Balyeat, J

<h1 style="font-size: 24px; outline: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 27px; background-image: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); float: none !important;">Sen. Joe Balyeat resigns from post</h1><p style="font-size: 16.799999237060547px; outline: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 24px; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; background-image: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); float: none !important;">Michael Tucker, Editor | Posted: Friday, June 8, 2012 12:49 pm<p style="font-size: 16.799999237060547px; outline: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 24px; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; background-image: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); float: none !important;">With about one half-year left on his term, state Sen. Joe Balyeat said he is stepping down.<p style="font-size: 16.799999237060547px; outline: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 24px; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; background-image: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); float: none !important;">Balyeat is term-limited and said his busy schedule is the cause of his resignation. He is not leaving for any other reason, he said.<p style="font-size: 16.799999237060547px; outline: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 24px; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; background-image: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); float: none !important;">“I have a lot of things going on,” he said Thursday. “I have a lot of different jobs.”<p style="font-size: 16.799999237060547px; outline: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 24px; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; background-image: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); float: none !important;">Balyeat has served in both the House and the Senate for a dozen years.<p style="font-size: 16.799999237060547px; outline: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 24px; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; background-image: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); float: none !important;">He turned in his resignation to Linda McCulloch, Montana Secretary of State, and Senate President Jim Peterson on June 4.<p style="font-size: 16.799999237060547px; outline: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 24px; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; background-image: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); float: none !important;">(His resignation letter is printed on page A8.)<p style="font-size: 16.799999237060547px; outline: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 24px; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; background-image: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); float: none !important;">Balyeat is known for his hunting passion and for tax reform among others.<p style="font-size: 16.799999237060547px; outline: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 24px; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; background-image: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); float: none !important;">“I’ve never been enamored with the title of ‘Senator,’ and have always viewed my office from a functional perspective,” he wrote adding later “I feel I’ve accomplished some considerable reforms during my nearly 12-year tenure in the Montana legislature.”<p style="font-size: 16.799999237060547px; outline: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 24px; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; background-image: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); float: none !important;">He said he will remain politically active, but as a resident.<p style="font-size: 16.799999237060547px; outline: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 24px; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; background-image: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); float: none !important;">=<p style="font-size: 16.799999237060547px; outline: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 24px; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; background-image: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); float: none !important;">cowgirl:A WINGNUT AND PRAYERTEA Party Republican Joe BalyeatJoe Balyeat has resigned from the Bat Crap Crazy Legislature to become the new leader of the Montana TEA Party. The Washington D.C. TEA Party booster club Americans for Prosperity has struggled with keeping and finding leaders since it started meddling in Montana politics in 2009.  Now, the group has quietly instated its fourth new leader in less than three years. Henry Kriegel, Jake Eaton, and  Scott Sales, have all come and gone,  making the organization less about pretending that the TEA Party is a grassroots phenomena and more of a contest to see who can be America’s Next Top Crackpot.  So Joe Balyeat it is.Balyeat’s first acts as the new TEA Party leader include sending out a robo-call on behalf of TEA Party Dennis Rehberg, which can be heard here.  A leaked photo of Balyeat’s remodel of the TEA Party offices [hilarious tinfoil wrap]can be seen below. (Don’t tell anyone where you got this, I don’t want AFP to know I have a tipster on the inside.)Montana Cowgirl Blog readers know Joe Balyeat well.  For some reason, however, the TEA Party’s official biography of Balyeat does not mention that he’s the author of “Babylon: The Great City of Revelation,” (from $7.95 used on Amazon.com) which attempts to make the teabaggers’ case that if Christians don’t get involved in politics, “not only will hell prevail against us, but abortionists and homosexuals and humanists and pornographers and tin-horn TV networks will as well.”A leaked photo of Joe Balyeat's first work as Americans for Prosperity directorShortly after Balyeat’s world class work of non-fiction was published, Balyeat became vice-president of the Christian Coalition of Montana.  This was the group that fought to uphold Montana’s unconstitutional law that actually made it illegal to be gay in our state.  When a Montana court struck down the law making it illegal to be gay in the 1990s, the Christian Coalition was outraged, saying that the law making gay people illegal was “a necessary health and safety statute.”  Balyeat is also known for introducing a bill to require creationism to be taught in schools.  His bill failed in committee even though Republicans controlled the legislature by a wide margin.<div>Balyeat’s TEA Party bio doesn’t mention Balyeat’s attempts to declare war on Montana voters with a myriad of failed and legally flawed ballot initiatives.  In 2006, Balyeat was behind the infamous ballot initiative scandal in which three initiatives were stricken from the ballot after a judge cited “pervasive fraud in the signature gathering process.” (CI-97 would have arbitrarily limited state spending, CI98 allowed for recalling judges for any old reason, and I-154 would have made governments pay corporations if they passed consumer health and safety laws which the big wigs claimed limited their profits.)  This year, the courts rejected two more of Balyeat’s ballot measures: to restrict the ability of every Montanan to vote in all Supreme Court justice races and to gut the Montana budget with a tax give-away to big corporations.
Anyway, it seems Balyeat’s former pursuits weren’t wacky enough so he went looking for another fringe cause.   He definitely found it in Americans for Prosperity.==mediatrackers<strong class="state" style="text-rendering: optimizelegibility; box-sizing: border-box; display: block; line-height: 1em; text-transform: uppercase; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-transition: all 0.1s ease; transition: all 0.1s ease; color: rgb(65, 65, 65); font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14.399999618530273px;">MONTANA<h1 style="text-rendering: optimizelegibility; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; font-family: ProximaN, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1em; color: rgb(65, 65, 65); transition: all 0.1s ease; -webkit-transition: all 0.1s ease;">Former Senator Joe Balyeat Announced as New State Director for Americans for Prosperity</h1><p class="byline" style="text-rendering: optimizelegibility; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; -webkit-transition: all 0.1s ease; transition: all 0.1s ease; color: rgb(65, 65, 65); font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14.399999618530273px; line-height: 22px;">By: <a href="http://mediatrackers.org/author/garrettlenderman" title="Posts by Garrett Lenderman" rel="author" style="text-rendering: optimizelegibility; box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(0, 136, 204); text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.1s ease; -webkit-transition: all 0.1s ease;">Garrett Lenderman</a> | <time datetime="2012-06-13" style="text-rendering: optimizelegibility; box-sizing: border-box; transition: all 0.1s ease; -webkit-transition: all 0.1s ease;">June 13, 2012</time><p style="text-rendering: optimizelegibility; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 22px; -webkit-transition: all 0.1s ease; transition: all 0.1s ease; color: rgb(65, 65, 65); font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14.399999618530273px; line-height: 22px;">Former state senator Joe Belyeat recently resigned his Montana seat to become the state director for Americans for Prosperity Montana (AFP). Balyeat stated in his letter to Secretary of State Linda McCulloch that his decision to leave was based on saving taxpayers money and related to numerous commitments outside of the legislature.<p style="text-rendering: optimizelegibility; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 22px; -webkit-transition: all 0.1s ease; transition: all 0.1s ease; color: rgb(65, 65, 65); font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14.399999618530273px; line-height: 22px;">“I felt like the AFP thing was coming to pass, and I wouldn’t have been able to do everything on my plate if it were to come to pass,” Balyeat said in a telephone interview. “I was thinking for quite some time that I was going to resign close to the Republican primary– just because I had so many things going on, and my job was basically done.”<p style="text-rendering: optimizelegibility; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 22px; -webkit-transition: all 0.1s ease; transition: all 0.1s ease; color: rgb(65, 65, 65); font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14.399999618530273px; line-height: 22px;">The average salary for a state senator while in session comes out to about $7,436, and while out of session, senators are not paid a salary, but instead receive travel compensation — despite many legislators serving commitments within interim committees.<p style="text-rendering: optimizelegibility; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 22px; -webkit-transition: all 0.1s ease; transition: all 0.1s ease; color: rgb(65, 65, 65); font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14.399999618530273px; line-height: 22px;">According to 990 reports, full-time state directors for AFP make anywhere from $84,000 to $108,000 each year, but it seems Balyeat was financially sound before the AFP job offer.<p style="text-rendering: optimizelegibility; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 22px; -webkit-transition: all 0.1s ease; transition: all 0.1s ease; color: rgb(65, 65, 65); font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14.399999618530273px; line-height: 22px;">“I’m a CPA, an author, a landlord, control real estate projects, and a couple of other things I’m not even remembering right now,” Balyeat told Media Trackers Montana.<p style="text-rendering: optimizelegibility; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 22px; -webkit-transition: all 0.1s ease; transition: all 0.1s ease; color: rgb(65, 65, 65); font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14.399999618530273px; line-height: 22px;">The former senator further explained that he would have resigned earlier had he not felt that there was a chance that the legislature would be called into a special session before the primary election.<p style="text-rendering: optimizelegibility; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 22px; -webkit-transition: all 0.1s ease; transition: all 0.1s ease; color: rgb(65, 65, 65); font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14.399999618530273px; line-height: 22px;">Balyeat served on the Economic Affairs Interim Committee, which has been debating state implementation of ObamaCare this week in Helena. The committee’s meeting yesterday was held without Balyeat’s replacement on the committee, Republican Sen. Terry Murphy.<p style="text-rendering: optimizelegibility; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 22px; -webkit-transition: all 0.1s ease; transition: all 0.1s ease; color: rgb(65, 65, 65); font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14.399999618530273px; line-height: 22px;">“My resignation did not leave the committee short handed — that was the first thing I sought to get done,” stated Balyeat. “I talked with our majority leader and the committee on committees and got their assurances that they would appoint a replacement.”<p style="text-rendering: optimizelegibility; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 22px; -webkit-transition: all 0.1s ease; transition: all 0.1s ease; color: rgb(65, 65, 65); font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14.399999618530273px; line-height: 22px;">Balyeat said he wasn’t sure why Sen. Murphy had not made it to the interim committee meetings.<p style="text-rendering: optimizelegibility; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 22px; -webkit-transition: all 0.1s ease; transition: all 0.1s ease; color: rgb(65, 65, 65); font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14.399999618530273px; line-height: 22px;">The Secretary of State’s spokeswoman Teri McCoy issued a statement to the Bozeman Chronicle last week that they will announce this week whether or not Balyeat’s seat will be filled before the general election.<p style="text-rendering: optimizelegibility; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 22px; -webkit-transition: all 0.1s ease; transition: all 0.1s ease; color: rgb(65, 65, 65); font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14.399999618530273px; line-height: 22px;">Editors Note 6/13/2012 1:03 PM: Balyeat called to state that the salary from AFP was not a factor in his decision to resign his seat. He also stated that the salary figures from the 990 reports do not reflect his own salary, and suggested that they are below what was stated. <p style="text-rendering: optimizelegibility; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 22px; -webkit-transition: all 0.1s ease; transition: all 0.1s ease; color: rgb(65, 65, 65); font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14.399999618530273px; line-height: 22px;">Editors Note 6/13/2012 1:27 PM: After another phone call with Balyeat, “I talked with our majority leader, committee, and committees and got their assurances…” was changed to “I talked with our majority leader and the committee on committees…”, due to a misunderstanding during our interview with Balyeat. Balyeat also stated that due to the spontaneity of the interview, when he stated, “…my job was basically done.” he meant to say ,” my job with the senate was basically done.”</div>