Single Moms, Inc. v. Montana Power Co.

The plaintiffs, a group of single Montana mothers, appeal from the district court’s dismissal of their 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claims against the defendant Montana Power Company (MPC), an electric and natural gas utility company. The plaintiffs claim that MPC violated their constitutional rights when MPC hired lobbyists to influence the Montana legislature to enact legislation to deregulate the Montana energy markets. Because MPC’s lobbying efforts were not “state action” implicating the single mothers’ constitutional rights, and because we reject the plaintiffs’ other claims, we affirm the district court’s dismissal.

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In the mid-1990s, defendant MPC paid about $70,000 to professional lobbyists in exchange for the lobbyists’ efforts to influence the Montana legislature to deregulate Montana’s energy markets. MPC’s lobbyists spent about $6,000 entertaining Montana legislators, and MPC’s “political action committee” contributed about $17,000 to legislators’ campaign funds.

In 1997, the Montana legislature enacted the Electric Utility Industry Restructuring and Customer Choice Act, Mont.Code Ann. § 69-8-101 et seq., and the Natural Gas Utility Restructuring and Customer…