{"id":16299,"date":"2017-02-19T08:11:16","date_gmt":"2017-02-19T15:11:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=16299"},"modified":"2017-02-19T08:11:16","modified_gmt":"2017-02-19T15:11:16","slug":"bill-to-cut-political-practices-commissioner-moves-to-senate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2017\/02\/bill-to-cut-political-practices-commissioner-moves-to-senate\/","title":{"rendered":"Bill to cut political practices commissioner moves to Senate"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Skees\"<\/a>

Freddy Monares\/UM Community News Service<\/p>

Rep. Derek Skees, R-Kalispell, opens discussion on House Bill 340, which would eliminate the Office of the Commissioner of Political Practices, on the House floor last Monday.<\/p><\/div>\n

The Montana House of Representatives passed a bill last week that would shutter the Office of the Commissioner of Political Practices, which some critics say could put the integrity of Montana elections in jeopardy.<\/p>\n

The bill, introduced by a state lawmaker tied to one of the office\u2019s most significant investigations, would place oversight and enforcement of campaign laws back into the hands of the secretary of state and attorney general, as it was before the office was created in 1975.<\/p>\n

Supporters say that would make the job apolitical. Others say it would only make it more partisan.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an asinine solution to a problem that doesn\u2019t exist,\u201d said Rep. Rob Cook, R-Conrad.<\/p>\n

House Bill 340<\/a>, introduced by Rep. Derek Skees, R-Kalispell, comes on the heels of an investigation by the office into the role of \u201cdark money\u201d in Montana elections. Nine lawmakers were investigated, including former state Rep. Art Wittich, R-Bozeman, who was found guilty of accepting almost $20,000 in outside contributions last year<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Documents obtained by the office named Skees among the state lawmakers allegedly involved in illegally receiving expenditures from corporations. Skees denies any wrongdoing, and says his bill isn\u2019t about any \u201cbeef\u201d he has with current Commissioner Jonathan Motl.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis office has absolute power,\u201d Skees said, arguing that the commissioner has an excess of authority in determining the outcome of cases handled\u00a0by the office.<\/p>\n

The bill has opponents from both sides of the aisle, including Cook and Rep. Geraldine Custer, R-Forsyth.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe office works fine the way it is,\u201d Custer said. She said the position requires a qualified individual, and both she and Cook said they did not feel Motl was guilty of any impropriety.<\/p>\n

Custer described the bill is a \u201cwitch hunt.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"CapreAir_Variable\"<\/a><\/div><\/div>\u201cSomebody\u2019s got their hand in the cookie jar and got slapped,\u201d Custer said. \u201cThis is a personal vendetta.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bill would shift responsibility for the filing of reports related to campaign practices and lobbying to the secretary of state, while the state attorney general would investigate complaints. Both offices are currently held by Republicans.<\/p>\n

Cook said he does not believe the role of commissioner is partisan, and said moving authority to those offices puts that role in the hands of \u201cpeople that are even more political.\u201d<\/p>\n

Skees sponsored the bill along with 29 other Republican representatives, including House Judiciary Chairman Alan Doane, R-Bloomfield, who was also named in one of the documents and similarly denies any involvement. Only five Republicans joined Democrats in voting against the bill during its final 54-45 vote in the House\u2014Cook and Custer, as well as Frank Garner of Kalispell, Walt Sales of Manhattan and Ray Shaw of Sheridan.<\/p>\n

The bill will now be considered by the Senate.<\/p>\n

Skees said the concern stems from the fact that the governor appoints the commissioner.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s appointed by one party, because the governor is one party, and it\u2019s partisan because it doesn\u2019t answer to anybody but that one party,\u201d Skees said.<\/p>\n

The commissioner is selected from a list of names drafted by both parties and given to the governor. The officeholder\u2019s term is limited to six years, so as not to match the governor\u2019s term.<\/p>\n

Rep. Greg Hertz, R-Polson, said some Republicans felt unjustly targeted by the commissioner\u2019s office.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s obvious from the last six years we\u2019ve had some problems with that office,\u201d Hertz said.<\/p>\n

The most notable investigation undertaken by the commissioner\u2019s office in the last six years began when a trove of documents showed several Montana politicians had illegally coordinated with a 501(c)(4) social welfare organization on their campaigns. Such organizations are allowed to focus only on issues, and are barred from working directly with candidates by Montana law, partially because the groups do not have limits on contributions like candidates do. <\/b><\/p>\n

\"Motl\"<\/a>

Freddy Monares\/UM Community News Service<\/p>

Commissioner of Political Practices Jonathan Motl, right, listens to Rep. Greg Hertz, R-Polson, offer his closing statements on House Bill 406 on Friday.<\/p><\/div>\n

The documents were discovered in a drug house in Denver, Colo., in 2011 after the car carrying them was stolen. The documents were later obtained by the commissioner\u2019s office. Nine candidates were discovered to have been working with a group called Western Tradition Partnership, a conservative issue advocacy group that was later revealed to have been overseen by the National Right to Work Committee<\/a>, an anti-union organization.<\/p>\n

Following the discovery of those documents, the commissioner\u2019s office obtained a spreadsheet \u00a0showing a list of candidates who had coordinated with the Western Tradition Partnership during the 2010 election cycle. Among those named in the document was Wittich, the former legislator who was found guilty in court in 2016 of accepting contributions from WTP.<\/p>\n

Skees\u2019 name was also found on that spreadsheet.<\/a><\/p>\n

The spreadsheet, which Motl said was found on several computer archives maintained by multiple National Right to Work Committee staffers, shows Skees ordered a package of multiple campaign services known as \u201cthe works.\u201d Montana law prohibits corporations from spending money or providing paid professional staff services directly to candidates.<\/p>\n

Skees denied asking for these comprehensive services.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t get the works,\u201d Skees said.<\/p>\n

He argued that because the spreadsheet was found \u201cin a drug dealer\u2019s house\u201d its legitimacy should have been called into question.<\/p>\n

He said he never worked with WTP to create attack ads, and denied working with Western Tradition Partnership at all, saying he used a mail house service run by the wife of WTP\u2019s then-director of strategic programming, Christian LeFer.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis position is the same as the others were,\u201d Motl said, regarding Skees\u2019 denial of ordering \u201cthe works.\u201d \u201cThat is why we had to go to litigation. They all denied that they were involved.\u201d<\/p>\n

Motl said Skees was not investigated due to a lack of sufficient evidence in the meth house documents. Skees\u2019 name was only directly tied to ordering the works when it appeared in the spreadsheet found on National Right to Work computers. The commissioner\u2019s office is required to write a sufficiency decision within four years of the acts being committed.<\/p>\n

Of the nine candidates the office found to have coordinated with Western Tradition Partnership, seven were found to have been in violation. Wittich was found guilty by a jury, two had their cases settled by judges, and four eventually admitted fault pre-trial. Two more cases have yet to be heard.<\/p>\n

Rep. Rob Cook said the actions of groups like Western Tradition Partnership helped push moderate Republicans out of\u00a0the state Legislature.<\/p>\n

Rep. Amanda Curtis, D-Butte, said eliminating the commissioner of political practices would remove oversight in elections, and would allow for more undisclosed spending and receiving of funds.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are taking one step back toward the day when money ruled in politics,\u201d Curtis said.<\/p>\n

Bob Brown, a former Republican secretary of state, said the position was created partially in response to the Nixon-era Watergate scandal. Before the office\u2019s establishment, campaign filings were done with the secretary of state, as they would be under HB 340.<\/p>\n

Brown said the position was designed to put the practice of investigating campaign finance into more nonpartisan hands. He said this is a better-coordinated method.<\/p>\n

Brown said the conviction of Wittich and the investigation of other Republicans is simply part of the job.<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir solution to it is to eliminate the law and the political mechanism whereby these convictions took place,\u201d Brown said. \u201cThat sends a cold shudder down my spine. I\u2019m amazed at their brazenness for doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Montana is known nationwide for having strong campaign practice and transparency laws. Last year, Montana received an A grade from the National Institute on Money in State Politics<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Montana has resisted corporate influence on elections since voters passed the Corrupt Practices Act by initiative in 1912. The law restricted the amount of money candidates could receive from corporations.<\/p>\n

Montana also resisted the federal Supreme Court ruling on Citizens United, which allowed corporations to make political contributions. The state\u2019s resistance was overruled by Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

HB 340 was referred to committee after first reading in the Senate last week. If it wins Senate approval, it would be presented to Gov. Steve Bullock, who has veto authority.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe idea to just abolish the commissioner of political practices, an office that was created post-Watergate \u2026 I think is ill thought-out,\u201d Bullock said.<\/p>\n

Michael Siebert is a reporter with the UM Community News Service, a partnership of the University of Montana School of Journalism and the Montana Newspaper Association.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Montana House of Representatives passed a bill last week that would shutter the Office of the Commissioner of Political Practices, which some critics say could put the integrity of Montana elections in jeopardy. The bill, introduced by a state lawmaker tied to one of the office\u2019s most significant investigations, would place oversight and enforcement […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":144,"featured_media":16301,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,14],"tags":[5546,2521,1122,5545],"class_list":["post-16299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-montana","category-news","tag-derek-skees","tag-jonathan-motl","tag-montana-legislature","tag-office-of-the-commissioner-of-political-practices","prominence-category-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/144"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16299\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}