OOOOPS!
Republican candidate for Superintendent of Schools, Susie Hedalen, recently published this endorsement ad on Facebook. Aside from using a photo of an anti-public education Governor, can you spot what’s wrong with this picture?
Remember, dear Susie is hoping we’ll elect her to run our public schools. Does this “endorsement annoucment” fill you with confidence in Susie’s skills?
Here’s a video of Matt Rosendale standing in front of Judith Gap wind mills not turning during Montana’s recent extreme weather event. Matt wants us to know that windmills don’t generate power when there is no wind (duh!). He explains that is why we can’t rely on wind power to meet our energy needs. Rosendale and his ilk make the same point about solar power. https://twitter.com/i/status/1746208420871688233
What Rosendale left out of his propaganda pitch is the fact that the coal plants at Colstrip were “curtailed” during the same severe weather event, producing about half of their capacity for a week before he posted his video. He also failed to mention that a natural gas hub in Washington State also went off the line at the same time. https://dailymontanan.com/2024/01/18/montana-could-be-a-leader-in-energy-but-weve-fallen-behind/
The reality is that the more different kinds of power generation we have feeding the grid the less likely outages are. But far-right officials like Rosendale can’t be saying that, because it would be supporting DIVERSITY, and we can’t have that can we?
Public Service Commission Chair, James Brown, announced that he is running for State Auditor in the 2024 election cycle. Last cycle he ran unsuccessfully for the Supreme Court in one of the sleaziest campaigns in recent memory. In that race, Brown was dogged by allegations that he repeatedly violated the rules prohibiting partisan endorsements in judicial races. https://montanafreepress.org/2022/05/25/republican-support-stacks-up-in-montana-supreme-court-race/
The court race was not the first time Brown played fast and loose with campaign law. When he ran for PSC in 2020, there were questions raised about his claiming residence in Dillon. Specifically, Brown owned a home and operated a law practice in Helena, which is outside his PSC district. But in his candidate filing, he used a Dillon post office box. In Brown’s candidate filing, he lists a Dillon post office box as his mailing address. In his corporate filing for his law practice, he wrote that his home address was in Helena. He argued that he lived in a house in Dillon with his cousin. But when asked how much time he spent in Dillon by the Bozeman Daily Chronicle, he refused to answer, saying it was not “relevant.”
https://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/news/complaint-filed-against-psc-candidate-disputing-residency/article_b905ad5d-c43e-56b7-b117-115b300681db.html
After winning election to the PSC and being chosen as PSC chair, Brown was caught up in a scandal regarding audit exceptions found at the PSC by legislative auditors. While the allegations in the audit report occurred before Brown was on the commission, he was called to legislative committee hearings to respond to questions from legislators about what was going on at the PSC. He initially refused to provide the name of a fellow commissioner who had booked a $1,400 first class plane ticket to Washington DC. He later identified the commissioner, former chairman Brad Johnson. (Johnson is currently running for US Senate.) https://montanafreepress.org/2021/06/08/psc-rebuked-for-legislative-audit/
In addition to Brown’s adventures in the electoral arena, he has a long history of activity in the world of dark money in politics. He was the attorney for a group called the Western Tradition Partnership. The activities of this group came to light when a box of documents were found in a meth house in Colorado, which detailed a laundry list of political dirty tricks in Montana and was the subject for a PBS documentary titled Dark Money. Brown also served as the lawyer for the Montana Republican Party from 2009 to 2015. (https://www.pbs.org/pov/films/darkmoney/
For those who think these kinds of things are just politics as usual consider this. Brown was the chair of the Public Service Commission when it approved a 28% rate increase for consumers, siding with NorthWestern Energy over numerous public interest organizations. He now wants the State Auditor’s job regulating the insurance industry in Montana. Elections really do matter.
By Ken Toole
Greg Gianforte’s selection of Republican Legislator Paul Green to lead the Department of Commerce is being questioned by a long-time Democratic political leader. In a letter to the Daily Montanan and Montana Free Press, the former Chair of the Public Service Commission and Democratic Senator from Chinook Greg Jergeson wrote, “I believe that appointment violates Article 5, Section 9 of the Montana Constitution. Section 9. Disqualification. No member of the Legislature shall, during the term for which he shall have been elected, be appointed to any civil office under the state; and no member of congress, or other person holding an office (except notary public, or the militia) under the United States or this state, shall be a member of the legislature during his continuance in office.”
Green was appointed to fill the Commerce position when previous director, Scott Osterman, abruptly left. He was forced to resign after an internal review found he had violated state expense policy by billing the state for vehicle and lodging expenses related to traveling to the state capital in Helena from his home in Kalispell.
Green, who is a rancher and businessman from Hardin, was elected for the first time in 2022 to a seat representing a majority Native district which includes reservation communities in southeast Montana. Green is not a tribal member nor Native American. His legislative district includes much of the Northern Cheyenne Reservation and likely will favor Democratic candidates in the coming election cycle.
In his letter pointing out the constitutional issue, Jerrgeson said, “I had conversations with the Constitutional Convention Delegates with whom I served in the legislature about this particular provision (especially the first part), and they told me the convention adopted this provision in order to prevent some future governor from securing the vote on a matter before the Legislature by offering to appoint that person to a position that is much better compensated than the relatively minor compensation that is afforded to Legislators.”
It remains to be seen whether the governor will address this situation and this apparent legal conflict. Given this administration’s consistent disregard for legal limitations, it seems doubtful.
Cascade County has posted the job listing for the new Elections Administrator.
Check out the job posting here:
https://www.cascadecountymt.gov/DocumentCenter/View/4563/Elections-Administrator
Among other qualifications, the County is seeking an individual with “a comprehensive knowledge of election laws and regulations.” That’s what we call a step in the right direction!
Here’s a snapshot of the job summary.
The recent decision by the Cascade County Commission to remove election administration from the Clerk and Recorder’s office has generated heated (often false) accusations and covered facts in smoke. To put it simply, the elected Clerk and Recorder was not performing the duties of the job. The Cascade County Commission should be commended for taking action.
In late 2022, a small group of election deniers submitted a petition to the County Commission demanding election “reforms” which included requiring all voters to re-register, eliminating mail- in ballots and banning all forms of electronic voting machines. The reforms requested were based on the disproved conspiracy theory that Trump won the 2020 election.
The November 2022 election was a Republican sweep in Cascade County. Election denier, Sandra Merchant, defeated 16-year incumbent Clerk and Recorder Rina Moore by less than 40 votes. After the election, Moore made numerous offers to work with Merchant to review the election office operations. But, in the end, Merchant agreed to only one brief meeting.
The first elections administered by Merchant were held in May 2023. The School Trustee election was plagued with problems. But School District officials did not pursue legal remedies because it was unclear whether the errors would change the outcome and the expense of running another election was significant. In September, the School District formally asked the County Commission to remove the election duties from Merchant’s office.
In May, there were also elections held for a local flood district and an irrigation district. Merchant’s office also made numerous errors in those elections. As a result, lawsuits were filed against the county. The outcome of these elections remains uncertain. They are currently winding their way through the court system.
An election on a proposed library mill levy was held in June. Numerous problems were found in Merchant’s handling of the library election materials. Early in the process, supporters of the library mill levy went to court requesting the appointment of an independent monitor to oversee the election because of these problems. In addition, materials opposing the levy were handed out by volunteers working in Merchant’s offices. The judge appointed a monitor to oversee the election and required regular reports be sent for her review.
Throughout this time, Merchant was hiring staff and election judges from the ranks of local election deniers, including many who had signed the 2022 petition to the County Commission demanding “reforms.” Two family members of Republican Public Service Commissioner Randy Pinocci (who was recently charged with felony witness tampering) were also given jobs in the Clerk and Recorder/Election office.
Throughout all of 2023, Merchant consistently refused to talk to the press and blamed problems in the elections office on former employees, other county employees, contractors and vendors. Merchant was also criticized for having a private meeting with Douglas Frank, a national figure in the election denier movement who is under investigation by the FBI for an alleged breach of voting machines in Colorado. When asked about the meeting, Merchant was quoted in the Daily Montanan saying it was “interesting hearing what he had to say” and was eager to hear more.
It was the November 2023 Municipal election that finally prompted the County Commission to remove the election duties from the Clerk and Recorder. Merchant again made numerous errors which included failing to provide 48-hour advance public notice of the canvass meeting for the Municipal election. After hours spent re-calculating data from the vote tabulator machine, Commissioners were unable to balance the canvas with the information Merchant provided.
Last month during a seven-hour public hearing where Cascade County Commissioners deliberated on whether to remove the election duties, and ultimately voted to do so. Commissioners Joe Briggs and Jim Larson were vilified by Merchant’s supporters both during this meeting and in the days since. The truth is both of these commissioners set politics aside and focused on ensuring free and fair elections are held in Cascade County. They did the right thing.
Jasmine Taylor is the Coordinator for The Election Protection Committee, a volunteer citizen’s group dedicated to free and fair elections in Cascade County