Mont citizens for rtw
<div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="line-height: 22.8px;">https://montanafreepress.org/</span><span style="line-height: 22.8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">2018/03/12/</span><span style="line-height: 22.8px;">right-to-work-shady-activities/</span></font></div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="line-height: 22.8px;">
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</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">CAMPAIGN SPENDING / ELECTIONS / NEWS / POLITICS / MARCH 12, 2018</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><b>Complaint: Dark Money Right to Work Group Engaged in Illegal Political Activities</b></div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Republican Kalispell Rep. Frank Garner files complaint against group, which was at the center of allegations of illegal third-party influence in state primaries in 2008, 2010 and 2012</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">HELENA — A group at the center of one of the biggest elections scandals in modern Montana history is actively engaged in the 2018 election, while hiding its activities and spending, according to a complaint filed with state elections regulators.</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Kalispell Republican Rep. Frank Garner said in a complaint filed March 6 with the Montana Commissioner of Political Practices that a field operative for Montana Citizens for Right to Work is actively recruiting candidates to run against him in House District 7.</span> Garner said that activity is illegal because the group has not registered with state elections officials as required by law.</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Kalispell Republican Rep. Frank Garner filed a complaint against an operative for Montana Citizens for Right to Work for what he says are illegal campaign activities. Courtesy photo.</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><b>
</b></div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><b>“It appears as if these groups are back and are trying to corrupt our election system once again,</b>” Garner wrote in his complaint.</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The complaint stems from a meeting that Montana Citizens for Right to Work assistant director Al Chan allegedly held on Feb. 28 in Kalispell with members of the Flathead County Libertarian Party. According to Kalispell resident Dan Nelson, who said he was at the meeting, the purpose of the confab was for Chan to recruit candidates to run against Garner in the June 5 Republican primary. Nelson later provided Garner with a detailed written account of the meeting, which Garner attached to the complaint.</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">“Al [Chan] said he did not like Garner and talked about him being a liberal and listed off several bills Garner either supported or was against in what seemed to be a negative fashion,” Nelson stated in his account. “Only one of the bills and issue [sic] he talked about as it was related to Garner was related to the Right to Work issue. Al said he also had a personal beef with Frank Garner and implied he had met him before and didn’t like him. Al did not specify what his issue was or why.”</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Garner said in an interview that Chan contacted him in February and tried to set up a meeting. Garner said he refused to meet with Chan because of Right to Work’s shady history with Montana elections.</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Chan did not return multiple requests for comment via phone and email.</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Calls and emails to<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Randy Pope, executive director of the Belgrade-based Montana Citizens for Right to Work</span>, also went unanswered.</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Montana Citizens for Right to Work, along with its national affiliate, the National Right to Work Committee, was at the center of wide-ranging political corruption scandal in Montana covering the 2008 to 2012 election cycles. Tens of thousands of pages of documents obtained by the state Commissioner of Political Practices revealed how the national anti-union group oversaw the activities of American Tradition Partnership, the group at the center of allegations of illegal third-party influence in Montana Republican primary campaigns in 2008, 2010 and 2012.</span></div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Montana Commissioner of Political Practices Jonathan Motl reviews documents in the basement of his Helena office that connect the National Right to Work Committee to political campaign activities in Montana during the 2010 Republican primary election. Photo by John S. Adams, Montana Free Press.</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The lengthy investigation spanned years and resulted in former Commissioner of Political Practices Jonathan Motl in 2014 pursuing nine Republican candidates on allegations of illegal coordination and failure to report campaign contributions stemming from the 2010 Republican primary elections.</span></div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Five Republican plaintiffs eventually settled with Motl, and two others had default judgments entered against them. The settlements and judgments included financial penalties and signed admissions by some of the candidates that they violated state elections laws by illegally coordinating with third-party political groups.</span></div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><b>
</b></div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><b>Bozeman Republican Rep. Art Wittich, was among those who faced illegal coordination allegations.</b></div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">After a protracted legal battle, Wittich faced a four-day trial in the spring of 2016 that featured testimony from former Right to Work staffers who helped run the network of private and non-profit companies involved in the massive campaign scheme.</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><b>At the trial’s conclusion, a jury found Wittich broke Montana law by illegally coordinating with Right to Work-connected groups during his 2010 Senate primary campaign. A judge ordered Wittich to pay $68,232.58 in fines. In a 5-0 decision in August 2017, the Montana Supreme Court affirmed the jury’s verdict.</b></div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">One final candidate, Terry Bannan, of Belgrade, is still facing allegations of illegal campaign coordination stemming from the 2010 Right to Work scandal. Wittich is representing Bannan in those legal proceedings.</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The Commissioner of Political Practices is currently suing Montana Citizens for Right to Work and its affiliated organizations for their alleged illegal activities in the 2010 and 2012 elections cycles. That case has not yet been scheduled for trial.</span></div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Documents obtained by the Montana Free Press indicate that Montana Citizens for Right to Work has been actively participating in Montana elections since as far back as<b>2008.</b> However, state records show the organization has not registered with the Commissioner of Political Practices, nor has it reported any political activities or election-related spending since at least 2012.</span></div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Under Montana campaign finance laws, political committees must file a statement of organization “within five days after appointing a campaign treasurer or making an expenditure to support or oppose a candidate or ballot issue, whichever occurs first.”</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The extent of Montana Citizens for Right to Work’s political activities during the six years is unclear, but evidence obtained by the Montana Free Press suggests the group was spending money on election-related activity in the state.</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Page 186 of Documents detail Right to Work's involvement in MT DocumentCloud</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Page 186 of Documents detail Right to Work's involvement in MT</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Contributed to DocumentCloud by John Adams of Montana Free Press • View document</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Anonymous hit counter for DocumentCloud</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">On his LinkedIn page — which as of March 6 had been removed from the popular professional networking website — Al Chan listed his job as “Assistan [sic] Executive Director at Montana Citizens For Right To Work,” a Bozeman-based position he stated he has held since January.</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Chan’s LinkedIn profile also stated he worked for the National Right to Work Committee out of Bozeman from August 2014 through December 2014. Chan lists his work experience during that time as “strategic campaign consulting, executing campaign strategies, and secur[ing] pledges from state House/Senate candidates via survey program.”</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">[Editor’s Note: See DocumentCloud viewer at the bottom of this story to examine additional documents, including Chan’s résumé.]</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><b>Chan previously worked for the National Right to Work Committee in Washington state </b>from April 2016 to January 2018, according to his online resume, which was also recently removed.</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Chan also listed a three-and-a-half-month stint as a “Right to Work Committee” field staffer based in Manhattan, Montana during the 2014 election season.</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">According to his resume, as a Montana field staffer in 2014, Chan:</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">“Met with candidates for state house and senate for the purposes of candidate recruitment and candidate vetting”;</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">“Secured <b>pledges </b>to support Right-to-Work legislation from state house/senate candidates via a survey program”;</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">“Facilitated mass communications with pro-Right-to-Work voters in targeted state house/senate districts via direct mail.”</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Chan also listed having worked as a Livingston-based Right to Work field staffer from Sept. 2 to Nov. 15, 2012, during which time he “facilitated mass communications with pro-Right-to-Work voters in targeted state house/senate districts via direct mail.”</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Right to Work was not registered as a political committee, and none of these activities were reported to the state, according to Commissioner of Political Practices records.</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><b>Sarah Arnold, a former Right to Work staffer, testifies during the 2016 trial of Art Wittich, a former Republican lawmaker a jury found illegally coordinated with the organization during his 2010 Senate primary campaign</b>. Photo courtesy Kim Reed. </div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Sarah Arnold, a former Right to Work staffer who provided in-depth testimony about the inner workings of the Right to Work campaign machine during the Wittich trial, said in an interview Friday that it’s inconceivable Chan could have executed the tasks he claims to have done in Montana in 2012 and 2014 without spending money.</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">“It sounds to me like they’re asking for another complaint,” Arnold said when reached Friday at her home in Colorado. “They [Right to Work] are clearly trying to do something under the radar, which is shifty. This definitely sounds to me like they’re trying to keep things hidden, given their previous work.”</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Arnold said when she worked for Right to Work,<b> direct mail survey campaigns </b>alone cost upward of 60 cents per mail piece. That cost did not include time and labor expenses, Arnold said.</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">“You can’t do direct mail without spending money,” Arnold said. “At minimum you have to pay for postage and printing.”</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Federal tax records indicate that salaries were paid to<b> Montana Citizens for Right to Work</b> employees by a group called Conservative Action League, which lists its address as a post office box in Springfield, Virginia.</span></div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Montana Citizens for Right to Work sends out surveys like this one to candidates running for office. The group then uses the responses to the survey to vet candidates and attack candidates who don’t respond or don’t support “Right to Work’s” agenda, according to former Right ot Work staffers. Courtesy photo.</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">According to IRS 990 records,<b> Conservative Action League received $820,000 from the National Right to Work Committee </b>between 2014 and 2016. IRS 990 records for 2017 were not immediately available.</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">It’s unclear how much money the Conservative Action League spent in Montana in salaries or other grants. According to records from 2014 and 2015, the group paid at least $154,182 to “Western States Right to Work,” which is the group that includes Montana Citizens for Right to Work.</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Arnold said when she worked in Montana for the Right to Work-affiliated groups she was paid directly by the National Right to Work Committee.</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">“I’m not sure why they would put it through another group unless the other group is trying to hide something,” Arnold said.</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Garner was not aware of the group’s source of funding until contacted by the Montana Free Press.</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">“People have to decide if they want to be represented by citizen legislators — people they see in the street or in their grocery store every day — or if they want to be represented by <b>dark money groups funded out of a P.O. Box in Virginia,</b>” Garner said. “That’s why I felt I had to bring this information to the commissioner. This isn’t my first run-in with dark money groups, but this is my first complaint. Enough is enough.”</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Americans for Prosperity went door to door on March 3 handing out flyers criticizing Kalispell Republican Rep. Frank Garner for his support of increasing the gas tax to help fund highway construction</span>. Photo: AFP-Montana’s Facebook page.</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><b>
</b></div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><b>Garner has been in the crosshairs of dark money political groups since 2015, his freshman year in the House.</b></div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In February of that year, in the midst of the legislative session, the Koch Brothers-funded Americans for Prosperity held a “town hall” meeting in Garner’s district and didn’t invite the lawmaker to attend. According to the Flathead Beacon, a crowd of about 100 people attended the event at the Red Lion Inn in Kalispell. Some of them received word about the gathering through the postcard mailers, which read, “Tell Frank Garner to stand with us and vote no on ObamaCare’s expansion in Montana.”</span></div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Garner came under attack from AFP again over the weekend when the group went door-to-door handing out postcards criticizing Garner for his support of a 2017 bill to increase the gas tax. That measure passed the Republican-controlled House 57-43.</span></div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Robert Welzel, of Kalispell, filed in January to challenge Garner in the Republican primary. Candidate filing closes March 12.</span></div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Garner is expected to face an aggressive third-party campaign between now and the June 5 primary election.</span></div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">“It would be nice if we were on a level playing field,” Garner said of the outside spending by third-party groups.</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Garner said as a part-time citizen legislator, he’s required to report who supports his campaign, including their name, occupation and address. The same is not true for dark money groups who are not required to report the names of their donors or, in some cases, their expenditures.</span></div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">“In this case, you have groups whose avocation it is to promote their mission, with unlimited amounts of money, who don’t have to tell us who their donors are, and in many cases what their expenses are, as long as they are engaged in so-called issue advocacy,” Garner said. “If we allow dark money groups to spend unlimited amounts of money against people in an elected office, with no controls, no regulations, and aren’t required to follow the rules, then we might as well give them our seats and let them vote for us.”</div></span></font></div>