montanabk

10/15 capt text

main guk? yup

montana1015

master plan 11 4 24

immed after ruling hockey stick dk money? politics by extortion?

ATP montana amicus brief said 2 claims demo BS bullock WHITEHOUSE w/ mccain

11-1179-Senators-Whitehouse-and-McCain-Cert-Amicus

sep by other reps

---

no lnx

Bankers cheer as GOP senator dismisses calls for regulations after SVB collapse

Jake Johnson and Common Dreams March 22, 2023

Republican Sen. Steve Daines of Montana garnered applause from a room full of bankers on Tuesday after he dismissed calls for tougher regulations following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank.

"There are a lot of talking heads out there who are saying that the solution is more regulation, and I strongly disagree," Daines said in remarks to the American Bankers Association's Washington Summit, an annual gathering of bank CEOs and other top executives.

The Montana Republican went on to defend a 2018 law that progressive lawmakers and experts have said is at least partly responsible for the recent bank failures. That measure, known as S.2155, weakened post-financial crisis regulations for banks with between $50 billion and $250 billion in assets, subjecting firms such as SVB—which lobbied for the changes—to less stringent oversight and paving the way for more risk-taking and industry consolidation.

Daines, a member of the Senate Banking Committee and a major recipient of securities industry donations, called the stricter liquidity requirements and other rules gutted by the 2018 law "overreaching regulations" and claimed that efforts to revive the safeguards are creating "more worry" in the banking sector.

"This was not the cause of this failure," Daines said of S.2155, which former President Donald Trump signed into law after it passed with bipartisan support.

Watch the senator's remarks, which begin at the 1:32:04 mark:

It's unsurprising that Daines' defense of S.2155 was received favorably by a gathering of the American Bankers Association, which was one of many industry groups that lobbied aggressively for the measure.

"The lobbyists were everywhere. You couldn't throw an elbow without running into one," Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who vocally opposed S.2155, told reporters last week.

Warren and Rep. Katie Porter (D-Calif.) have introduced legislation that would repeal a critical section of the 2018 law.

The Associated Press reported Tuesday that in the hours before Congress approved the measure, Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.)—one of the legislation's top Democratic supporters—"huddled with executives from Bank of America, Citigroup, Discover, and Wells Fargo, who were there on behalf of the American Bankers Association."

:{"The American Bankers Association, which helped lead the push, later paid $125,000 for an ad campaign thanking Tester for his role in the bill's passage," the Associated Press noted.

The banking group's PAC spent more than $2.6 million on campaign contributions during the 2018 election cycle, with more than 76% of the donations going to Republicans, according to OpenSecrets.}:

Daines, who won reelection in 2020, received $10,000 from the American Bankers Association PAC during that year's campaign.

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Career

Anita Milanovich is an attorney with the legal offices of The Bopp Law Firm, which is led by James Bopp Jr. Milanovich operates out of the firm's Montana satellite office. She specializes in first amendment law, campaign finance law, election law, constitutional law, civil litigation, and appellate practice.[3][1] She began working with the firm in 2004 when she graduated law school.[1]

2016 Republican National Convention

i'm confused:

https://mtstandard.com/opinion/editorial/montana-view-campaign-spending-limits-survive/

no lnx

Montana view: Campaign spending limits survive

Jan 17, 2019

Eight years of litigation to abolish Montana’s campaign contribution limits ended Monday with two words from the U.S. Supreme Court: certiorari denied.

Lair v. Mangan was among dozens of cases that the nation’s highest court declined to review in an order issued Monday.

The high court order allows the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling to stand. The court upheld Montanans’ authority to limit how much money a contributor may donate to a candidate for public office.

Doug Lair was one of three individuals, who along with American Tradition Partnership, Montana Right to Life Association PAC, Sweet Grass Council for Community Integrity, Lake County Republican Central Committee, Beaverhead Republican Central Committee, Jake Oil LLC, JL Oil LLC and Champion Painting Inc., filed a lawsuit in September 2011 in U.S. District Court in Billings.

The lawsuit was one of a series involving American Tradition Partnership (originally named Western Tradition Partnership) that sought to overturn Montana campaign laws, including the state’s century-old voter-approved ban on corporate campaign contributions and newer statutes requiring truth in political advertising among other things.

ATP and its associates succeeded in getting most of the campaign laws thrown out. A week before voting started in the 2012 Montana General Election, U.S. District Judge Charles Lovell ruled in favor of ATP and Lair, nullifying Montana contribution limits, too.

The Republican Governors Association quickly donated $500,000 to the campaign of Rick Hill, the GOP nominee for governor. Lovell’s decision was appealed to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which reinstated the Montana campaign limits pending appeal, so the limits were off for just six days.

The Hill campaign asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene and allow unlimited donations pending appeal, which the high court declined to do. Eventually, the circuit court upheld the donation limits’ constitutionality and the law's foes appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

What this long legal battle means is that Montana must not take our campaign finance laws for granted. Commissioner of Political Practices Jeff Mangan, who has the duty of enforcing those laws, needs adequate staffing and resources to fulfill his vital watchdog role.

The flurry of court action in the 2012 General Election erased any doubt that even greater sums of cash would flood into our elections if we had no limits.

“Montana’s limits leave candidates with the ability to conduct an effective campaign for office,”Commissioner of Political Practice’s Chief Legal Counsel Jaime MacNaughtonsaid in a news release Monday. “Our limits allow individuals to associate with the candidate of their choice through their own speech, volunteering, discussing their merits with their neighbors, and through making their voice heard at the ballot box. Montana secured a victory today for transparency and accountability in our government and elected officials.”

The Montana Attorney General’s Office successfully defended the state contribution law, starting when Democrat Steve Bullock was attorney general and concluding under the leadership of Republican Tim Fox.

"I've never heard any Montanan say we need more money in politics and I'm glad to see the Supreme Court for once agrees," Bullock said Monday. Montanans troubled by recent growth in campaign spending across the political spectrum will agree with the governor.

MONTANA VIEW ICON

The Billings Gazette

no lnx

U.S. Supreme Court declines to take up Montana campaign finance case

Holly Michels

Jan 14, 2019Updated Feb 13, 2019

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday left in placeMontana's voter-approved limits on contributions to political campaigns in state elections,a decision that likely ends a legal challenge that lasted more than seven years and disrupted the 2012 governor's race.

The justices rejected an appeal from opponents of contribution limits, who argued that the caps on political donations are an unconstitutional limit on free speech and free association, and prevent candidates from running effective campaigns.

In declining to take up the case, the high court upheld the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' ruling that the limits are a reasonable way to try to prevent corruption and still allow candidates to raise enough money to run campaigns.

It also appears to bring to a close a lawsuit filed in Montana in 2011 after the U.S. Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United decision that allowed unlimited corporate and union spending in federal elections.

"This decision is a big deal," Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock said. "I've never heard any Montanan say we need more money in politics and I'm glad to see the Supreme Court for once agrees."

Anita Milanovich, an attorney for the plaintiffswho challenged the contribution limits, did not return phone and email messages seeking comment.

Montana law caps contributions from individuals and political action committees to gubernatorial candidates at $1,320 while political parties are allowed to donate $47,700 per candidate. The limits were created by a 1994 ballot initiative, and they are adjusted for inflation.

Since the lawsuit was filed in 2011, a federal judge has ruled twice that those limits are unconstitutional, only to be reversed upon appeal.

The first time, U.S. District Judge Charles Lovell ordered the limits lifted just weeks before the 2012 gubernatorial election between Bullock and Republican Rick Hill.

After the ruling, but before the 9th Circuit reinstated the limits days later, Hill received a $500,000 donation that prompted a lawsuit and led to the election's final weeks being played out in a courtroom.

The appeals court ruled in 2015 that the Citizens United decision means Montana's contribution limits must be stopping actual corruption, such as bribery, or the appearance of corruption, in order to be constitutional.

That is a stricter standard than the previous requirement that states must only show that their contribution limits aim to curb the influence of big money.

Using that 9th Circuit ruling, Lovell once again ruled that Montana's contribution's limits were unconstitutional, less than a month before the 2016 primary elections. This time, however, Lovell kept the limits in place while the state challenged his order.

The 9th Circuit once again overturned Lovell, saying that Montana's limits are justified in trying to prevent corruption. That is the ruling the plaintiffs represented by Milanovich unsuccessfully petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to review.

"Montana secured a victory today for transparency and accountability in our government and elected officials," said Jaime McNaughton, attorney for the Montana Office of the Commissioner of Political Practices, which oversees state campaign laws.

Montana's base limits for individual andpolitical committeecandidates are:

$680 for governor/lieutenant governor

$340 for all other statewide offices

$180 for all other candidates

The aggregate limits for candidate contributes for all political party entities are:

$24,500 for governor/lieutenant governor

$8,850 for other statewide offices

$3,550 for Public Service Commission

$1,450 for state Senate

$900 all other candidates.

Read more]

Remi Bald Eagle, intergovernmental affairs coordinator of the Cheyenne River Sioux tribe, which is located along the pipeline route, said the police buildup was part of a long history of armed subjugation of native people in the region.

“This is an experience of the tide of Manifest Destiny still coming at us,” Bald Eagle said, referring to the 19th-century belief that US settlers had the right to expand across the continent.

The files follow repeated revelations that the FBI and other law enforcement agencies have investigated environmental groups and leftwing activists as possible “terrorists”.

Opponents of the Keystone XL oil pipeline are seen demonstrating in sub-freezing temperatures last month in Billings, Montana.

Opponents of the Keystone XL oil pipeline are seen demonstrating in sub-freezing temperatures last month in Billings, Montana. Photograph: Matthew Brown/AP]

Keystone XL was rejected by the Obama administration and then revived by Donald Trump shortly after his inauguration in 2017. The $8bn project has been subject to multiple legal challenges, including over the environmental review process, but pre-construction efforts are now under way.

Opponents of Keystone XL have warned about the environmental and cultural impact of the project for a decade – concerns that came into sharper focus last month after the existing Keystone pipeline, which follows a similar route, leaked 383,000 gallons of tar sands into a swath of North Dakota wetlands.

The new Keystone records, which come from a number of government agencies and were released after a protracted legal battle, also show that officials have specifically met with police involved in the Standing Rock response to discuss “lessons learned”. North Dakota police officials told law enforcement prepping for Keystone that one of their biggest mistakes was their failure to keep activists far away and shut down access to nearby lands.

In one 2018 BLM document, labeled “KEYSTONE XL PIPELINE PUBLIC SAFETY ISSUES”, officials discussed the “available resources” to respond to protests in Montana.

“The FBI will have primary investigative authority for all national security investigations, including but not limited to international terrorism, domestic terrorism, and weapons of mass destruction,” BLM wrote.

US border patrol would also be available to assist law enforcement around the border and has access to “drone assets”, the document continued. Border patrol also provided a surveillance drone that police used to track Standing Rock protesters.

BLM also discussed purchasing “riot batons”, helmets and gas masks in advance of possible protests.

Mike Glasch, an army corps spokesman, said that the “by any means” comment came from the agency’s security chief, who was “relaying talking points” from police officials in Mandan and Morton County in North Dakota, adding: “Any method that we would employ to protect the safety of our employees and the public, as well as property and equipment, would be within the limits of the law and be the least invasive possible, while still protecting the public’s first amendment rights.”

A spokesperson for the Morton county sheriff, Kyle Kirchmeier, said he advises law enforcement that “may be involved with potential pipeline protests to make it their goal to keep protesters off of private property and any areas that may be considered a public hazard, such as ditches or highways”, adding that he “is supportive of people’s right to protest, but they need to do so in a lawful manner”. Kirchmeier said he did not recall the 2017 briefing.

A Mandan police spokesperson declined to comment.

Glasch said the army corps had not closed access to its land around the project, but added: “Since a construction site comes with inherent hazards, options are being analyzed for methods to keep any non-essential personnel away from potential construction sites, while at the same time considering constitutional rights.” He said it was too early to speculate about specific potential closure plans.

A spokesperson for the US attorney’s office did not respond to questions about the “terrorism” references but said the office’s “goal is to provide coordinated assistance to local, tribal and state law enforcement to protect public safety and civil rights, and to protect federal lands, while enforcing federal law”.

The FBI declined to comment.

A border patrol spokesperson said the agency would “assist, upon request, with any law enforcement activities within the border area near the pipeline”.

Spokespeople for BLM and TC Energy did not respond to questions.

“Law enforcement are getting ready. They’ve been having meetings behind closed doors,” said Angeline Cheek, an indigenous organizer from the Fort Peck reservation. “We know that they’re preparing … We’ve been preparing for the last three years.”

Rate, from the ACLU, said there was no legal justification for the government to pre-emptively shut down lands in an effort to stop protests.He said it was also troubling for law enforcement to prepare a “militarized” response and suggest that activists could pose terrorist or criminal threats before any actions had even begun.

“They are thinking of them as potential ‘domestic terrorists’. There is simply no support for adopting that paradigm,” said Rate. “The public justifiably thinks of BLM as a land management agency and not necessarily in the business of arming themselves and going out and squelching protesters.”

Candi Brings Plenty, an Oglala Lakota Sioux activist working with the ACLU of Montana, said they were not surprised to learn that law enforcement was talking about stopping indigenous activists “by any means”.

“That is the type of language that has been spoken to us our whole lives,” they said, adding: “We live these injustices on a daily basis. This is finally being unveiled for what it is.”

Brings Plenty, who led a two-spirit camp at Standing Rock, said they would not be intimidated by law enforcement and hoped people would still support the fight against Keystone – instead of just accepting the pipeline.

“It’s almost become the norm for folks to look the other way, feeling like there isn’t something they can do, that it’s beyond their grasp,” they said. “I want folks to see these pipelines the way they do the glaciers in the arctic. This is happening right here in their own front yard.”

no lnx

Reporter stumps GOP lawmaker by asking him to cite where in the US Constitution it says socialists ‘either go to prison or are shot’

Written by Bob Brigham / Raw Story February 2, 2020

The Montana Republican Party is facing another scandal over the use of violence to settle political disputes.

“A Billings Republican legislator said Saturday he believes the U.S. Constitution calls for the shooting or jailing of those who identify as socialists,” the Billings Gazette reports.

At a gathering of the state party on Friday, State Rep. Rodney Garcia reportedly said the Constitution requires jailing or shooting socialists during a Q & A with former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke.

“You know, Montana’s a great state,” Zinke replied.

“We have to do something,” Garcia urged.

On Saturday, Garcia was asked about his remarks.

“So actually in the Constitution of the United States (if) they are found guilty of being a socialist member you either go to prison or are shot,” Garcia claimed.

The newspaper noted, “Garcia could not to point to where in the Constitution it says socialists could be shot or jailed.”

In 2017, Greg Gianforte attacked reporter Ben Jacobs for asking a question about health care. He was caught lying to investigators, but was not arrested for obstruction of justice by Sheriff Brian Gootkin, who contributed to Gianforte’s campaign.

Dark Money tracks the influence of corporate money in contemporary American politics. Using the state of Montana as a primary case study, the film engages with the complex history that Montana state politics has with corporate influence in politics. Starting with the story of the Anaconda Copper Mining Company, Dark Money shows how the influence of mining corporations caused state legislators to relax mining regulations, which resulted in an environmental catastrophe in Butte, Montana, with problems that persist today. As a result, Montana banned corporate campaign financing of state politics in 1912.^[4] However, since the Citizens United v. FEC Supreme Court decision, corporate interests and big money have made their way back on the scene in Montana and have become a growing national concern. The film traces the steps taken by Montana Attorney General (and now Governor) Steve Bullock to seek relief from campaign finance abuses at a time when the Federal Election Commission (FEC) was ground to a halt by the appointment of three new Republican members, headed by Don McGahn, who systemically blocked all enforcement of FEC regulations.

In 2015, Montana reasserted its campaign finance sovereignty with passage of the Montana Disclose Act, which, by requiring full disclosure of contributors' names, removed the "dark" aspect of the Big Money influence on their campaigns.^[5] John S. Adams of the Montana Free Press plays a central role in the film as an investigative journalist who has been tracking state politics and "following the money" for several years. Adams has reported on everything from the role of the American Tradition Partnership (formerly known as Western Tradition Partnership) funds in the shaping of state election laws^[6] to the illegal political activities of a "right to work" PAC in Montana as well.^[7] The film follows Adams's work as a reporter, but it also includes interviews from other prominent figures in Montana state politics and those involved in the movement to examine and limit the influence of dark money in politics.

Director Kimberly Reed explains that she was motivated to make the film because the way to understand any public issue is to understand what guides it. “The first thing you have to look at is the money that’s fueling that issue,” she explains. “Just by following that money, you can tell a lot about the powers-that-be behind it.”^[8]

https://www.alternet.org/2019/07/neo-nazi-troll-andrew-anglins-celebratory-mood-crushed-by-14-million-judgment-against-him/

david n kos

Over the weekend, Andrew Anglin was in a celebratory mood, thanks to Donald Trump’s racist tweets telling congresswomen of color to go back to their native countries.

Then, on Monday, the hammer fell on the notorious neo-Nazi troll and publisher of The Daily Stormer. A judge in **Montana**, ruling in a lawsuit brought by a Jewish woman from Whitefish and the Southern Poverty Law Center, determined that Anglin owed the woman $14 million in damages for the “troll storm” he unleashed on her in early 2017.

Magistrate Judge Jeremiah Lynch found Anglin had acted with “actual malice,” declaring his conduct was “egregious and reprehensible,” and recommended that real estate agent Tanya Gersh be awarded the maximum in punitive damages under Montana law ($10 million) and more than $4 million in compensatory damages. The findings now await final approval from a federal judge.

...

Anglin’s threats initially spurred Whitefish’s police chief to step up patrols, particularly for the people Anglin named in his posts.

For his part, Spencer attempted to tamp down the controversy—but only by heaping blame on his critics while rationalizing Anglin’s behavior and suggesting the whole thing was a “joke” and a “troll” prank. Appearing on white supremacist leader David Duke’s radio program, Spencer claimed he wanted to try to keep his part-time Montana home out of the limelight created by his white nationalist activism. “I don’t host conferences, I don’t hand out fliers here,” he said. “It’s just a place I go to get my work done. I like being out here. I don’t want my daughter growing up in Washington, D.C. – I don’t need to tell you why.”

The problem, he claimed, was caused by local Montana activists who had organized to oppose his efforts several years before, notably local anti-hate group Love Lives Here and the Helena-based Montana Human Rights Network. He claimed they had attempted to strong-arm his mother into denouncing him but had failed.

In a YouTube rant, Spencer called for the controversy to just go away: “I’m just saying this—let’s just end this. Let’s put it to bed. The controversy’s over. Don’t bring it up again. I won’t bring it up again. I’ve said all I need to say.” As for Anglin, Spencer explained, “He’s wild. We have different styles. But this is one thing I will say, and I will say this with confidence. Andrew Anglin is a rational person. Andrew Anglin has specifically stated that this is nonviolent and that no laws are broken. This is—this was a troll. So that’s what it is. People were pushing back.”

The larger Whitefish community’s response to the threats to Jewish community members spoke loudly. “It’s important to know that the businesses that were hit by this were strongly supported in the community,” said Will Randall of Love Lives Here. “Their businesses are booming now. They were hit at the beginning and were frightened, scared. And then the community came in and said, ‘Well, I’m going to buy your product. I’m going to buy your soap, or your services. We’ve got your back.’”

...

omfg new

2013 – Medical privacy for gun owners

Health care providers may not inquire about patients’ ownership or use of firearms.

2013 – “Discharging firearms” not disorderly conduct

The act of “discharging firearms” is no longer a crime of disorderly conduct.

:{State laws and restrictions Montana does NOT have:

No registration of firearms.

No registration of firearm owners.

No permits required to buy firearms.

No permits required to own firearms.

No permits required to possess firearms.

No permits required to transport firearms.

No permits required to buy ammunition.

No storage requirements for firearms or ammunition.

No state waiting period for firearm purchase.

No limit on the firearms a person may buy in a specified period.

No sales tax on firearms or ammunition.

No personal property tax on firearms or ammunition.

No limit on the number of firearms a person may own.

No limit on the number of firearms a person may keep at home.

No “arsenal license” required for storage of multiple firearms.

No gun locks required by law.

No state background check for firearm purchase.

No regulation of private firearm sales between individuals.

No legal duty to retreat or flee if attacked.

No permits needed to operate a shooting range outside cities.

No permit required to carry concealed weapons outside cities – (99.4 percent of Montana).

No licenses, permits or registration to own machine guns.

No licenses, permits or registration to own silencers (but can’t be used to hunt game).

No restrictions on firearm type or caliber for general game hunting.

No regulation of gun shows or firearm sales at gun shows.

No permits for gun shows.

Virtually no restrictions to shooting on public or private lands outside cities.}:

legal/judge boot camp dude ranch? aug 19 fedsoc bozeman scalia

tester, rehberg, ati,

http://peoplespowerleague.info/about/about.htm

Montana Corrupt Practices Act

It's a delicate balancing act to pit freedom of speech against fair and honest elections. However, Montana can lead the nation in finding a way to make the improbable possible.

Following are four stories that prove the adage that "Truth is Stranger than Fiction"

Why Did the Initiative Pass? Story 1

In 1911, the Montana Legislature, under corporate control, expanded the state militia to protect the property of the mining companies. The original 12-page law was now 62 pages. The law adopted European military design with counties providing armories and military supplies at their own expense.

Every able-bodied man between 18 and 45 could be called up and serve up to three years. This included men who were not U.S. citizens or who could not speak or read English. Those exempt were criminals, lunatics, idiots or those in government positions.

If the call to arms went out and a man delayed to respond more than 24 hours, he was a deserter and dealt with under the Articles of War of the U.S. Army. If a doctor provided the deserter with a false certificate of disability, the doctor would permanently lose his license to practice.

The Governor could call out the reserve for major breaches of the peace, but a mayor or sheriff could make a call to handle a mob or rowdy citizens. For the privilege of taking up arms when called, the workingman paid a new tax to cover the expansion of the militia act.

There were some bright spots for the conscripted. He had the "right of way" as he traveled. If anyone "annoyed or molested" him, they would be arrested. If he did damage to the life, limb or property of another, he could not be prosecuted. If the Vigilantes were still about, they could not pursue and hang a marauding gang of militia men.

Montana citizens hated the new law and the new tax. Counties objected to the obligation to build and equip armories. People eagerly signed petitions to put the new law to a vote. The People's Power League carried petitions and advocated the repeal.

"(L)aw abiding citizens of the state who pay taxes and don’t need military protection must pay a tax to protect Amalgamated Copper that never kept a law it could break or paid a cent of taxes it could evade."

Kalispell Bee (April 11, 1911)

"Among the new military powers that loom upon the world horizon and must be reckoned with in future international relations is our own home state of Montana. With military laws as exacting as those of Germany and Russia she aspires to a place in the galaxy of world powers."

Miles Romney, Western News (June 20,1911)

M.M. Donoghue, President, and O.M. Partelow, Secretary, of the State Federation of Labor of Montana reported the following in the American Federalist (1913, Vol. 20, Page 757)

"Some two years ago the unions and individual members thereof united with other individuals in the formation of the People's Power League, the object being to secure by direct legislation some of the enactments deemed beneficial to the workers of the State. By the union of forces under the People's Power League, the State Federation of Labor aided by many of the members of all political parties initiated and put to a referendum of the voters of the State a Direct Primary law, a Corrupt Practices act, a Preferential Selection of Presidential Electors law, and a law instructing Representatives on the selection of United States Senators. These four initiative measures were all approved by the people."

The labor organizations also demanded that the most obnoxious military law ever enacted in the West be put to a referendum.

"This measure was enacted at a previous session of the Legislature over the protests of the entire State labor movement. Thereafter we circulated petitions demanding a referendum, secured sufficient signatures, and entered on a vigorous campaign for its defeat. We published our argument against the enactment, printed sample ballots to aid the voter in voting, had moving picture slides made and displayed in the many theaters throughout the State, illustrating the ballot and instructing how to vote. At the polls we rejected the law as passed by a vote of four to one."

Why Did the Initiative Pass? Story 2

A bill in equity was filed by representatives of the legal department of the national government in federal court at Helena which was of interest and importance to the people of Montana, seeking remedy for injuries to vegetation and trees on government lands from poisons precipitated by smoke from the Anaconda Copper Mining Company's Anaconda smelter. It is an outgrowth of investigation instituted by President Roosevelt, on motion of farmers in the Deer Lodge Valley. The agents of the copper combine manipulated public officials and public sentiment to have the case thrown out.

The special assistant to the U.S. attorney general, Ligon Johnston had previously brought a similar suit in the State of Georgia versus Tennessee Copper Company. The U.S. Supreme Court decided that case against the mining company. The case against the copper combine in Montana was not prosecuted. There was no verdict. (Now how could that be?)

In May, 1911, Attorney General Wickersham, entered into a stipulation with the Anaconda Copper Company whereby the government would drop prosecution for damages to public forests or lands from smelter fumes if the company would operate its smelters to meet the approval of a board of three mining experts whose salaries would be paid by the company. (The three mining experts allowed the pollutants to flow from the stacks and gave the nation its largest Super Fund Site. Tax dollars are still being spent on clean up.)

J.C. Murphy, Montana Lookout (March 19, 1910)

Why Did the Initiative Pass? Story 3

During the 1911 Legislative Session, Senator William Meyer was approached by a lobbyist for the Amalgamated Copper Company, John G. Morony. Morony asked Senator Meyer to support a little local bill that was important to the company.

"Well, Johnnie, I am with you upon any matter in which I can conscientiously assist you. What is the proposition?"

"Well, it is a bill to give us the right to secure some water power from northern Montana."

Morony outlined the details of the measure, whereupon Senator Meyer said: "Morony, I cannot give you my support for that measure."

The matter was dropped for the time, but a little later Morony met Senator Meyer in a hotel. He approached the Carbon County Senator with, "Meyer, will you support that measure?"

"No, sir; I will not."

"Senator Meyer, I will give you another chance. You go to the senate and vote against the bill, if you must, but keep your mouth shut. Will you do that?"

"Now, Johnnie, you know I would not sit down and say nothing on that bill."

"Say, Bill Meyer! I'll give you just one more chance. Manage not to be present in the senate when the vote is taken."

"Mr. Morony, I will be in the senate chamber, in my seat, voting."

The corporate boss became very angry, swung his arms, shook his fists and proclaimed so that all of those nearby might hear: "Bill Meyer, if you vote against that bill I will camp on your trail the rest of my life, and I will get you."

Senator Meyer was not intimidated. He spoke on the bill.

"What is this bill? It is simply a proposition whereby one corporation can control the whole state, body and soul. ... Every business interest in this state will be jeopardized. It will apply to foreign as well as domestic corporations."

Senator Wm. Meyer, Speech opposing HB 160 on February 27, Montana Legislature, reported byWestern News (March 3, 1909)

"It was six months later when the first comprehensive use of this little local law by corporate management was brought to public knowledge. The well-regulated trust was dead, long live the holding company."

J.C. Murphy, Montana Lookout (March 19, 1910)

Mr. Meyer decided to run for Congress in 1912. His campaign took him to Butte where he became ill. He never returned home and died at the age of 55.

Carbon County Journal (October 25, 1912)

Why Did the Initiative Pass? Story 4

"It is concisely exact to state that every daily paper published in Butte, Anaconda, Helena, Great Falls, Billings, and Missoula (with the single exception of TheMissoulian, published by United States Senator Dixon), was subject in policy to the control and influence of copper combine management or agencies when the campaign opened in 1912. This list included every daily paper in the state having more than a purely local circulation, and did not include the local dailies subject to the same influence. Similar conditions obtain in the conduct of the majority of weekly papers.

In those localities where the combine did not have mines, or smelters, or saw mills, or company stores, or public utility enterprises, with patronage to bestow, it had banking connections, attorneys, and political protégés, with power over merchants or command over city and county printing. Where all these resources failed, there remained the power of direction of the expenditure of large campaign funds, collected to great extent from combine coffers and agencies, and dispersed by campaign managers selected by combine bosses, with affable manners and accommodating disposition as well as abundant resources to negotiate loans for the relief of struggling publishers.

The possibilities in this one branch of newspaper direction and the precarious position of the average publisher in a new state under combine control is indicated by the fact that in 1909 a carefully compiled list showed less than 120 newspaper publications in the state, while two years later no less than fifty of these had suspended publication or changed nominal ownership and control ; this record being almost the only tribute to honest editors who 'hewed to the line', letting the chattel mortgages fall where they might."

J. C. Murphy, The Comical History of Montana, Scofield 1912

The Corrupt Practices Act, 1912, State of Montana, as it pertains to corporations:

Section 25. No corporation, and no person, trustee, or trustees owning or holding the majority of the stock of a corporation carrying on the business of a bank, savings bank, cooperative bank, trust, trustees, surety, indemnity, safe deposit, insurance, railroad, street railway, telegraph, telephone, gas, electric light, heat, power, canal, aqueduct, water, cemetery, or crematory company, or any company having the right to take or condemn land or exercise franchise in public ways granted by the state or by any county, city or town, shall pay or contribute in order to aid, promote or prevent the nomination or election of any person, or in order to aid or promote the interests, success or defeat of any political party or organization. No person shall solicit or receive such payment of contribution from such corporation or such holder of a majority of such stock.

Section 50. In like manner as prescribed for the contesting of an election, any corporation organized under the laws of or doing business in the state of Montana may be brought into court on the ground of deliberate, serious and material violation of the provisions of this act. The petition shall be filed in the district court in the county where said corporation has its principal office, or where the violation of law is averred to have been committed. The court, upon conviction of such corporation, may impose a fine of not more than ten thousand dollars, or may declare a forfeiture of the charter and franchises of the corporation if organized under the laws of this state, or if it be a foreign corporation may enjoin said corporation from further transacting business in this state, or by both such fine and forfeiture or by both such fine and injunction.

Free Speech For People supports the initiative to Revoke Massey Energy's corporate charter and stands behind Montana's Corrupt Practices Act. Learn about these issues below:

Download the amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to revisit the Citizens United decision and uphold Montana's Corrupt Practices Act

Download the press release: Amicus Brief Filed by Free Speech For People and Business Groups Urging the Supreme Court to Reverse Citizens United

Statement on the US Supreme Court's decision striking down Montana's Corrupt Practices Act

Press Release: US Supreme Court Must Carefully Consider Montana’s Corporate Campaign Spending Ban

Download the press release: Montana Supreme Court Upholds State's Century-Old Ban on Corporate Money in Elections

Download the amicus brief in defense of Montana's Corrupt Practices Act

Download the press release: Coalition of Business Groups Joins Free Speech For People in Defense of Montana's Ban on Corporate Money in Elections

Listen to the oral argument before the Montana Supreme Court regarding the upholding of the Montana Corrupt Practices Act

http://freespeechforpeople.org/initiatives

House Candidates Divided On Belief That Humans Contribute To Climate Change

By MATTHEW BROWN and LISA BAUMANN 08/03/14 07:44 PM ET EDT AP

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — Montana's U.S. House candidates claim to offer "all-of-the-above" solutions to the nation's energy problems— a familiar mantra among politicians keen to give equal attention to fossil fuels and renewables such as wind and solar.

Yet stark differences in the details of their proposals reveal a wide divide. Republican Ryan Zinke is a staunch fossil fuels advocate who questions humanity's role in climate change. Democrat John Lewis touts the potential for renewables that he says could transform the state's energy sector over the long-term, and says the effects of climate change are evident.

The candidate's dueling visions could play a significant role in November as voters in energy-rich Montana seek distinctions in the contest for the state's sole House seat, left open when first-term Republican Rep. Steve Daines decided to run for U.S. Senate. Oil and gas are in abundance in eastern Montana, which includes part of the booming Bakken oil region and some of the largest coal reserves in the world.

Zinke said those fuels offer the best hope for the U.S. to break its reliance on foreign sources. His plan seeks to streamline permitting processes to speed up oil and gas drilling on lands managed by the federal Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service.

"The opportunity for energy independence in the short term-remains primarily with fossil fuels, primarily driven by the shale play," he said, referring to the shale oil found in the Bakken.

Lewis puts his emphasis on non-traditional energy sources including wind, hydro and solar power and plant-based fuels such as diesel derived from the crop camelina, which is a member of the mustard family.

The long-time aide to former U.S. Sen. Max Baucus said he also supports fossil fuels, although the energy plan Lewis unveiled last month largely skipped over oil and natural gas. Those industries are doing well on their own, Lewis said.

While Zinke says he's against subsidies for wind energy, Lewis wants to revive a wind power production tax credit that expired at the end of 2013.

"We invest heavily in oil, gas, coal as it is with tax credits and tax breaks," Lewis said. "We invest in those resources, why wouldn't we invest in the future"

On climate change, Lewis said Montanans can see its effects in drought and wildfires.

But Zinke has his doubts about humanity's role in climate change; he says rising ocean temperatures have a greater influence.

"The evidence strongly suggests that humans have had an influence on higher CO2," Zinke said. "However, the evidence is equally as strong that there are other factors, such as rising ocean temperatures, that have a greater influence."

That claim was disputed by a University of Montana professor and member of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Regents Professor Steve Running said Zinke's characterization "doesn't square with the facts at all."

"We can say quite confidently that 90 to 95 of this carbon trend is human induced," Running said. "A tiny fraction is natural variability. It's the additions that humans are making, to what was close to a balanced system before."

While Lewis and Zinke tout "all-of-the-above," their Libertarian opponent Mike Fellows wants government to take more of an "opt-out" approach.

He said the market should work on energy development without subsidies.

"We've subsidized too many projects over the years that have been fruitless," he said, mentioning the corn ethanol mandate as an example.

He's against the TransCanada Corp.'s Keystone XL oil pipeline, which he says will take private property from landowners. Both Lewis and Zinke want the pipeline approved.

http://www.mhrn.org/RadicalRight.html

The Montana Human Rights Network evolved out of communities' concerns about radical right activists setting up shop around Montana. What this activity looked like varied from place to place. In the Northwestern corner of the state, it was white supremacists literally moving to local towns from Aryan Nations' headquarters in Idaho. On the Flathead Reservation, it was groups opposing tribal initiatives across the board. In Billings, it was neo-Nazi skinheads terrorizing the local Jewish community.

One of the Network's primary objectives is to help Montanans understand the anti-democratic forces that show up in their communities. The Network commits significant resources to conducting opposition research and making this information available to local citizens, the media, and law enforcement. The Network believes that, in order for communities to respond to the radical right, they need to have the resources to understand what is going on in their communities.

Margins to the Mainstream

It would be bad enough if hardcore white supremacists and other radical right activists only impacted the communities in which they live. However, over the last decade, the Network has documented how extreme right-wing ideas increasingly find their way into the political mainstream. During the early 1990s, groups like the Militia of Montana and Montana Freemen used gun rights and anti-tax diatribes to recruit from the mainstream. By the end of the decade, Congressmen had brought the militia's "New World Order" conspiracies to the floor of the U.S. House, and conservatives sounded alarmingly like Freemen in speeches advocating cuts in income taxes and abolishment of the IRS. Currently, this same dynamic is happening in the debate surrounding immigration reform. The margins definitely influence the political mainstream, and combating this dynamic has to start at the community level.

Articles

Groups say more extremists flowing into Flathead Valley

Hate in the Last Best Place

MT Human Rights Network claims threat by white supremacist

Ignoring hate groups won't make them go away- Great Falls Tribune editorial

Mont. tea party removes leader after anti-gay post

State seeing new rise in anti-government, hate groups

Are they defenders of the Constitution or anti-government extremists? DIVIDING LINES: 'Patriots,' 'Oath Keepers' rattle Big Timber

Leading Holocaust denier to speak in Billings

Taking Tea Partiers Seriously- Progressive

[http://action.sierraclub.org/site/R?i=UQawZxnJI-YnYteMe5icqA Buffalo slaughter] : In harsh winters like this one, Yellowstone's bison -- the last genetically pure wild bison in the country -- naturally migrate outside the park in a desperate search for food, where the National Park Service rounds them up and ships them off to slaughter. More than 250 wild bison, symbols of the American West, have already been needlessly killed this year.3/14.

Money matters dominate 2012 Montana elections

NOVEMBER 04, 2012 4:00 PM • ASSOCIATED PRESS

HELENA - The Montana 2012 election season has been dominated by battles over money that promise to continue long after Election Day - thanks largely to the anonymous backers of a Virginia-based nonprofit that Gov. Brian Schweitzer is now calling a "criminal organization."

Less than a week before the election, Schweitzer rallied a crowd against anonymous political money and American Tradition Partnership. The governor said the group is engaged in using "dirty, secret, corporate and foreign" money in a conspiracy to influence Montana elections.

"I'd be surprised if this doesn't end with some people in jail," Schweitzer told enthusiastic backers of an initiative on the ballot that opposes constitutional rights for corporations and declares their money is not protected speech.

The brouhaha served as a capper to an election year that has been as much about the influence of money as it was about candidates.

The state's race for governor ended in a court battle over a previously unheard of $500,000 donation, federal courts tossed state laws governing money in politics in an ongoing tussle balancing free speech vs. political corruption, and mailboxes were flooded with exaggerated attack fliers. Money flooded into the race between U.S. Sen. Jon Tester and Denny Rehberg in an endless barrage of attack advertisements that no voter was able to miss.

Perhaps no group embodied the fight over campaign finance spending and laws than the secretive American Tradition Partnership. Originally launched in 2008 as Western Tradition Partnership by two Bozeman Republicans, it has since moved to the Washington D.C-area and fought in court for two years to avoid requirements that it disclose its political spending and fundraising.

On Thursday, a district judge said he will sanction the group for failing to provide court-ordered records that state attorneys argue will show ATP is masquerading as a nonprofit to avoid disclosure and election laws.

Also, that same day, police reported a break-in at the state office where campaign finance records are kept, including documents an ATP consultant alleges the state is wrongly holding - documents ATP foes argue will show the group is illegally coordinating its activity directly with candidates.

The group has convinced the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year to throw out Montana's century-old restrictions on some corporate political spending. Another ongoing lawsuit involving the group prompted a federal judge to toss the state's limits on campaign contributions just a month before the election - a decision suspended six days later by an appeals court.

During that time Rick Hill, the Republican candidate for governor, took a $500,000 donation.

Democrat Steve Bullock sued to block the donation as illegal, arguing it far exceeds the reinstated cumulative donation cap of $22,600 from political parties. The argument dominated the final two weeks of the governor's race. A state judge blocked Hill from spending the money, saying it likely was an illegal donation.

ATP, an active mailer of campaign attack mailers in local legislative races, has turned its focus on Bullock - who as attorney general has fought ATP in court. The group attacked Bullock with online advertisements and a look-alike "newspaper" showing Bullock in a lineup with registered sex offenders. The group said 120,000 were being mailed, and said its aim as an "informational, educational and lobbying group" is to pressure candidates to change positions.

Bullock fought back, closing his campaign by linking Hill to ATP since the lawsuit paved the way for the contested donation and relentlessly hammering Hill over the money.

"If this race is about character, the Congressman is out of his league against Steve Bullock," said Bullock spokeswoman Kate Downen.

Republicans were upset as well by outside spending. The state GOP filed a federal complaint last week over a last-minute flier mailed statewide that attacked Rehberg as a "pork barrel" conservative, and endorsed Libertarian Dan Cox as the true conservative in the race. But Cox didn't pay for the ad - and the flier had no disclosure on it.

The GOP alleged a liberal-leaning group known as Montana Hunters and Angler was behind it, since it did air television ads with a similar message. The group denied the allegation. The group did send a similar mailer promoting Cox that did have ownership disclosure on it.

It was another example of the outside spending that has dominated the Montana Senate race. As much as two-thirds of the attack advertisements have been paid for by out-of-state groups, some who appear to have been launched for the sole purpose of swaying public opinion this election cycle.

Political Scientist David Parker said about $40 million, in total by all parties, will be spent in the race - roughly a 30 percent increase over Tester's narrow 2006 win over Conrad Burns. Still, for all that spending the race is ending the way it started: about tied.

Parker said complaints have always raged over money in politics. But he said the ability to use that money to reach into homes with technology is more pervasive.

And Parker said the ATP legal tangles and outrageous mailers - which opponents argue are being illegally coordinated with candidates - is really an eye-opener. He said the group's lawsuits seeking undisclosed, unlimited money are not helpful.

"American Tradition Partnership is engaged in vandalizing the public square," Parker said. "ATP seems to be a perfect poster boy for bad behavior."

The courts will still be sorting out the disputes over Montana campaign finance spending after Election Day.

A judge said he will announce sanctions against American Tradition Partnership for failing to produce documents in its fight against penalties from the Commissioner of Political Practices. The attorney general's office wants ATP's legal challenge dismissed so the penalties can be assessed.

ATP argues it is not involved in "electioneering," and that disclosure harms its constitutional rights to free speech.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is currently considering a decision from a federal court to throw out the state's contribution limits as unconstitutional, based on arguments from ATP and others that the limits are too low to allow effective campaigning.

And the Legislature could get involved next year.

Last week, Local ATP attorney James Brown of Helena confronted the protesters riled by Schweitzer. He advised them they should use their energy seeking new laws requiring disclosure. Brown called it "laughable" that he represents a criminal group.

"Your remedy is through the Legislature, it is not to harass people," Brown said. "If you have a problem with the way the system works, change it."

cowgirl:

State Rep. Mike Miller (R-Helmville) is the latest Republican legislator under investigation for illegal campaign activity, the AP reported.

His name was found in a box of documents in a meth house which later became the subject of a brilliant work of national investigative journalism. In a full-hour exposé of Montana politics and the secretive right-wing group, PBS’s show Frontline revealed that a secret stash of incriminating documents has been found in a meth house, showing extensive communications between these and perhaps other legislative candidates and the American Traditions Partnership, and showing that the ATP was even preparing campaign material for them.

The list of others who could be investigated because documents and campaign materials with their names were found in the meth house includes–but is not limited to–current and former legislators Ed Butcher, Bob Wagner, Wendy Warburton, Jerry O’Neil, and Derek Skees. Rep. Dan Kennedy (R-Laurel) is already under investigation.

coc had fake paper, the recorder, also

A month before the vote, Montana residents woke up to a fake newspaper on their doorstep called “The Montana Statesman.”

The publication calls itself “the largest and most trusted news source” but is actually a series of ATP-funded attacks on Bullock. It leads with a giant headline that reads “Bullock Admits Failure.”

The “news” story below claims that the attorney general has let “1 in 4 sex offenders go unregistered.” It includes four photos: three registered sex offenders and Bullock.

The group can continue to raise money on the promise that “no politician, no bureaucrat, and no radical environmentalist will ever know you helped make this program possible,” as its 2010 briefing to donors reads. “You can just sit back on election night and see what a difference you’ve made.”

Unsworth says his 2010 investigation did not stop ATP, and outside spending that has already flooded the state is sure to intensify, particularly in light of the Citizens United decision. He calls the advertising a “mess of trash that lays at the feet of the public,” paid for by “funny money with no legal constraints.”

“We don’t know who’s saying these crazy things,” he added, “so the public has to suffer and our political system suffers as a result.”

Scalia spoke before more than 300 people in Bozeman in a gathering sponsored by the Federalist Society, which he helped launch more than 30 years ago to fight the perception of liberal bias at the nation's law schools. The group is trying to open a chapter in Montana.

Scalia was appointed to the Supreme Court by President Ronald Reagan in 1986, and his opinions have placed him among the most conservative justices on the bench.

It's the second time in three years the 77-year-old justice has spoken in Bozeman. In 2010, he gave a speech at Montana State University's Museum of the Rockies.

[http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/the-human-cost-of-stuff/bringing-bison-and-biodiversity-back-to-the-prairie Bringing Bison and Biodiversity Back to the Prairie] A Montana-based nonprofit is moving to preserve 3.5 million acres of the Great Plains.

William Andrews Clark, Sr. (January 8, 1839 – March 2, 1925) was an American politician and entrepreneur, involved with mining, banking, and railroads.[2]

Contents [hide]

1 Biography

2 Political career

3 Family

3.1 William Andrews Clark, Jr.

3.2 Huguette Marcelle Clark

4 Clarkdale, Arizona

5 Clark County, Nevada, and art collection

6 See also

7 Notes

8 Sources

9 External links

Biography[edit source | editbeta]

paper, circa 1906

Clark was born in Connellsville, Pennsylvania. He moved with his family to Iowa in 1856 where he taught school and studied law at Iowa Wesleyan College. After working in quartz mines in Colorado, in 1863, Clark made his way to Montana to find his fortune in the gold rush.

He settled in the capital of Montana Territory, Bannack, Montana, and began placer mining. Though his claim paid only moderately, Clark invested his earnings in becoming a trader, driving mules back and forth between Salt Lake City and the boomtowns of Montana to transport eggs and other basic supplies.

He soon changed careers again and became a banker in Deer Lodge, Montana. He repossessed mining properties when owners defaulted on their loans, placing him in the mining industry. He made a fortune with smallsmelters, electric power companies, newspapers, railroads and other businesses, becoming known as one of three "Copper Kings" of Butte, Montana, along with Marcus Dalyand F. Augustus Heinze.

Between 1884 and 1888, Clark constructed a 34-room, Tiffany-decorated, multimillion dollar home, incorporating the most modern inventions available, in Butte, Montana. This home is now the Copper King Mansion bed-and-breakfast and museum.[3]

Political career

Clark served as president of both Montana state constitutional conventions in 1884 and 1889.

Newspaper political cartoon from the October 28, 1900 issue of The Anaconda Standard depicting Clark bribing state legislators by thowing wads of money through hotel transom windows.

Political cartoon depicting William A. Clark bribing state legislators.

Clark yearned to be a statesman and used his newspaper, the Butte Miner, to push his political ambitions. At this time, Butte was one of the largest cities in the West. He became a hero in Helena, Montana, by campaigning for its selection as the state capital instead ofAnaconda. This battle for the placement of the capital had subtle Irish vs. English, Catholic vs. Protestant, and Masonic vs. non-Masonic elements. Clark's long-standing dream of becoming a United States Senator resulted in scandal in 1899 when it was revealed that he bribed members of the Montana State Legislature in return for their votes. At the time, U.S. Senators were chosen by their respective state legislators. The corruption of his election contributed to the passage of the 17th Amendment. The U.S. Senate refused to seat Clark because of the 1899 bribery scheme, but a later senate campaign was successful, and he served a single term from 1901 until 1907. In responding to criticism of his bribery of the Montana legislature, Clark is reported to have said, "I never bought a man who wasn't for sale."[4]

Clark died at the age of 86 in his mansion at 952 Fifth Avenue in New York City, one of the 50 richest Americans ever.

In an 1907 essay Mark Twain portrayed Clark as the very embodiment of Gilded Age excess and corruption:

He is as rotten a human being as can be found anywhere under the flag; he is a shame to the American nation, and no one has helped to send him to the Senate who did not know that his proper place was the penitentiary, with a ball and chain on his legs. To my mind he is the most disgusting creature that the republic has produced since Tweed's time.[5]

Family[edit source | editbeta]

right) and Andrée (left) c. 1917

William married Catherine Louise "Kate" Stauffer (1840 Pennsylvania - 1893 New York). They had the following children;

Mary Joaquina (May) Clark Culver Kling de Brabant (January 1870 Montana - December 19, 1939New York)

Charles Walker (Charlie) Clark (November 3, 1871 Montana - April 3, 1933 New York)

William Andrews Clark, Jr. (March 29, 1877 Montana - June 14, 1934 California)

Paul Francis Clark (January 1880 France - 1896)

Katherine Louise Clark Morris (May 11, 1882 Montana - unknown) [6]

After Kate's death, William married the woman who had been his teenage ward, Anna Eugenia La Chapelle (March 10, 1878 Michigan - October 11, 1963 New York). They claimed to have been married in 1901 in France. Anna was 23 and William was 62.[7] They had two children;

Louise Amelia Andrée Clark (August 13, 1902 Spain - August 6, 1919 Maine); died of meningitis

Huguette Marcelle Clark (June 9, 1906 Paris, France - May 24, 2011 New York City).[8]

William Andrews Clark, Jr.[edit source | editbeta]

Clark's son, William Andrews Clark, Jr., founder of the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 1919, left his library of rare books and manuscripts to the regents of the University of California, Los Angeles. Today, the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library specializes in English literature and history from 1641 to 1800, materials related to Oscar Wilde and his associates, and fine printing.

Huguette Marcelle Clark[edit source | editbeta]

Main article: Huguette M. Clark

Born in Paris, France, in June 1906, Huguette (pronounced: hyoo-GETT) was known as a reclusive heiress, who was the younger daughter of former U.S. Senator William A. Clark's children with his second wife, Anna Eugenia La Chapelle. She was reportedly "devastated" by the death of her sister in 1919, but in the mid-1920s she was fixture in the society pages of the New York City newspapers as one America's most eligible young women. She made her society debut in 1926, one year after her father died. In 1928 she married William MacDonald Gower, the son of a business associate of her late father. Their marriage lasted less than one year and in 1930 she traveled to Reno, Nevada, to obtain a quick, uncontested divorce: a photograph taken of her the day her divorce became final was the last image ever made public. She retreated to her magnificent 42-room Manhattan apartments on New York's Fifth Avenue at 72nd Street, overlooking Central Park, and lived in isolation with her mother. In 1988, she moved out of her apartment and lived the remainder of her life, voluntarily, in New York City hospitals.

In February 2010, she became the subject of a series of reports on msnbc.com after caretakers at all three of her residences had not seen her in decades despite the fact she controlled a net worth estimated at $500 million, including a $24 million estate in Connecticut, and her Fifth Ave. apartment valued at $100 million. It was later determined that she was in the care of a New York City hospital. Building staff reported that she was frail but not ill when she left her Fifth Avenue co-op in an ambulance in the late 1980s. In August 2010, the Manhattan District Attorney's Office initiated a probe into the her affairs managed by her accountant, Irving Kamsler, and her attorney, Wallace Bock.[9][10][11] Recently Bock submitted a legal response to a petition filed by three of her relatives seeking to have an independent guardian put in charge of her affairs. In that filing he states that in 1988 Huguette Clark voluntarily decided to live at Mount Sinai Medical Center before being transferred to Beth Israel Medical Center where she died on the morning of May 24, 2011. She was 104.[12]

Clarkdale, Arizona[edit source | editbeta]

Clarkdale, Arizona, named for Clark, was the site of smelting operations for Clark's mines in nearby Jerome, Arizona. The town includes the historic Clark Mansion, which sustained severe fire damage on June 25, 2010. Clarkdale is home to the Verde Canyon Railroad wilderness train ride which follows the historic route that Clark had constructed in 1911.

Clark County, Nevada, and art collection[edit source | editbeta]

Clark's art collection was donated to the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C. after his death, greatly enriching that museum's holdings of European as well as American art. The Clark donation also included the construction of a new wing for the Corcoran, known appropriately as the Clark Wing.

The city of Las Vegas was established as a maintenance stop for Clark's San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad. The Las Vegas area was organized as Clark County, Nevada, in Clark's honor.

Montana Experiment Brings NHS-Style Health Care to USA; Saves State Millions, Patients Delighted

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/07/31/1227946/-Montana-Experiment-Brings-NHS-Style-Health-Care-to-USA-Saves-State-Millions-Patients-Delighted

Connect with PERC

2048 Analysis Dr Ste A

Bozeman MT 59718

Foundation for Research on Economics & the Environment 662 Ferguson Avenue, Suite 2

Bozeman, MT 59718

SPN Members

Montana Policy Institute

Phone: (406) 219-0508

E-mail: cgraham@montanapolicy.org

Web: http://www.montanapolicy.org

David Keene

David Keene is President of the National Rifle Association after recently passing the torch as Chairman of the American Conservative Union, the nation’s oldest and largest grassroots conservative lobbying organization. He is also a Managing Associate at the Carmen Group, a lobbying firm in Washington, DC. David has a home north of Helena, where he enjoys the outdoor splendors of our great state.

Keene was the National Chairman of Young Americans for Freedom as a student and graduated from the University of Wisconsin Law School. He has been a John F. Kennedy Fellow at Harvard University’s Institute of Politics, a First Amendment Fellow at Vanderbilt University’s Freedom Forum, and a member of the Board of Visitors at Duke University’s Public Policy School.

Keene served as a Special Assistant to Vice President Spiro Agnew in the Nixon Administration. He then became Executive Assistant to New York Senator Jim Buckley on Capitol Hill. In addition to advising local, state and national figures in all manner of campaigns, he has been Southern Regional Political Director for Ronald Reagan’s 1976 presidential campaign; National Political Director for George Bush’s 1980 presidential race; Senior Advisor to former Senator Bob Dole in 1988 and advisor to Dole’s presidential campaign in 1996. Most recently he advised Governor Mitt Romney in his 2008 Presidential race.

Keene is recognized as one of the chief spokesmen for conservative principles and politics on television and radio, and is widely quoted. He has written for publications such as National Review, the Washington Times and The Boston Globe. He is a weekly columnist for The Hill, a newspaper covering Congress.

Other Organizations

Foundation for Research on Economics & the Environment

Montana Taxpayers Association

Property & Environment Research Center

cowgirl:

Posted: June 7, 2012 at 8:43 pm

ANALYSIS: CORPORATE MONEY IN THE 2012 PRIMARY

For those who believe that last year’s TEA Party Republican Legislature has inflicted enough trauma on Montana, consider that what happened in this week’s primary election spells a looming disaster for the next session. Out-of-state corporate groups worked in the primaries to push the already Bat Crap Crazy Montana legislature further rightward and over the cliff.

Mailers by third party, out-of-state, and corporate-funded groups succeeded in several races in getting more conservative candidates elected in GOP Primaries across the state. Their work was also designed to force a further rightward shift in the votes of all legislators in the next session. That’s because legislators who don’t currently vote hard right on every single bill now know that if they don’t toe the line next time, they are likely to face the same kind of attack ads and mailers we saw this year.

The attack mailers had an impact on several high profile races–putting in right-wingers over moderates in Laurel, Stevensville, Sidney, Polson, the Flathead, and who knows where else. Not only do these groups refuse to disclose how much their spending and who they are spending it on, they also refuse to disclose their donors. If their supporters were individual Montana citizens they would have nothing to hide and could just file as a Political Action Committee. But they don’t. They claim that their attack ads are “educational” rather than “electioneering” so that they don’t have to report who’s bankrolling them. Besides their ridiculous names, here’s what is known about the groups pushing the Montana Legislature further into the abyss.

“Taxpayers for Liberty”

An outside ultraconservative group calling itself “Taxpayers for Liberty” (linked to American Tradition Partnership) sent out mailers like those pasted belowagainst Republican Rep. Carmine Mowbray andRepublican Sen. Bruce Tutvedt. The group sent one mailer with a Washington DC return address. Another had the return address of the Helena UPS store. So, it’s unlikely a Montana group. There’s no record of “Taxpayers for Liberty” in the Montana Secretary of State’s database or with the Commissioner of Political Practices either. The group does not disclose its donors so the involvement of corporate or Koch brothers money can’t be ruled out. Even though they didn’t succeed in ousting Tutvedt, they still succeeded in sending a message that anyone who doesn’t vote hardline Bat Crap can expect the same treatment in 2014, thus resulting in a further right leaning legislature in January.

“Montana Family Foundation”

The massive amount of secret, corporate and out-of-state money at work in the Montana primaries allowed the groups that had worked in these races in the past to be more effective. Thanks to corporate money, special interest lobbying groups working in conservative races like the so-called Montana Family Foundation didn’t have to get involved in every primary this year. They could be more targeted, and more deadly. In fact, after a Montana judge that struck down the law requiring accuracy in campaign ads, the Montana Family Foundation called the court decision “a good thing”and a victory, the Flathead Beaconreported.

The group put out radio ads mailers claiming that Republican legislators Carmine Mowbray and Bruce Tutvedt:“voted to allow fifth graders to be taught different sexual positions and variations and to allow “kindergarten students to be taught sexual detail without parental consent,”

Click here to listen to the radio ad: MTF1201_Tutvedt

To be sure, Montana Family Foundation lobbyist Jeff Laszloffy insisted he’d already planned to put the attacks out before the accuracy requirement was struck. Mowbray and Tutvedt both immediately denounced the attacks as the lies they are. (Which is somewhat ironic since they remained silent when their own party used the exact same attacks against Democrats in 2010–even after they were proven false.) The GOP has since removed the the press release on the sex ed attacks from their website.

You can tell the Family Foundation attack ads are designed to scare Republicans into making outrageous votes by looking at the groups “C-2?–a statement PACs are required to file with the Commissioner of Political Practices. The [PDF] form reads so explicitly it is a veritable ”kill list” of Republicans who didn’t vote how lobbyist Laszloffy ordered. If you don’t vote like we tell you, this form says, you’re next.

Laszloffy attacked Tutvedt and Mowbray by distorting their voting records, but why he targeted Republican candidate Tami Christensen in Sidney is a puzzle. How Laszloffy came to the conclusion that she doesn’t meet his creepy purity test is unclear, since out of hundreds of legislative candidates, only one bothered to fill out Laszoffy’s questionnaire. One wonders if it was just because she’s a woman. Several local Republicans spoke out against the Family Foundation’s actions, including the Mayor andformer State Legislator Sen. Donald Steinbeisser.

“American Traditions Partnership”

The American Tradition Partnership put out a press release this week claiming “ATP Sweeps State Legislative Elections,” and that they had won 12 of the 14 races in which they spent massive amounts of corporate money. Odd that they would put out this release after claiming in a Montana court that what they do is “issue education” rather than electioneering. The group boasted of radio ads and mailers.

The quotes from their release were particularly outrageous, given that ATP is funded by large out-of-state and multi-national corporations:“This isn’t just a victory for ATP-Montana, it’s a victory for all ratepayers, property owners and businesspeople across the Treasure State,” said Doug Lair, State Coordinator for ATP-Montana. “Whether it’s against foreign corporations coming after our property rights or Gang Green’s hand-picked politicians bilking us through our utility bills, ATP-Montana will continue to fight for working people.”

and“ATP is going to make sure there are consequences for regulation-happy politicians who want to use mom-and-pop business owners and employers as nothing more than punching bags and ATM machines,” added Lair, “and we won’t be shut up or shut down.”

ATP also threatened to buy the November elections, and threatened Steve Bullock in particular, saying that“a pro-resource development agenda is sure to weigh heavily in the legislative elections in November, and particularly as party nominees Rick Hill and Steve Bullock face off in the race for governor.”

In legislative races, ATP sent out mailers like this one supporting Dee Brown in the Republican primary for the Whitefish/Columbia Falls State Senate Seat, SD 2. Previously they favored TEA Party poster boy Rep. Derek Skees in the HD4 general. This is the group that sued Montana to allow inaccurate campaign ads, keep election donations secret, and turn back MT’s 100 year old ban on corporate funding of elections. Attorney General Steve Bullock is defending Montana against the out-of-state group.

This demagoguing flier was mailed with heavy saturation in Whitefish, Columbia Falls, and who knows where else:

“Montana Growth Network”

This group worked in the Supreme Court race, but since Montana TEA Party Republican legislator Jason Priest is the groups treasurer I’m including it here. The Supreme Court race is non-partisan but the Helena IR reported that“the Montana Growth Network, spent $19,000 with Richmond, Va.-based Desumo Strategies, which on its website lists as its one goal “Putting Republicans like you in office, at every level.”

By spending more on one saturation mailing then the conservative candidate they were backing had raised for her entire campaign, this corporate front group took the first step to buying the Supreme Court seat. Laurie McKinnon, who dog whistled at Lincoln Reagan dinners across Montana about “judicial activism,” “strict constructionist” and other conservative buzzwords was pushed past front-runner Elizabeth Best–in spite of reports of alleged Judicial Code of Ethics violations reported inMontana papers across the state. The allegations involve a fundraising letter sent out on McKinnon’s behalf, paid for by Laurie McKinnon’s campaign, from a sitting conservative Judge, Nels Swandal.

On Swandal’s political views, the Billings Gazette reported that:State District Judge Nels Swandal, who’s running for an open seat on the Montana Supreme Court, sent some clear signals Saturday to Republicans that he is the more conservative candidate in the race, saying he didn’t have or want the endorsement of a prominent labor or conservation group."Swandal, speaking at a forum at the Republican Party Platform Convention in Billings, said some of the questions posed by the Montana AFL-CIO to candidates “are among the most un-American ideas I’ve ever seen,” and that he wouldn’t seek endorsement of the Montana Conservation Voters “because of their assault on private property.”

With groups like this pushing Montana further into nutjob territory, it’s easy to see why leaders like Steve Bullock, Brian Schweitzer and citizens from all over the state are fighting so hard to restore accuracy, transparency, and citizen input into Montana elections. What remains of the right to vote when the only messages most people get on issues of public policy are those put forward by large businesses, out-of-staters, and those with huge amounts of disposable cashby

Cowgirl Posted in 2012 Elections, Governor's Race, Judicial, Legislative Races, Montana GOP, TEA Party Tagged with 2012 Governor's race, American Traditions Partnership, Bill Beck, Bruce Tutvedt, Carmine Mowbray, Citizens United,Corporate Spending, Dee Brown, Derek Skees, Desumo Strategies, disclosure, Elizabeth Best, it's legal to lie in Montana elections, Janna Taylor, Jason Priest, Jeff Laszloffy, kill list,Laurie McKinnon, lies, Montana Family Foundation, Montana Growth Network, Nels Swandal, out-of-state corporations, Rick Hill, shadow groups, Steve Bullock, Taxpayers for Liberty

June 02, 2010 10:00 pm • By MIKE DENNISON Missoulian State Bureau(0) Comments HELENA -

One week before the June 8 primary election, Republican House candidate Kelly Flynn of Townsend has found himself targeted by an unknown group labeling him an ally of "liberal Washington insiders working with a violent left-wing union.""I'm a conservative candidate," he said Wednesday. "But I feel pretty helpless when we get down to the last few days of a campaign and something like this, which is an outright lie, comes out to the voters. It's discouraging."Flynn is not the only Republican legislative candidate in Montana on the receiving end of independent campaign mailers, sent to voters, calling them "liberal" or suggesting they're not supporting conservative issues.Mailers from different groups have shown up in a handful of contested Republican primaries in recent days, questioning one of the candidate's commitment to conservative causes, such as gun rights or low taxes.Commissioner of Political Practices Dennis Unsworth said the groups appear to be breaking Montana campaign laws by failing to register with his office and disclose how they're raising and spending their money.The mailers are trying to influence elections and therefore are campaign spending, and state law requires specific disclosure of the donors and spending of campaign funds, Unsworth said."These are shady characters trying to dupe voters," he said. "They think they need to hide, for some reason. They are working hard to avoid disclosure."The mailer attacking Flynn came from a group called Assembly Action Fund, with a Lewistown Post Office box. It is not registered with the state as a political committee and doesn't show up as a business registered with the secretary of state.The mailer says the fund is a "grassroots lobbying group organized under IRS 501(c)4," which is a nonprofit tax code. Under federal law, a 501(c)4 group is organized for educational purposes, and does not have to disclose its financial donors. Flynn, a rancher, is one of two Republicans running for the open seat in House District 68, which includes Townsend and stretches south to suburban Belgrade. His primary opponent is Terry Bannan, a building contractor from Belgrade.

ward mentions howie rich 2006 crap

Bonogofsky v. Assembly Action Fund - Commissioner of Political ...

politicalpractices.mt.gov/.../BonogofskyvAssemblyActionFundComplaint?

Lewistown, MT 59457. Phone Numbers: Work ... The attached ?yer and the radio ad, by theAssembly Action Fund attacking Debra Bonogofsky, a candidate for ...

[PDF]

Ward v. Assembly Action Fund - Commissioner of Political Practices

politicalpractices.mt.gov/content/.../WardvAssemblyActionFundComplai...?

Complete Name Assembly Action Fund. Complete Mailing Address PO Box 3662.Lewistown. MT 59457. Phone Numbers: Work unknown Home unknown.

[PDF]

Clark v. Assembly Action Fund - Commissioner of Political Practices

politicalpractices.mt.gov/content/.../ClarkvAssemblyActionFundComplia...?

The Assembly Action Fund mailed a ?yer to voters in Montana's HD 68 attacking Kelly Flynn, a candidate running in ... states that The Assembly Action Fund “does not support or oppose candidates for public. of?ce," a .... Lewistown, MT 59457.

Attack mailers showing up in contested Republican ... - Mis

Richard "Rick" Hill (born December 30, 1946) is a former Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from Montana.[1] He was the Republican candidate for Governor of Montana in 2012.[2]

Contents [hide]

1 Early life, education, and business career

2 Early political career

3 U.S. House of Representatives

3.1 Elections

3.2 Tenure

3.3 Committee assignments

4 2012 gubernatorial election

5 Personal life

6 References

7 External links

Early life, education, and business career[edit]

Hill was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He was one of four children and grew up in a one-room apartment in the back of a tire repair shop. At age four Rick was paralyzed by polio. In 1964, he graduated from Atkin High School in Atkin, Montana. In 1968, he graduated from Saint Cloud State University in St. Cloud, Minnesota. Hill received his Juris Doctor degree in 2005 from the Concord Law School in Los Angeles, California.[1]

He owns a surety bonding company.[citation needed]

Early political career[edit]

He served as Republican precinct committeeman and state committeeman from Lewis and Clark County, Montana; member, served on the board of directors, Montana Science and Technology Alliance; and chaired the Montana State Worker’s Compensation Board from 1993-1996.[1]

In 1993 Governor Marc Racicot asked Hill to act as Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Montana State Fund, where he worked in a volunteer, unpaid capacity for three years.[citation needed]

U.S. House of Representatives[edit]

Elections[edit]

In 1996, Hill ran for the U.S. House of Representatives in Montana's At-large congressional district.[1] He won the Republican primary with a plurality of 44% of the vote. In the general election, he defeated Democrat Bill Yellowtail, who had been a Regional Administrator for the United States Environmental Protection Agency,[3] 52%-43%.[4] In November 1998, Hill won re-election to a second term, defeating Democratic nominee Dusty Deschamps 53%-44%.[5]

In 2000, Hill decided not to run for re-election to a third term, citing vision problems, which were subsequently corrected. The election was won by Republican nominee Denny Rehberg, who defeated Nancy Keenan,[6] a three-term State School Superintendent.[7]

Tenure[edit]

Between 1997 and 2000, Hill sponsored 32 bills, of which 22 did not made it out of committee and four were passed into law by Congress.[8] He voted with the Republican party 91% of the time.[9]

Committee assignments[edit]

Hill served on the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources.[10]

2012 gubernatorial election[edit]

Main article: Montana gubernatorial election, 2012

In November 2010, he announced he would run for Governor of Montana in 2012.[11] He chose State Senator Jon Sonju as his running mate.[12] He lost to Democrat Steve Bullock.[13]

Personal life[edit]

In May 1976, Hill filed for divorce from his first wife, Mary Hill (née Spaulding), after having an affair with another woman. In 1980, after the couple failed to reconcile, Spaulding filed for divorce and Hill obtained custody of the three children.[14][15][16] He married his second wife, Betti, in 1983.

References

22 February 2013

Steve Lavin’s voting rights act for non-resident property owners

Update. As I expected, tabled in committee. If Rep. Steve Lavin (R-Kalispell) gets his way, owners of property in, say, Troy, but who live in, say, Ekalaka, will be able to vote and run for office in municipal elections in Montana even though they are not residents of the municipalities in which they’re voting.

Even more startling, Lavin’s bill, HB-486, can be construed as giving the out-of-state corporate owners of property in a Montana municipality a vote in that municipality’s elections. Walmart’s bigwigs in Arkansas might be able to vote in Kalispell’s city council election by mail ballot:

NEW SECTION. Section 2. Provision for vote by corporate property owner. (1) Subject to subsection (2), if a firm, partnership, company, or corporation owns real property within the municipality, the president, vice president, secretary, or other designee of the entity is eligible to vote in a municipal election as provided in [section 1].

(2) The individual who is designated to vote by the entity is subject to the provisions of [section 1] and shall also provide to the election administrator documentation of the entity's registration with the secretary of state under 35-1-217 and proof of the individual's designation to vote on behalf of the entity.

Lavin’s bill does not require the property owners to be white Christian men, but amendments to that effect are always possible, given potential unconstitutionality is not that credible a deterrent to Republican excesses.

HB-486 was heard Thursday, 21 February, by the Montana House’s local government committee. A committee vote could come as early as today, as the 28 February transmittal deadline is not that far off.

HB-486 probably will be tabled in committee, perhaps with embarrassed smiles from Republicans who may secretly agree with Lavin but know better than to vote for so reactionary a bill.

Why Lavin introduced the bill is the question needing answers. Was this his own idea? Or did someone wanting to help govern a town but not live in it approach him for a political favor? And if someone did, who did?

The headline reads, “Montana Considers Giving Corporations The Right To Vote” — laughable if it weren’t true.

Legislator Steve Lavin, a member of American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), introduced the bill, which to the legislature’s credit was quickly tabled in committee. Even the most uninformed citizen understands that voting is for people, not corporations.

Wait a minute, following this attempt to endow more rights to corporations by giving them the vote, the Supreme Court heard arguments to weaken key provisions of the Voting Rights Act (VRA). After a number of states passed ALEC-sponsored Voter ID laws last summer, and this latest exploit to undermine the VRA, it is clear there’s an effort to minimize the power of ‘we the people’ by limiting our access to the ballot box, while simultaneously maximizing the power of corporations and businesses by giving them the vote.

Please sign the Motion to Amend petition: http://tinyurl.com/mta-motion-to-amend

barker pro publica (left dirty trick?) Dark $

Dec. 27:

In the waning days of Montana's hotly contested Senate race, a small outfit called Montana Hunters and Anglers, launched by liberal activists, tried something drastic.

It didn't buy ads supporting the incumbent Democrat, Sen. Jon Tester. Instead, it put up radio and TV commercials that urged voters to choose the third-party candidate, libertarian Dan Cox, describing Cox as the "real conservative" or the "true conservative."

Where did the group's money come from? Nobody knows.

The pro-Cox ads were part of a national pattern in which groups that did not disclose their donors, including social welfare nonprofits and trade associations, played a larger role than ever before in trying to sway U.S. elections. Throughout the 2012 election, ProPublica has focused on the growing importance of this so-called dark money in national and local races.

Such spending played a greater role in the Montana Senate race than almost any other. With control of the U.S. Senate potentially at stake, candidates, parties and independent groups spent more than $51 million on this contest, all to win over fewer than 500,000 voters. That's twice as much as was spent when Tester was elected in 2006.

Almost one quarter of that was dark money, donated secretly to nonprofits.

"It just seems so out of place here," said Democrat Brian Schweitzer, the governor of Montana who leaves office at the end of this year. "About one hundred dollars spent for every person who cast a vote. Pretty spectacular, huh? And most of it, we don't have any idea where it came from. Day after the election, they closed up shop and disappeared into the dark."

Political insiders say the Montana Senate race provided a particularly telling glimpse at how campaigns are run in the no-holds-barred climate created by the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United decision, giving a real-world counterpoint to the court's assertion that voters could learn all they needed to know about campaign funding from disclosure.

In many ways, Montana was a microcosm of how outside spending worked nationally, but it also points to the future. Candidates will be forced to start raising money earlier to compete in an arms race with outside groups. Voters will be bombarded with TV ads, mailers and phone calls. And then on Election Day, they will be largely left in the dark, unable to determine who's behind which message.

All told, 64 outside groups poured $21 million into the Montana Senate election, almost as much as the candidates. Party committees spent another $8.9 million on the race.

The groups started spending money a year before either candidate put up a TV ad, defining the issues and marginalizing the role of political parties. In a state where ads were cheap, they took to the airwaves. More TV commercials ran in the Montana race between June and the election than in any other Senate contest nationwide.

The Montana Senate race also shows how liberal groups have learned to play the outside money game — despite griping by Democratic officials about the influence of such organizations.

Liberal outside groups spent $10.2 million on the race, almost as much as conservatives. Conservatives spent almost twice as much from anonymous donors, but the $4.2 million in dark money that liberal groups pumped into Montana significantly outstripped the left's spending in many other races nationwide.

As in other key states, conservative groups devoted the bulk of their money in Montana to TV and radio ads. But sometimes the ads came across as generic and missed their mark.

Liberal groups set up field offices, knocked on doors, featured "Montana" in their names or put horses in their TV ads. Many of them, including Montana Hunters and Anglers, were tied to a consultancy firm where a good friend of Jim Messina, President Barack Obama's campaign manager, is a partner.

The end result? Tester beat Republican Rep. Denny Rehberg by a narrow margin. And the libertarian Cox, who had so little money he didn't even have to report to federal election authorities, picked up more votes than any other libertarian in a competitive race on the Montana ballot.

Montana Republicans blamed Montana Hunters and Anglers, made up of a super PAC and a sister dark money nonprofit, for tipping the race. Even though super PACs have to report their donors, the Montana Hunters and Anglers super PAC functioned almost like a dark money group. Records show its major donors included an environmentalist group that didn't report its donors and two super PACs that in turn raised the bulk of their money from the environmentalist group, other dark money groups and unions.

"Part of what's frustrating to me is I look at Montana Hunters and Anglers and say, 'That is not fair,'" said Bowen Greenwood, executive director for the Montana Republican Party. "I am a hunter. I know plenty of hunters. And Montana hunters don't have their positions. It would be fairer if it was called Montana Environmental Activists. That would change the effect of their ads."

Cox and Tester deny the group's efforts swung the race. No one from Montana Hunters and Anglers returned calls for comment.

Tester, who's argued that all groups spending on elections should disclose their donors and also pushed against super PACs, said he wasn't familiar with any of the outside groups running ads. By law, candidates are not allowed to coordinate with outside spending groups, which are supposed to be independent.

Despite his ambivalence, he said he was glad the outside groups jumped in.

"If we wouldn't have had folks come in on our side, it would have been much tougher to keep a message out there," Tester said. "We had no control over what they were saying. But by the same token, I think probably in the end if you look at it, they were helpful."

* * *

Montana has long prided itself on a refusal to be pigeonholed. It's the kind of place that votes Republican for president but elects Democrats to state office. Politicians wear bolo ties, tout their Montana credentials and use words like "hell" and "crap." People introduce themselves by saying what generation Montanan they are.

Consistently, the state fights against any mandate that smacks of Washington meddling, from the federal speed limit to the Citizens United ruling in early 2010, which opened the door to corporations and unions spending unlimited money on independent ads, echoing an earlier court ruling that equated money with free speech.

Before that, Montana had one of the country's toughest campaign finance laws, dating back 100 years, to the time of the copper kings. After one of those kings bribed state lawmakers to back him as senator, the state banned corporate political spending.

Even after Citizens United, the Montana Supreme Court insisted that Montana's legacy of corruption justified keeping the ban. In June, the U.S. Supreme Court squashed that move, saying the Citizens United decision applied to every state in the nation.

By then, dark money groups were already weighing in on Montana's Senate race.

The TV ads started in March 2011, the month afterRehberg announced. The Environmental Defense Action Fund attacked Rehberg for his stance on mercury emissions. The Electronic Payments Coalition praised Tester for his push to delay implementing new debit-card swipe fees.

"The thing that surprised me a little bit was how early they got involved," said David Parker, an associate professor of political science at Montana State University who tracked all 160 TV commercials as part of a book he is writing on the race. "And I think that was critical, because very early on, they were able to establish the contours of this race. The candidates were just busy putting their organizations together and raising money."

Most of the money spent in 2011 on TV ads came from groups that didn't have to report their donors. They also didn't have to report their ads to the Federal Election Commission, because they didn't specifically tell voters to vote for or against a candidate. Instead of saying "Vote for Rehberg," they said things like "Call Jon Tester. Tell him to stop supporting President Barack Obama." Ads like that only have to be reported to the FEC if they air during the two months before an election.

...

The only way to compile data on such ad spending is by visiting TV stations, which Parker did. ProPublica helped him collect information on the last round of ads.

Parker's data shows that several heavyweight conservative groups entered the fray in mid-2011 to try to cast Tester, whom they saw as vulnerable, as a big spender.

Crossroads GPS, the dark money group launched by GOP strategist Karl Rove, ran two ads in July 2011 similar to those attacking Democrats in other states for supporting excessive spending.

Also that month, a conservative group called Concerned Women for America Legislative Action Committee ran a sarcastic ad about a new miracle drug called "Spenditol," Washington's answer to America's problems. "Call Sen. Jon Tester," the ad said. "Tell him, stop spending it all." Similar ads ran against Democratic senators up for election in tight races in Florida, Nebraska and Ohio.

Several ads run by conservative groups backfired, messing up in ways that irked Montanans.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee — a party committee that reports its donors — ran an ad that appeared to show Tester with all five digits on his left hand. (Tester is well known for having lost three fingers in a childhood accident involving a meat grinder.) The U.S. Chamber of Commerce misspelled Tester's first name. A Montana cable operator yanked a Crossroads ad for claims the operator deemed false.

"The first one that burned me really bad was from the U.S. Chamber," said Verner Bertelsen, a former Republican state legislator and Montana secretary of state. "I thought — you buggers! We don't need you to come in here and tell us who to vote for."

Starting in July 2011, three new liberal dark money groups ran ads. Patriot Majority USA criticized Republicans for allegedly planning to cut Medicare and help to seniors. The Partnership to Protect Medicare praised Tester for opposing Medicare cuts.

And in October, weeks after forming, the dark money side of Montana Hunters and Anglers, Montana Hunters and Anglers Action!, launched its first TV ad, starring Land Tawney, the group's gap-toothed and camouflage-sporting president, who also served on the Sportsmen's Advisory Panel for Tester. At the time, the super PAC side of the group was basically dormant.

The new Hunters ad accused Rehberg of pushing a bill — House bill 1505 — that supposedly would give Washington politicians control of access to public lands in Montana. Rehberg, one of 60 cosponsors, argued the legislation was necessary to help the Department of Homeland Security protect the state from illegal immigrants, drug smugglers and terrorists.

"Nobody in Montana was talking about that bill," Greenwood said. "I've only heard it talked about in campaign ads. And it played a role throughout the election."

* * *

The gusher of outside money into Montana's Senate race was part of a larger pattern.Nationally, in addition to the $5.1 billion spent by candidates and parties, almost 700 outside spending groups dumped more than $1 billion into federal elections in the 2012 cycle, FEC filings show.

Of that, about $322 million was dark money, most of it from 153 social welfare nonprofits, groups that could spend money on politics as long as social welfare — not politics — was their primary purpose.

Relating those numbers to previous elections is a largely pointless exercise, akin to comparing statistics from baseball and lacrosse. The Citizens United ruling changed the game, opening the door to unlimited corporate donations to super PACs and to a new breed of more politically active nonprofits.

"Instead of being in a boxing match in a ring, you're in a dark alley being hit by four or five people, and you don't know who they are," said Michael Sargeant, the executive director of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, which helps Democrats run for state offices.

Some of the players in the 2012 cycle were longtime activist organizations such as the liberal Sierra Club and the conservative National Right to Life Committee, with clear social welfare missions and only a limited amount of political spending. Other dark money groups were juggernauts like Crossroads GPS and Americans for Prosperity, founded years ago by conservative billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, which crank up their fundraising during election years and devote more money to election ads than other nonprofits.

Finding out about some of the less prominent nonprofits was no easy feat. Many were formed out of post-office boxes or law firms. On their applications to the Internal Revenue Service, they minimized or even denied any political activity.

Documents for pop-up nonprofits like the conservative America Is Not Stupid and A Better America Now, both of which formed in 2011, led back to a Florida law firm that offered no explanations. The Citizens for Strength and Security Action Fund, a liberal pop-up group that spent millions on elections in 2010, closed down in 2011. In its place came a new group: the Citizens for Strength and Security Fund, which earlier this year bought almost $900,000 in ads attacking Rehberg and the Republican Senate candidate in New Mexico.

Groups picked names that seemed designed to confuse: Patriot Majority USA is liberal. Patriotic Veterans is conservative. Common Sense Issues backed conservatives. Common Sense Movement backed a Democrat.

As in the 2010 midterms, the dark money spent in 2012 had a partisan tilt. Conservative groups accounted for about 84 percent of the spending reported to the FEC — mainly through Crossroads GPS, Americans for Prosperity and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Liberal groups spent 12 percent of the dark money. Nonpartisan groups made up the rest.

Despite shelling out hundreds of millions of dollars, conservatives lost big. Only about 14 percent of conservative dark money went to support winners.

Still, campaign-finance reformers say it's a mistake to minimize the influence of this money.

"What these donors were buying was access and influence, not only to the candidates but to the party machine," said Paul S. Ryan, senior counsel for the Campaign Legal Center. "And they will get that access. On the Republican side, you have people lining up to kiss the ring of (billionaire donor) Sheldon Adelson. And on the Democratic side, you have even people critical of these groups meeting with the funders of these groups. This money is not going away."

Even though liberal groups spent far less than conservative ones, they had a higher success rate. About 70 percent backed winning candidates.

Some Democrats have shown distaste for the dark-money arts, pushing for more transparency. But liberal strategists are preparing to ramp up their efforts before the next election, unless the IRS, Congress or the courts change the rules.

"We probably have a lot less comfort with some of the existing rules that allow for the Koch brothers to write unlimited checks to these groups," said Navin Nayak, the senior vice president for campaigns at the League of Conservation Voters, a liberal social welfare nonprofit for more than 40 years. "But as long as these are the rules, we're certainly going do our best to make sure we're competitive and that our candidates have a shot at winning. We're certainly not going to cede the playing field to the Koch brothers."

* * *

By the time Tester and Rehberg started buying TV ads, outside groups had been defining the race for a year.

Rehberg, 57, a six-term congressman and rancher often pictured wearing a cowboy hat and a plaid shirt, was portrayed as voting five times to increase his pay and charging an SUV to taxpayers. Tester, 56, a farmer with a flat top, was dinged for voting with Obama 95 percent of the time.

Tester's campaign went up with ads in March, mainly to counter the outside messages.

"The original plans were going up 60 or 90 days later than that," Tester said. "But it was important...We had to remind people of who I am."

His early ads highlighted his Montana roots, depicting him riding a combine on his farm and packing up Montana beef to carry back to Washington.

Rehberg had less money, so his earliest TV ads, which mainly attacked Tester, went up in May.

Neither Rehberg nor anyone from his media staff responded to requests for an interview on his views on campaign finance. In the past, he has said he supports the Citizens United ruling.

Meanwhile, conservative groups bought TV ads that hit at Tester but stopped just short of telling people how to vote. For instance, the conservative 60 Plus Association spent almost $500,000 buying TV ads featuring crooner Pat Boone criticizing Tester over the health care law. None of that was reported to the FEC.

Over the summer, the Concerned Women for America's legislative committee, Crossroads GPS and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce all weighed in. The TV spots were overwhelmingly negative, and many of them were cookie-cutter ads, similar to those that ran in other states against Democrats.

Liberal groups bought TV ads, too, but that was only part of their game plan. They spent their dark money on retail politics, hitting the streets and knocking on doors.

In January, the League of Conservation Voters set up two offices in Montana — one in Missoula and one in Billings. It canvassed voters and hired a full-time organizer, reaching out to 28,000 sporadic voters to urge them to vote early by mail.

Lindsay Love, the spokeswoman at Planned Parenthood Advocates of Montana, another nonprofit that doesn't report its donors for election spending, said the group targeted 41,000 female voters. More than 1,500 people ended up knocking on 28,500 doors and making 162,000 phone calls, she said. The group sent out about 470,000 pieces of mail.

"It's hard to unpack this," Parker said. "But it's fascinating to look at groups like the League, unions and Planned Parenthood. By and large, they did phones, canvassing, mail, very little TV. One of the best ways to get out the vote is personalized contact."

Many liberal groups active in Montana, including Montana Hunters and Anglers, were connected through Hilltop Public Solutions, a Beltway consulting firm.

Barrett Kaiser, a former aide to Montana's other Democratic senator, Max Baucus, is a partner at Hilltop and runs its office in Billings. The Hilltop website notes that Kaiser helped with Tester's upset Senate win in 2006. Kaiser is also a good friend of Messina, the manager of Obama's 2012 campaign, who also once worked for Baucus.

Kaiser was on the board of the Montana Hunters and Anglers dark money group. Another Hilltop employee in Billings served as the treasurer for the Montana Hunters and Anglers super PAC.

Hilltop partners in Washington also helped run two other dark money groups that spent money on the Montana race: the Citizens for Strength and Security Fund and the Partnership to Protect Medicare.

The League of Conservation Voters and Planned Parenthood Advocates of Montana paid management fees to Hilltop.

No one from Hilltop returned calls, but Nayak and Love said they worked with Hilltop independently of other groups.

Outside groups are allowed to coordinate with each other or use the same consultants — they're just not allowed to coordinate with a candidate. By working together, groups can disguise who is actually behind an ad.

In early July, for instance, the League of Conservation Voters gave $410,000 to the Montana Hunters and Anglers super PAC — almost all the money the group raised as of that date.

When the super PAC spent the money on TV ads against Rehberg later that month, the spots were paid for by what appeared to be an organization of Montana hunters, not some Washington-based conservationist group. Nayak said that was not a coincidence.

"We figured having a local brand like that and partnering with them on local issues made more sense than having a D.C. brand," he said.

Nayak said the League did not donate money for the later ads pushing Cox, the libertarian.

It's not clear where that money came from. The dark money side of Montana Hunters and Anglers paid for the radio ads. The super PAC bought the TV ads and had to disclose its donors, but FEC filings show its money came mainly from two other super PACs, which in turn reported getting most of their money from unions and dark money groups, including the League.

* * *

As the Montana Senate race approached its climax, as many as five fliers landed in voters' mailboxes daily. Robocalls, supposedly illegal in Montana, interrupted meals. Strangers knocked on doors, promising free pizza for voting. People turned off their TVs, dumped their mail without looking at it and stopped answering the phone.

"My ex and I moved in together, because he had cancer and I took care of him," said Louise McMillin, 51, who lives in the university district in Missoula. "He kept getting polling calls as he was dying. After he died, I kept saying, 'He's dead, could you take his name off the list?' And they said, 'Sure, sure.' And they kept calling."

The race stayed tight. Demand for TV ad slots spiked, so the TV stations started raising their prices. The law required them to charge candidates their lowest rate. But outside groups? They could be hit up for whatever the market would bear.

Rehberg's campaign paid $400 to run a 30-second ad during the show Blue Bloods on Oct. 19 on the CBS affiliate in Great Falls. A week later, Crossroads GPS paid $2,000 for a slot during the same show.

Anything was fair game for the ads. One, from the super PAC Now Or Never, made fun of Tester's buzz cut, then showed his hair growing down to his shoulders, a bizarre sequence apparently designed to signal his ties to Obama. Another ad, from the dark money group America Is Not Stupid, featured a baby with a gravelly voice saying he didn't know what smelled worse, his diaper or Tester.

"By the middle of October, people were just so tuned out and quite frankly disgusted by all these third-party ads," said Ted Dick, the executive director of the Montana Democratic Party. "We found that face-to-face conversations toward the end were most persuasive and effective. That's the lesson we're taking forward."

There are other lessons. Tester said the Montana race made clear that candidates will have to raise money sooner, and go up with TV ads faster. Although uncomfortable with outside money, Tester also said it's just the way things are now, even on the liberal side.

"I mean, look, they did it," he said. "And with as many ads that were against me, I was glad they did. But it needs to be transparent. I mean, everybody's needs to be transparent... It's important to know who's spending money on who so you know why they're doing it. And the way the system is set up right now, there is no transparency. Very little."

Campaign finance reformers agree that knowing who is behind a message helps people assess it.

One example: Two postcards sent to thousands of Montanans just before the election didn't include the required notice saying who paid for them. One said Rehberg had wasted "hundreds of millions of our tax dollars on pork barrel projects," and urged people to vote for Cox, "a champion for fiscal responsibility." The other called Rehberg "the king of pork" and told people to vote for Cox.

Cox said he didn't send them. The bulk-mail permit on the postcards came back to a Las Vegas company called PDQ Printing, according to the U.S. Postal Service. In an online manual, PDQ describes itself as "Nevada's preeminent Union printer." No one there returned phone calls.

Greenwood, the head of the Montana Republican Party, filed a complaint with the FEC over the mailers. The complaint blames liberal groups and says they "engaged in a duplicitous strategy of supporting the libertarian candidate, Dan Cox, in a desperate attempt" to siphon votes from Rehberg.

More than likely, that complaint won't be resolved for years.

Greenwood said he didn't think disclosure was a cure-all. But he also said the current system marginalized political parties.

"Whether it's Montana Hunters and Anglers or (the conservative super PAC) American Crossroads, they are not responsive to the grassroots," Greenwood said. "These are the professionals and the money men who are not responsive at all to people. The system as it is now does not reflect what people want."

Besides picking between Tester and Rehberg, Montanans got a chance in this election to say how they want the system to work. On the ballot was an initiative — largely symbolic in light of recent court decisions — that declared that corporations are not human beings and banned corporate money in politics.

Gov. Schweitzer, a Democrat, and Bertelsen, the former Republican secretary of state, campaigned for the initiative. In a shocker for backers, almost 75 percent of voters supported it.

"I realized it absolutely didn't have any legal basis to do anything dramatic," said Bertelsen, who is 94. "But it's a case of saying, 'We don't like it.' I guess we could just sit down and not say a word. But the Supreme Court — I think they made a mistake. Money isn't speech, anyhow. It's just money."

Correction (12/27): This story originally said that the libertarian candidate Dan Cox picked up more votes than any other libertarian on the Montana ballot. He actually picked up more votes than any other libertarian in a competitive race on the Montana ballot.

bucks cit united http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/04/citizens-united-montana-supreme-court-corporate-spending_n_1182168.html

http://www.democracynow.org/2012/6/27/citizens_united_part_2_supreme_court:

American Tradition Partnership, a conservative nonprofit that fights so-called "environmental extremism," argued the state’s ban violates the 2010 ruling that allowed corporations to spend unlimited amounts in federal elections.

http://www.prwatch.org/print/11610

“The question presented in this case is whether the holding of Citizens United applies to the Montana state law,” the opinion said. “There can be no serious doubt that it does.” Montana’s arguments, the opinion continued, “either were already rejected in Citizens United, or fail to meaningfully distinguish that case.”

The four members of the court’s liberal wing dissented in an opinion by Justice Stephen G. Breyer, who said that Citizens United itself had been a mistake.

“Even if I were to accept Citizens United,” Justice Breyer continued, “this court’s legal conclusion should not bar the Montana Supreme Court’s finding, made on the record before it, that independent expenditures by corporations did in fact lead to corruption or the appearance of corruption in Montana. Given the history and political landscape in Montana, that court concluded that the state had a compelling interest in limiting independent expenditures by corporations.”

Justice Breyer added, “Montana’s experience, like considerable experience elsewhere since the court’s decision in Citizens United, casts grave doubt on the court’s supposition that independent expenditures do not corrupt or appear to do so.”

Critics of the Supreme Court’s campaign finance rulings attacked Monday’s decision, saying Citizens United had led to unprecedented levels of outside money pouring into the presidential campaign and races for the House and Senate — the vast majority of it raised not from corporations but from wealthy individuals and spent by “super PACs” and other independent groups.

Democrats in Congress have proposed measures to rein in campaign spending, strengthen disclosure requirements and even amend the Constitution to reverse Citizens United.

In Montana, the State Supreme Court had ruled that the state’s distinctive history and characteristics warranted a departure from the principles announced in Citizens United.

Chief Justice Mike McGrath of the Montana Supreme Court, writing for the majority in its 5-to-2 ruling, stressed that the state’s experience of having its political system corrupted by corporate interests early in the 20th century justified the ruling.

“At that time,” Chief Justice McGrath wrote, “the state of Montana and its government were operating under a mere shell of legal authority, and the real social and political power was wielded by powerful corporate managers to further their own business interests. The voters had more than enough of the corrupt practices and heavy-handed influence asserted by the special interests controlling Montana’s political institutions.”

This year, by coincidence, in a hotly contested election for a United States Senate seat in Montana, Senator Jon Tester, a Democrat, has been the target of $2.6 million in spending by outside groups. On Monday, he said that the Supreme Court decision had “rolled back Montana 100 years, back to the time literally when millionaires and billionaires bought elections, and they did it under the guise of free speech, which is crazy.”

In February, two of the dissenters in Citizens United — Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, joined by Justice Breyer — issued a statement explaining that “lower courts are bound to follow this court’s decisions until they are withdrawn or modified.”

They added, though, that the United States Supreme Court should use the Montana case to consider the aftermath of Citizens United. The case, they wrote, was “an opportunity to consider whether, in light of the huge sums deployed to buy candidates’ allegiance, Citizens United should continue to hold sway.”...http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/26/us/supreme-court-declines-to-revisit-citizens-united.html

Wise Use?

gangs of america: SPEECH = MONEY

Consider the case of Montana. For nearly a century, the state of

Montana was run as a virtual colony by the aptly named Anaconda

Copper Company. Anaconda was born in 1895 out of set of mergers

that followed an intense power struggle for industry dominance known

as the War of the Copper Kings, some of it literally fought as physical

combat in the tunnels of the mines at Butte in the 1890s. The company

had a tradition of corruption and hard-ball political tactics. At one point,

displeased with the decision of a state judge in favor of one of its rivals,

Anaconda shut down all its mines and smelters in the state for three

weeks, cutting off thousands of workers from their paychecks, until the

governor called a special session of the legislature to pass a new bill that

183

resolved the dispute in favor of the company. Over the next sixty years,

Anaconda maintained its grip on the state, owning all but one major

state newspaper and continuing to dominate the Montana legislature.

While Anaconda’s mines and smelters devastated large tracts of the

state, the company’s political allies quashed attempts to enact legislation

to protect the health of the state’s citizens. Other mining companies

took advantage of the anything-goes regulatory environment created by

Anaconda, with tragic results.

In the town of Libby, Montana, the W. R. Grace Company operated

a vermiculite mine that spewed 5,000 pounds of highly toxic asbestos

dust into the air every day, according to the company’s own tests.

The connection between asbestos and fatal lung disease had been

known since the 1920s, but efforts by the company to protect its employees

from exposure were minimal at best. Internal reports documenting

the problem were concealed, and the company told workers that the

type of asbestos contained in the mine’s dust was a non-hazardous variety.

By the 1960s, the evidence had become impossible to ignore: numerous

workers in Libby were dying slow, excruciating deaths caused

by debilitating lung ailments including fatal asbestosis (a thickening and

hardening of the lung tissue), mesothelioma (cancer of the lung’s lining),

and lung cancer (cancer of the lung itself). An x-ray survey in

1969 showed that almost half of the people who had worked at the mine

for 11 to 20 years had lung disease; among workers with 21 to 25 years

tenure, the rate was 92 percent. In 1999, a survey by the Seattle Post-

Intelligencer confirmed 192 deaths, with an additional 375 people diagnosed

with fatal lung disease.

At the root of the appalling conditions in Libby and elsewhere was

the political power of the mining industry. A former Bureau of Mines

inspector told the Post-Intelligencer: “You would have to have bodies

stacked like cordwood and the public screaming for someone’s head

before we could get the government’s lawyers to do anything.”

In the 1970s, a window opened briefly, as Anaconda turned its attention

to more lucrative mining opportunities in Chile and other countries.

With the grip of the company loosened, a coalition of ranchers,

184 environmentalists, labor unions, and others succeeded in enacting a new

state constitution as well as a series of stronger environmental laws. In

1996, the coalition, assisted by campaign-finance reformers from other

states, undertook the ambitious project of excluding corporate money

from citizen ballot initiatives.

Campaigning from the backs of pickup trucks, at barbeques, town

meetings, and county fairs around the states, activists gathered signatures

proposing a ballot initiative that would prohibit corporations from

spending general funds in connection with any future ballot initiatives.

Despite heavy corporate opposition, Initiative 125 passed with 52 percent

of the vote.

Initiative 125 changed the fundamental terms of Montana politics,

allowing activists to consider putting measures on the ballot that otherwise

would have been unthinkable because of the financial resources of

the mining industry. Proposals could now be debated in the civic

arena?via editorials, talk shows, public debates, door-to-door leafleting.

A corporation could not rely on an expensive television and radio

advertising blitz to present its case.

Two years after the passage of the campaign finance initiative, a

ballot initiative was placed on the ballot that banned the use of cyanide

in gold mining. After a vigorous debate, the law was passed. At this

point, Montana’s corporations played their trump card, arguing in federal

court that Initiative 125 violated the First Amendment. The federal

judges agreed, citing the 1978 First National Bank v. Bellotti decision

in which the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a similar Massachusetts

statute. Ruling in favor of the Montana Chamber of Commerce in the

case of Montana Chamber of Commerce v. Argenbright, the U.S. 9th

Circuit Court of Appeals declared Montana’s I-125 to be unconstitutional.

How did the First Amendment become a tool for striking down

grassroots campaign finance reform? The answer lies in a series of U. S.

Supreme Court decisions between 1976 and 1986. Since several of these

decisions were written by Justice Lewis Powell, it is noteworthy to re...

GANGS OF AMERICA

Summer camp for judges?

alec:

Dee Brown R, Montana House of Representatives[46]

Roy Brown R, former Majority Leader and Majority Whip Montana Senate, losing candidate for Governor of Montana in 2010 by 4 votes in a recount[46]

Sharon Carson R, formerly Montana Senate[20]

Patrick Connell R, Montana House of Representatives[16]

Kris Hansen R, Montana House of Representatives[52]

Dennis Himmelberger R, Montana House of Representatives[46]

Roy Hollandsworth R, Montana House of Representatives[16]

David Howard R, Montana House of Representatives[20]

Verdell Jackson R, Montana Senate[16]

Llewelyn Jones R, Montana House of Representatives[17]

Steve Lavin R, MontanaHouse of Representatives[23]

Gary MacLaren R, Montana House of Representatives[4]

Tom McGillvray R, Montana House of Representatives[20]

Mike Miller R, Montana House of Representatives[46]

Michael More R, Montana House of Representatives[46]

Amy Stasia Perkins R, Montana Senate[20]

Lawrence Perkins R, Montana Senate[20]

Ken Peterson R, Montana House of Representatives[20][46]

Lee Randall R, Montana House of Representatives[16]

Scott Reichner R, Montana House of Representatives[4]

Cary Smith R, Montana House of Representatives[46]

Wendy Warburton R, Montana House of Representatives[16]