators have filed campaign complaints under a new Montana statute that patently violates the First Amendment and includes penalties of civil fines and potential prosecution with up to two years in state prison.” 

Former legislator Jennifer Carlson, running for a state House seat outside Bozeman, and Republican Rep. Eric Albus, running for a state Senate seat along the Hi-Line, both filed complaints with the Commissioner of Political Practices over the mailers. 

Paid for by the political committee Accountability in State Government, whose treasurer Dan Bartel is a former Republican lawmaker himself, the mailers depict each candidate with pride flags and buttons and accuses them of pushing a “woke agenda” with taxpayer money. 

The mailers use real photos of the candidates, but digitally altered them to include the flags and buttons, which Carlson and Albus said in complaints to COPP violate a new Montana statute. 

Under the new law, Senate Bill 25, lawmakers criminalized the use of AI to create “deepfakes” — defined as content that “appears to a reasonable person to depict an individual saying or doing something that did not occur in reality; or provides a reasonable person a fundamentally different understanding or impression of the appearance, action, or speech than a reasonable person would have from the unaltered, original version.”

The law applies for 60 days leading up to an election and includes an exception to the law if a disclosure is included, identifying the use of AI in creating media that “depicts speech or conduct that falsely appears to be authentic or truthful.”

“I filed my complaint because the mailer was false and the sender broke the law,” Carlson told the Daily Montanan in a text. “That is why we have a Commissioner of Political Practices. And legislators should uphold the law, (or run for office to try to change it), not try to find a way to get away with breaking it.”

The lawsuit, filed by Monforton on behalf of Bartel and Accountability in State Government, said “this compelled-speech remedy is itself constitutionally infirm, as it forces political speakers to brand their own constitutionally protected communications as false and deceptive as the price of speaking at all.”

In the complaint, Monforton wrote that the law “criminalized protected political speech,” is overly broad and has vague definitions.

“The Act’s true aim is insulating legislators from criticism of their voting records, not protecting Montana voters from deception,” Monforton wrote.

The mailers that spurred the complaints specifically look at votes taken during the 2023 and 2025 Legislature for House Bill 9, an annual bill which funds cultural and aesthetic grants to organizations throughout Montana. 

In 2023, 65 organizations including museums, symphonies, and art galleries received state funding. A similar number received funding in 2025. Three organizations are highlighted on the mailers for pushing the “woke agenda”  through their programming. 

“In Helena, (Carlson/Albus) joined every Democrat in voting to give taxpayer-funded grants to organizations pushing woke nonsense,” the mailer reads. 

But an examination of the voting record for House Bill 9 in 2023 by the Daily Montanan shows the funding bill passed 95-5 in the Republican-controlled House and 37-12 in the Republican-controlled Senate. 

Bartel, who in 2023 was a state senator representing Lewistown, voted in favor of the grant funding. 

“Sen Bartel realizes he made a mistake in voting for HB 9,” Monforton said. “If Rep. Carlson had the same integrity and honesty and acknowledged her mistake, rather than trying to censor her critics, we would all be better off.”

Albus defended his 2025 vote for the bill saying it passes overwhelmingly every session, there is no specific programming attached to the funding, and it benefits groups across the state. 

“In my case, some of it went to the Fort Peck Fine Arts Council, a local Hi-Line group that benefits from the money,” Albus told the Daily Montanan. “I’m a Hi-Liner, how can I vote against that?”

But he added that he voted against all gender ideology bills during the session and has a near-perfect report card from the Montana Family Foundation.

He said it was “rather disingenuous and very, very hypocritical,” for Bartel to weaponize a vote he also made. 

Accountability in State Government sent out another mailer with a different focus targeting Republican Rep. Llew Jones, running for state Senate. The mailer depicted him in front of a digitally altered gas pump and sign pricing fuel at an “arm” and a “leg.” 

A complaint was filed with COPP against this mailer as well. 

Monforton said that the three candidates were targeted because Bartel has “particular concerns” over their voting records.

“They have been on the wrong side of many issues that are important to conservatives in Montana,” Monforton said. 

The federal lawsuit says the Montana statute governing AI use in campaign communications “is not an aberration but rather the latest in a long line of Montana laws struck down by the Ninth Circuit and this Court after being used against citizens who dared to criticize their legislators’ voting records.”

 It also says that exceptions to the law — which includes carveouts for media platforms presenting a “bona fide newscast” or news coverage, or in paid required advertisements — are discriminatory. 

“Institutional media may traffic in deepfakes; independent political speakers may not,” according to the complaint. “That is speaker-based discrimination of the kind the First Amendment condemns.”

The lawsuit seeks a declaration that the Montana statute violates the First Amendment’s protections for speech and the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections for due process, as well as costs and expenses for the plaintiffs. 

“I find it to be rich in irony, after working in the Legislature to rein in activist judges legislating from the bench, that my Republican adversaries are looking for a judge to overturn a law they don’t like because they may be in big trouble for violating it,” Carlson said. 

“I can take the heat but I also think we are a nation, and a state, of laws. The mailer Bartel sent out was illegal, according to a law passed by the legislature last session,” she continued. “The law doesn’t even say they can’t lie about me or digitally alter my photo.  It requires them to disclose that they did and they didn’t.  Digitally manipulating someone’s photo to make something false seem true is a form of identity theft. My reputation is my possession and I will defend it. Character assassination is wrong and if you want to know why most people don’t get involved  — just look at these guys. Fighting for their right to lie.”