This post is from WTF406.com’s archives. You can see other archived posts by searching on a name or topic on WTF406.com’s landing page. Please hit the subscribe button if you are not already a subscriber. This post ran on April 1, 2025.
Like most large corporations, Calumet/Montana Renewables hires law firms with well-connected lawyers. Here in Montana, it is Browning, Kaleczyc, Berry and Hoven (BKBH), a Helena-based “silk stocking” law firm. Their attorneys use law and politics to help the corporation comply with the law, maximize profits, and avoid paying taxes.
Calumet Gets Property Tax Breaks Every Year
A prime example is Calumet/Montana Renewables’ repeated appeals of their property tax valuations. They have appealed their property valuations every single year since 2017. These appeals have resulted in significant reductions to their valuations resulting in lower property taxes in every case. In five separate appeals between 2017 and 2021, the average valuation reduction Calumet/Montana Renewables received each year was $107,123,622. There are currently appeals still pending for the last three years.
When a large business like Calumet/Montana Renewables, the largest property taxpayer in Cascade County, files a property tax appeal, local governments are forced to delay adopting budgets. They cannot be sure how much revenue will come in based on new valuations. But when an appeal is settled through negotiation, as these have been, there is no complete record of findings. The parties (Department of Revenue and Calumet/Montana Renewables) simply agree on a number.
Fitzpatrick’s Special Tax Legislation
More concerning is the activity of a BKBH attorney and Republican state Senator representing Great Falls, Steve Fitzpatrick. To our knowledge, Fitzpatrick is not directly employed by Calumet. But he is a “shareholder ” in the firm, which derives significant revenue from Calumet.
In the 2023 legislative session, Fitzpatrick introduced Senate Bill 510, titled “Provide Property tax incentives for alternative fuel production.” This new law changed the process for receiving tax “abatement” for Calumet/Montana Renewables. Now only the county has the authority to approve forgiving property taxes. But requests for abatement cannot be denied by the county commissioners. The county can only decide to give up 80%, 90% or 100%. In March, the county commission voted to give Calumet/Montana Renewables the minimum, 80%. The abatement phases out after five years.
This year’s action comes on top of a 50% abatement Montana Renewables is already receiving. The city estimates that the previous abatement cost the city $2.77 million in lost revenue. No figures were available from the county for the same period.
The Whole Plant is Air Pollution Control Equipment?
Fitzpatrick’s bill also added language which defined virtually all of Montana Renewables’ plant as tax-exempt “air pollution control equipment.” Naturally, Montana Renewables then applied to the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) for the exemption of the $430 million plant. DEQ denied the application, approving only 8% of their request. Calumet/Montana Renewables appealed DEQ’s decision to the Montana Tax Appeals Board. A decision is pending.
These Special Breaks Cost The Rest Of US
The stakes in this game are very high. A full tax exemption for Montana Renewables could erase more than $1.5 million in proceeds to schools, $1.8 million for the City of Great Falls, and $1.1 million for Cascade County. If this case is resolved by “negotiated settlement,” we may never know what justifies this huge tax give away.
As mentioned before, Fitzpatrick is a “shareholder” in (BKBH). Many of the principals in this firm are well established figures in the legal community with numerous connections in both political parties. BKBH provides lobbying services to clients as well as legal representation.
One of Calumet’s attorneys at BKBH is Kimberly Beatty, the wife of the current director of the Montana Department of Revenue, Brendan Beatty. The Department of Revenue website says he operates the family ranch as well. Brendan Beatty filed a potential conflict of interest disclosure with the Montana Commissioner of Political Practices as required by administrative rules.
It Should Make You Go, “Hmmm”
Beatty certainly is paid for her work for Calumet/Montana Renewables. We can’t say if Fitzpatrick has ever received direct payment from Calumet/Montana Renewables. Even if he did, it likely would not be illegal. Fitzpatrick and Beatty are “shareholders” in BKBH. In theory both benefit from the firm’s work for Calumet/Montana Renewables. In these times of political influence peddling and big corporations dodging taxes, it’s just one of those things that makes you go hmmm. . . .
This post is from WTF406.com’s archives. You can see other archived posts by searching on a name or topic on WTF406.com’s landing page. Please hit the subscribe button if you are not already a subscriber. This post ran on January 23, 2026.
Former legislator Steven Galloway has filed to run in senate district 11 in Cascade County. This video of Galloway at some Trump event says it all. If this offends you, consider running yourself. The deadline for filing is March 4th.
This post is from WTF406.com’s archives. You can see other archived posts by searching on a name or topic on WTF406.com’s landing page. Please hit the subscribe button if you are not already a subscriber. This post ran on August 8, 2025.
Let’s talk about “moderate” Republicans. I’ve been hearing about this perspective for years. Some political “experts” think we should support moderate Republicans when they run for districts that are an uphill battle for Democrats. This is different from the calls for voting in a Republican primary to help ensure a more reasonable politician is elected as the blog previously discussed here. Instead, the moderate Republican strategy I’m talking about includes: not investing in Democrats, not supporting Democrats in general elections, not endorsing Democratic candidates, even all the way up to voting for a Republican in a general election.
Rather than recruiting a strong Democrat and trying to put it all on the field, some people believe it is a winning strategy to not even put up a fight, roll over and give the win to a moderate. “At least we can elect someone that is easy to work with!” So….does that strategy payoff? Do these Republicans vote more moderately? Is it preferable to throw support behind a moderate Republican rather than trying to help a Democrat in a lop-sided race?
I’m going to have to say HELL NO. There’s a reason why Wayne Gretzky said, “you miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take.” If you want to make in-roads in a district, you actually have to work on building relationships with the voters in that district.
But another aspect of “at least we elected a moderate” is that THEY AREN’T MODERATE. Over and over again we have seen that the people who are willing to run for office as a Republican in these times are extremists. Sure, they might throw you a bone and help Medicaid expansion get across the finish line (as they did in 2025), but they throw working people and marginalized groups under the bus every day. We’ve written about GOP bigotry of the moderates and MAGA in 2023, but here we are again!
I mean just take a look at how our Great Falls area Republicans voted during the 2025 Legislative Session.
Great Falls Area Republican Legislators
First, here is your list of Great Falls area Republican Legislators with their moderate or MAGA label. The Moderate descriptor is based on participation in the Solutions Caucus, support by the Conservatives4MT PAC, and/or community perspective.
How did they vote? (Shocker – Against us and our future)
In the following table, some key votes of moderate Great Falls area Republicans are listed. Bill descriptions are listed on the left. State Senators Trebas and Emrich are consistently MAGA bigots, and they voted the wrong way on every one of the following bills. Their votes are not shown in the table. Votes are coded with a green color when they are bipartisan and pro-working people.
As you can see in the table, in the vast majority of cases, so-called moderate Republicans vote with the Republican caucus and against the people. If you’re looking for more data on how these clowns voted, you can check out the deeper dive by the Daily Montanan here.
Any Good News? What about the Democrats?
It’s worth noting that our lone Democratic legislator in the Great Falls area, Jane Weber, voted the kind, forward-thinking way on all of these bills. I also give some credit to Republican Senator Wendy McKamey for voting against her caucus significantly more frequently than any other Great Falls area Republican.
It was good to see that Medicaid Expansion in Montana lived another day with the 2025 legislature. But the Big Ugly Bill passed by our federal government (also run by Republicans) just made giant cuts to Medicaid. So what is the benefit to electing moderates when we expect nearly 40,000 Montanans to lose insurance? Sure doesn’t seem like the payoff for ditching Democrats to support Republican Lite is worth it.
What should I do to help turn things around?
Inform yourself when politicians ask for your vote. Is the way they vote kind to you or your neighbors? Is it kind to attack our environment and attack our freedoms to be who we are and to have bodily autonomy? Is that the future you want? I sure don’t.
It is a lot easier to sleep at night when you know that your elected representatives have your back. (Rather than have a knife in your back.) Let’s put up a left leaning candidate in every district and try to build some real momentum away from the rightward slide of Montana and our country. And whoever gets elected, let’s continue to pressure them to do the right thing.
With great fanfare, Governor Gianforte announced a “public engagement campaign” to promote a “flat income tax” in Montana. The idea is simple: Republicans want to eliminate our current multi-tiered income tax and replace it with one 4.7% rate for everyone, regardless of their income.
The result of this proposal is a big income-tax break for wealthy taxpayers and a big, fat nothing for you if you make less than $91,000 per year. Same old trickle-down BS.
Understanding the Relative Value of a Dollar
The concept of a flat tax sounds good. Everyone ends up paying the same rate regardless of their income. Sounds fair, right?
It’s not.
Economists use the term “marginal utility” to explain the fact that one dollar is worth more or less to individuals depending on their income. Put bluntly, it refers to the fact that very wealthy people do not value a dollar the same way a person farther down the income scale does.
Business Insider actually crunched the numbers and found that the value of one dollar for an average American equates to $1,355 for the average billionaire.
Most people understand that wealthy people often don’t count their pennies like the rest of us. Of course not. They don’t have to worry about it.
Think about the last time you made a major purchase. Most of us start by deciding what we can afford. Imagine how different it would be if you didn’t have to worry about the price.
Outside Groups to Run the Montana “Public Engagement Campaign” for a Flat Tax
Standing next to Governor Gianforte at the press event announcing the campaign to promote the flat tax were Jack Baum from the D.C.-based group Americans for Tax Reform and Chris Cargill, president of the Idaho-based group Mountain States Policy Center. Both groups are part of a national network of right-wing organizations promoting a menu of “economic reforms.”
Americans for Tax Reform was founded by Grover Norquist, who is currently president of the group. Norquist is probably best known for a comment he made in 2001. He told a reporter, “I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.”
Mountain States Policy Center is based in Idaho. It is a member of a national group called the State Policy Network (SPN). A report by the Center for Media and Democracy found that the group had a budget of $152 million in 2022.
The State Policy Network claims to be nonpartisan and independent. But it is funded by the Koch brothers and other right-wing funders. The group is also a major driver of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which develops model legislation to implement right-wing policies and disseminates them to state legislators and lobbyists.
The Mountain States Policy Center appears occasionally on Montana editorial pages, promoting its version of free-market economics and public policy.
Former Montana Law School professor Rob Natelson is listed as one of the organization’s “research fellows.” He authored a report recommending that Montana hold a constitutional convention because he believes there are flaws in our current constitution.
Natelson has a long and controversial history in Montana. He left the University of Montana Law School under a cloud of controversy. He was unpopular with his colleagues, who voted to deny him emeritus status. He also sued the law school, alleging that he had been discriminated against because of his conservative views.
In 1996, Natelson ran for governor against Marc Racicot in the Republican primary. He received less than 25% of the vote. In 2000, he ran again and was defeated by Judy Martz in the Republican primary.
Flat Tax Likely to Be Center Stage in the Next Legislature
The Gianforte administration and its out-of-state hired guns are clearly setting the stage for the next legislature.
If you make less than $91,000 a year, the proposal offers you nothing but the continued shoveling of money into the pockets of the people at the top of the income ladder.
