A new nationwide study from the Center for Public Integrity, Global...
Recent News
Montana Recieves a D+ on Corruption Report Card
A new nationwide study from the Center for Public Integrity, Global Integrity, and Public Radio International has given Montana a D+ on it’s corruption risk. According to the report Montana State government is non-transparent and lacks accountability to the citizens. The comprehensive report gave Montana an F in the areas of Public access to information (probably because of Schweitzers veto of H.B 444), Judicial Accountability (something only furthered by Jim Reynolds recent ruling on LR-115), state pension fund management, lobbying disclosure and ethics enforcement agencies. Notice that Democrats are responsible for each of montanas deficits these areas. This report comes just two days after Treasure State Politics reported on U.S Public Interest Research giving Montana an F in Governmental Transparency.
Randy Barrett, the Communications Director for Public Integrity explains why Montana received such a low grade:
“In the case of Montana, there are two problems: The laws on the books are not very strong, and the implementation of those laws are not very good,”
“The states are doing a fairly poor job of protecting the public trust, and they have a lot of work to do to improve transparency and accountability.”
The report goes on to call out Brian Schweitzer’s cronysim, recalling Schweitzer hiring his former college roommate Joe Maurier to run the Department of Fish Wildlife and Parks the report states:
“a rash of top-level hires by the current administration has raised questions of cronyism.”
The defense this time comes from Schweitzer’s spokesperson Sarah Elliot:
“Gov. Schweitzer is the only governor in recent history who did not take PAC (political action committee) money for either of his campaigns for governor
“The lobbyist culture of Helena has not been able to buy their way to the front of the line, so it is no surprise they are critical of the governor.”
This sentence is a little misleading, just because Schweitzer didn’t collect PAC money doesn’t mean he didn’t collect lobbyist money. Which of course he did. political action committees and lobbyists are similar but still two completely separate things. Though even if you believe that lobbyist disclosure is only one of the 5 failing grades Montana received.
In addition Steve Bullock, who Schweitzer has publicly endorsed, has collected thousands from lobbyists most of which are from out of state for instance:
Montanans deserve a government that is accountable and transparent, an idea that appears to be at odds with Democrats
Montana Receives an “F” in Government Transparency
According to a new report by the United States Public Interest Research Group Montana has joined Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, and Wyoming at the bottom of the list for government transparency. This should come as no surprise after Governor Brian Schweitzer vetoed H.B 444 a bill sponsored by representative Tom Burnett, that would
“Create a budget database website for taxpayer right to know”
a much needed database that would allow taxpayers to go online and see exactly where their government is spending their tax dollars and how/when they are doing it. But databases are not something the Democrats are very good at handling, just look at Steve Bullock who is in charge of sex offender database, a database that lists sex offenders as living in Walmart parking lots and has thousands of faulty entries.
The only defense comes from Sheryl Olson, deputy director of the Montana Department of Administration, Who says the state of Montana:
“Offers approximately 230 e-government services, allowing citizens to do things like register a vehicle or apply for a fishing license online.”
That’s good the website allows you to purchase goods and services that the government offers a good start but that has almost nothing to do with transparency of government. I can’t look at buying a fishing license or register a vehicle and extrapolate where my tax dollars are going, who they are going to, how they are being spent and on what? Whether or not the government is effective, whether its wasting money or not etc.
Olson went on to say:
“Those services drew 6.4 million visitors last year, a number that indicates Montana is satisfying the public’s desire for online services”
That’s a bold assumption, that because people utilize a service that they are happy with it. That doesn’t make any sense considering what we are talking about. I registered my vehicle online therefore I am happy with the level of transparency of my government. That argument doesn’t make any sense and is completely non responsive to the issue at hand.
Olson concludes by saying
“People are going there, using the information we provide them,”
“I think we’re doing an extraordinary job in providing Montana citizens the e-government services they want.”
Another bold argument considering 83 legislators, thousands of Montanan’s and several independent research groups disagree. Although Olsen did attempt to back up her assumptions, later in the article by citing the Sunshine Review’s report on governmental transparency, which gave Montanan a B overall.
Which isn’t as good as she makes it sound. Much of the Sunshine Review Report are things that you would EXPECT government to do, things like:
- “Elected officials are listed with contact information”
- “An agency phone directory is posted”
- An employee directory is posted.
I’m not sure that we should be overly proud of a B on a report that grades based on things like contact information something almost every website has. We should be grading our transparency on whether or not we as citizens can go onto a website and know exactly that our government is doing, which the majority of the Sunshine Review report has nothing to do with. Something that Republican lawmakers have been trying to do, and the Democrats have been fighting for years.
Caitlin Copple’s and Cynthia Wolkens Fiscal Irresponsibility
It’s no secret that Missoula city council is an incredibly liberal, borderline irrational decision making body, but it seems they have finally thrown out pragmatic decision making altogether. In an article by the Missoulian it seems the City Council’s Economic Subcommittee, a committee designed to spur economic development of Missoula and sits under the Finance Committee , has decided that instead of focusing on issues that have the potential to create Montana jobs, they are instead going to focus on whether or not there should be free WIFI downtown. The Finance committee is chaired by Cynthia Wolken, who plans on appointing Caitlin Copple as head of the economic subcommittee.
according to the article Wolken
” likes the idea of public Wi-Fi because it’s been a magnet for people in downtowns where it’s been offered. So Wolken wants to figure out how it can happen here, how much it costs and which entities should pursue it.”
But there are a few problems with this argument, though not on its face, because there is no doubt free WIFI draws customers to local businesses, specifically coffee shops. But now imagine that the city council implements free WIFI downtown, all of those coffee shops that attracted customers by offering free WIFI lose all of that business. Which means any economic gain would be offset by the loss these businesses would incur.
although buried behind the free WIFI are a few worthwhile ideas, for instance installing a Gigapop which would make internet much faster. Although i would enjoy free WIFI why not focus on things that have real tangible impacts, like fixing Missoula’s regulatory climate to encourage entrepreneurship, or saving me some money on my realignment by fixing potholes instead of things that will result in negligible if any economic gain.
Steve Bullock Exploits the Military for Political Gain
Recently allegations have surfaced that Attorney General Steve Bullock has exploited members of the military for his own political gain. In his Lieutenant Governor Announcement Video Adjutant General John Walsh is seen shaking hands with uniformed military personnel
This photo taken 34 seconds into the video looks a lot like the situation described in a GOP press release
“At 8:00 am on the morning of Saturday, March 3, the soldiers of the state headquarters unit of the Montana National Guard assembled for drill. But instead of their normal routine, something unusual happened. The soldiers were told to stand by for an address from the Adjutant General. Brigadier General John Walsh then proceeded to walk down the ranks shaking everyone’s hand, while a uniformed photographer followed him recording the entire event. A basketball hoop was moved to ensure that the American Flag was visible in one of the pictures.”
Montana Watchdog quotes a Bullock spokesman as saying
“It’s completely untrue,” said Kevin O’Brien, spokesman for the Bullock campaign. He said the campaign hired a free-lance photographer for the event. He said the photographer was not a member of the National Guard nore were they in uniform.
But even if the photographer was not a member of the National Guard and the Camera was owned by someone other than the taxpayers. The idea that John Walsh exploited military personnel for a political photo-shoot is deplorable. Although we shouldn’t be surprised considering the Democratic Party has been violating campaigning laws and Bullock himself has been violating campaign laws since the beginning of his campaign.
The GOP has filed a freedom of information request with the Department of Military Affairs to find out whether Bullock did indeed exploit military resources for political gain, evidently the request has been received but there has been no answer as to when we will have a definitive answer. If recent trends of Democrats suspiciously getting away with ethics violations holds true chances are an answer won’t be forthcoming.
If Bullock is incapable of running a clean campaign, why would he be capable of running a state?
A Note On Facebook Advertisements
Over the course of the last two weeks Facebook has been bombarded with advertisements for Democratic candidates along the right side of the page
It’s interesting that both ads are about out of state corporate money, and it’s especially funny that Jon Tester is campaigning on the platform considering he recently turned down Rehberg’s “Made in Montana” plan that would have kept all out of state corporate money out of the election, and Bullock whose received thousands from out of state corporations and D.C law firms.
The point here though is that the way Facebook operates makes these advertisements exploitable and probably a bad advertising move considering I nor anyone i know really pays attention to the advertisements. For instance according to the Facebook Ad information page:
- CPC vs CPM : Determine if you want to pay on a cost-per-click (CPC) or cost-per-impression (CPM) basis
- Daily Budget: Set the maximum amount you want to pay each day – once you hit your daily budget your ad will no longer show
In other words they are charged for their advertisements based on how many times people click it, or how many times the ad appears on peoples pages, and once they have reached their daily budget the ad disappears.
So if you see these advertisements and you happen to be a conservative who feels like charging Jon Tester or Steve Bullocks accounts you could hypothetically go on a clicking spree if they chose to pay per click , which is probably the best option considering most people don’t click on the ads and they can get maximum FaceTime, and/or a refreshing spree in case they are paying per impression. which would mean you would be charging the campaign money and working toward their daily budget. At which point the Advertisements would cease to be shown on peoples Facebook pages.
Bullock Arm Bends a Challenger So He Can Keep Fundraising Money
After Larry Jent dropped his bid for governor Steve Bullock was in a tight spot. According to Montana campaign finance law if there is no contested primary Bullock would be required to give back all of the money he raised for the primary. Good thing he convinced Heather Margolis to run!
According to the Helena Independent Record:
“She was asked about her husband, Tim Warner, a former spokesman for U.S. Sen. Max Baucus and later Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Montana who now runs a consulting firm in Helena, donating $600 to Bullock’s governor’s campaign, according to the National Institute on Money in State Politics. She didn’t answer the question, but instead talked about Bullock.”
But her husband donating isn’t the problem here,
SHE HERSELF DONATED TO BULLOCK!!!
Margolis denies she was influenced by either the Democratic party or Bullock
That might be a hard sell after Jent Dropped out last minute, an act that would require Bullock give back a very large portion of the money he has raised. And Morgolis, a financial contributor to Bullocks campaign and personal friend suddenly out of the blue decides it would be a good idea if she ran. Not only that but she donated to his PRIMARY thats right the same primary she had been ”been talking about and joking about.” and finally decided to run for. I don’t know about you but i have never heard of a politician donating to their challenger, especially when that challenger has over four times the amount of money they do.
Her reasoning for running was that there was:
“a clear decisive moment” last week when she decided to run.
Sounds like Bullock called her up and convinced her to enter the race so he could keep his money to me. And lets be honest the Democrats aren’t fooling anyone here we all know why she is in the race, and yet the Democrats are still trying to mislead Montanan voters. But Bullocks no stranger to violating campaign laws, he has been since his campaign began by collecting contributions for undeclared office. This is just another example of how Bullock as current Attorney General, the chief legal advisor for the state, has violated the laws he was sworn to uphold. And exactly why putting him in charge of the state is a bad idea.
Jim Murry Continues Partisanship and Corruption as Commissioner of Political Practices
On February 7th Treasure State Politics reported that Governor Schweitzer’s appointment of Jim Murry, as Commissioner of Political Practices would ensure the traditional partisanship and corruption of the office would continue. And with the recent dismissal of ethics violations against Schweitzer it seems our prediction was correct.
In 2008 while Schweitzer was up for re-election, he allegedly had two state workers, operating on public time, record and distribute a “public service announcement” which of course was more like a campaign advertisement than a “public service announcement”. Originally a previous Commissioner found that Schweitzer had indeed broken ethics laws, and it was recommended that he pay $4,100 in fines for the violations.
Having worked on Schweitzer’s campaign in the past Murry presented a conflict of interest in the ethics case with such close ties and vested interest in the campaign it’s questionable whether or not Murry should have independently chosen the deputized arbiter. His bias is evident in his choice.
Jim Goetz has given over $4,000, which is almost 10% of the average Montanan income to Democrats including:
$750 to Democrat Jon Tester in 2006
$1500 to Democrat Jon Tester in 2011
$200 to Democrat Max Baucus in 2002
And the best indicator of impartiality:
$500 to the Montana Democratic Party in 2003
$500 to the Montana Democratic Party in 2004
$250 to the Montana Democratic Party in 2010
In his decision letter Goetz wrote:
”A ‘candidate’ may not use ‘state funds’ to pay for public service announcements”
“The evidence is uncontested that the Governor did not use ‘state funds’ to pay for the public service ads.”
“a candidate is only prohibited from using ‘state funds’ for public service announcements, and that simply does not include public time, facilities, equipment, supplies or personnel.”
So even though we were paying these people with public money to have them create the PSA on what is presumably state owned equipment, and distribute it on state owned computers on state funded computer systems no state funds were used in its creation. So since paying people with public funds to create something and paying for the tools used for its creation don’t count what exactly would state funds count as? Under Goetz view there is essentially no way to ever violate this law.
The Commissioner of Political Practices is supposed to be a non-partisan office, but clearly Schweitzer, Murry, and the Democrats have other plans.
Max Baucus Corruption Gains National Attention
Yesterday Montana’s Max Baucus gained national attention in a not so flattering article From Politico. According to the article Max Baucus has been leveraging his position on the powerful Senate Finance Committee in an attempt to influence campaign contributions that he doesn’t approve of.
According to the article:
“One K-Streeter close to the Baucus operation said the senator considers a gift to Rehberg a contribution against him. Another Democratic lobbyist told a client to take his name off a Rehberg fundraising event because it would be hurtful to his company, according to sources.”
This blatant misuse of power is not only embarrassing for Montana, but an affront on the american political system as a whole. Senator Baucus is running around behind closed doors threatening private entities in order to get the outcome he wants. When we allow our elected representatives to to threaten businesses with potential reprisal if they don’t do or act exactly how they want, we have become the willing victims of state control. These borderline tyrannical actions cannot be allowed to continue if we want to maintain a healthy democracy. The fact that companies are saying that it would be “hurtful for their company” to go against Baucus shows we have entered what could be an incredibly slippery slope.
Baucus’s defense? According to a Baucus Aide:
“Max has made it no secret that getting Sen. Tester reelected is a top priority. To that end, he’s raised half a million for the Tester effort and continues to do all he can in Montana, in D.C. and nationally.”
In other words, Baucus not only admits that he has engaged in these activities and that he isn’t trying to keep it a secrete, but that keeping his party in power is so important that he is willing to engage in unethical practices in order to insure his control. It makes sense that Baucus would go to such length to keep Tester in the senate, when Tester loses Baucus is almost sure to be next on the chopping block.
According to Montana Republican Party Executive Director Bowen Greenwood:
“It is a moral imperative upon all of us to end this corruption in Washington. I’m embarassed that a Montanan is complicit in it. Laws should be written for the public, not for partisan payback. When an elected officer uses his official power to intimidate enemies, that should not be ‘business as usual.’ It should strengthen the resolve of citizens from both parties to remove the guilty person from government.”
yet Senator Tester is just as much to blame here, it’s time we stop this party cronyism by voting both of them out of office.
A Brief Defense of Citizens United
It seems that the Supremes court ruling in Citizens United Vs. FEC has been all over the news, especially now that current Attorney General Steve Bullock has decided to make it his number one campaign issue. But it seems that a lot of people have the wrong idea about what the Citizens United decision allows, and the effect it will have.
The first misconception is that it will allow corporations to “buy” elections, which is totally not true. The FEC still has contribution maximums even from corporations.
Which means there is a limit on the amount of money that a corporation can give directly to a campaign. What FEC allows is for unlimited spending in other ways, such as issue advertisements. But advertisements are not “buying an election”. As with any advertisement it is the personal responsibility of the consumer to find out who paid for it (something made easier by the last few seconds of the ad) and to research and decide the validity of the ads content. If these organizations influence elections the problem is not the corporation, but the people who blindly follow whatever they are told. To say that these corporations are the make or break of an election, is to say that either the message they broadcast is truthful and rings true with voters, or that the voters themselves have been unduly influenced. Although I’m constantly confronted with counter examples I like to believe that the American people are smart and capable of making informed decisions, to say that they have been unduly influenced is simply false.
In addition this is not a one sided issue, for every ad there is an ad on the other side. For every argument there is a rebuttal. It would be naïve to assume that only one party or only one organization engages in spending money on issue ads for things they feel are important. Which means that one side will never be able to influence voters without them having been exposed to the opposite side as well. In addition the ruling gives unions the right to spend as much money as they want as well, and you better believe that for any conservative advertisement at least one union would be willing to spend money on a counter ad.
The Decision of the Court may have put it best:
“When government seeks to use its full power, including the criminal law, to command where a person may get his or her information or what distrusted source he or she may not hear, it uses censorship to control thought,” “This is unlawful. The First Amendment confirms the freedom to think for ourselves.”
This ruling is about government intervening in what are, and are not allowed to be told and who is and who isn’t allowed to give us that information. If we hope to avoid an Orwellian dystopia perhaps we should be less worried about censoring the message and more worried about educating our children to be intelligent consumers of information.
Ravali County Democrats Get Desperate
Recently ran across this gem:
This ad is simultaneously incredibly positive and incredibly pathetic. The ad is positive in that the democrats loss has been so absolute that they have resorted to the “hey guys this isn’t fair, let us have just one” approach. A sure sign that the Ravalli County Democrats can only play defense and have no strong leadership or grassroots support. This Ad is a tribute to the decline of the Democratic party in Ravalli County, a trend we can only hope continues elsewhere.
Not only that but they are BEGGING people to run for office, first they they concede that they cannot win and then they tell us they are incapable of finding anyone who will even try.
How embarrassing.
