A former top aide to Brian Schweitzer said his personal post office box is the only connection between the former governor and a pair of dark money political groups in the news this week.
On Monday, FOX Business News reported that Schweitzer, a potential 2014 Democratic front-runner for Montana’s open U.S. Senate seat, in 2009 formed a 527 political action committee that later gave more than $300,000 to a Washington, D.C.-based political nonprofit.
FOX’s David Asman alleged the Helena and Washington-based nonprofit groups appeared to have been formed for the sole purpose of doing political work for Schweitzer, a violation of IRS rules.
Franklin Hall, a former senior adviser to Schweitzer, called FOX News’ charge bogus and said Schweitzer never had any involvement in either group.
“The only connection whatsoever between the governor’s campaign and the entity that was shut down three years ago (Council for Sustainable America) is my personal P.O. Box,” Hall said.
Hall said he has been a political consultant since 2004. Prior to moving to Montana, Hall did consulting work for the Democratic Governor’s Association, which Schweitzer chaired in 2009. Hall later moved to Helena, where he did private consulting work until Schweitzer hired him in November 2010 as senior adviser.
Hall said the Council for Sustainable America was one of his clients from before the time he worked for Schweitzer in the governor’s office. Hall said after Schweitzer won re-election in 2008 the governor shut down his political campaign, but since the campaign still had some money left over it was required by law to file campaign reports.
“The entity still existed because there was leftover money,” Hall explained. “That entity was required to do regular reports with the commissioner of political practices, and when you fill out those forms, you are required to have a mailing address.”
Hall said the campaign did not have any employees or an office, so he volunteered his personal post office box address to be used on the defunct campaign’s filings. Hall said he used that same address on IRS reports filed for the Council for Sustainable America.
Hall said the Council for Sustainable America shut down in the first quarter of 2010.
The Helena-based group’s 2010 IRS 990 form was prepared by a law firm at the same address the America Sustainability Project lists on its 990: 1666 Connecticut Ave. NW, Suite 500, Washington, D.C.
Former Rep. Dave Gallik, D-Helena, the man Schweitzer appointed in 2011 as Commissioner of Political Practices, was treasurer of the Helena-based group until it dissolved in 2010. Gallik’s signature appeared on the group’s 2010 990 form in August 2011, but Hall said the group had not been active for more than a year at that point and the 990 filing was a required formality.
The Council for Sustainable America lists its “primary exempt purpose” as “educating voters about elected officials and candidates.”
According to its 2010 IRS form 990, the group spent $57,972 conducting opinion polls “to determine voter opinion on sustainable energy, the environment and agriculture policies.”
The group also gave $2,500 to Maryland Democratic Gov. Martin O’Malley’s 2010 re-election campaign.
Hall said the purpose of the organization was to educate voters about sustainability issues.
Republicans in the GOP Senate caucus clashed again on the Senate floor Friday over a bill aimed at requiring disclaimers on political speech paid for with anonymous or “dark money” funds.
House Bill 254, by Rep. Rob Cook, R-Conrad, would require the following disclaimer on political mailers and websites that are paid for with anonymous contributions:
"This communication is funded by anonymous sources. The voter should determine the veracity of its content."
Republican Senate Majority Leader Art Wittich, a staunch opponent of the bill, called it “terrible bill” and dubbed members of the Republican caucus who were likely to vote with Democrats to pass the measure “the crossover coalition.”
Wittich has opposed measures supported by some of his fellow Republicans aimed at cracking down at dark money anonymous political spending in Montana election.
Realizing that the bill was likely to pass, Wittich said:
“I didn’t make an amendment because I know where this vote is going. The crossover coalition and the Democrats are going to pass this bill, and everybody is going to be happy, and the headlines will be ‘we took a shot at dark money didn’t we do great,’” Wittich said.
Wittich said the content and “truthfulness” of political messages is what is important.
“We’ve lost sight of all of that in all these campaign finance reform bills,” Wittich said. “We hear all about dark money, the spin of dark money. Well, it is about owning your vote. It’s about the exposure of your voting record and its the one thing people back home can find out about you.”
Wittich said voters can’t find out about “back room deals,” “vote trading,” “all the lobbyist transactions” and “spending other people’s money.”
Those last points touched a nerve with some of Wittich’s fellow Republicans, who took the unusual step of challenging their majority leader on the floor of the Senate.
Sen. Alan Olson, R-Roundup, is the sponsor of the two proposed legislative referendums on voting that last week sent the Senate into a tail spin as Democrats erupted on the floor in an attempt block their passage.
A week later Olson was at the center of another floor fight, but this time the jabs were traded within the GOP caucus.
Here’s the transcript of what happened after Wittich’s floor speech in opposition to HB254.
Sen. Alan Olson: Mr. Chairman, Sen. Wittich, could you identify the crossover coalition for me?
Chairman Ed Walker: To the bill please.
Sen. Art Wittich: Mr. Chairman, would you like a list, Sen. Olson?
Chairman: Sen. Olson.
Olson: Mr. Chairman, it was in the good senator’s discussion on the bill. I guess I’d like to know who the crossover coalition is, Mr. Chairman. Being as it was brought up by the good Senator from Bozeman.
Walker: I just feel that’s out of order at this point. Um, Sen. Wittich.
Wittich: Mr. Chairman, I don’t know the specific names right now, but we see it on the board, often.
Walker: Sen. Olson.
Olson: Mr. Chairman. Follow up?
Walker: Will Sen. Wittich yield?
Wittich: Yes.
Olson: Mr. Chairman, Sen. Wittich, you mention members of this body trading votes. Could you identify those individuals?
Wittich: Mr. Chairman, Sen. Olson, I’m not sure that would be a very comfortable thing for you if I started disclosing that. We all know that it happens.
Walker: Senators can we just keep the decorum in the body, please? Sen. Cliff Larsen, would like to close on your motion?
Larsen: Mr. Chairman, I think the floor is still open. I believe other people want to speak. I’d feel comfortable if they were recognized…
Walker: Sen. Peterson, for what purpose do you rise?
Sen. Jim Peterson: “Mr. Chairman I was going to rise on a point of personal privilege, but I’ll do that later.”
Walker: “Sen. Jones, for what purpose do you rise?
Sen. Llew Jones: “Mr. Chairman I do have a question for Sen. Wittich.
Walker: Will Sen. Wittich yield?
Wittich: Sure.
Jones: Mr Chairman, Sen. Wittich, you suggested that a crossover coalition was voting in some block. Are you suggesting that we should vote…should put something other than our conscience or our caucus ahead of our vote?
Walker: Sen. Wittich?
Wittich: Mr. Chairman, Sen. Jones, I’m not sure I understand the question.
Jones: You seem to be suggesting, somehow, that our vote was specifically owed to a group of people for some reason. That we couldn’t vote our conscience or we couldn’t represent our constituents, that somehow…
Walker: Can we keep it on the bill please..the bill… we’re talking about votes throughout this session. May we please keep it on the bill, which is HB254.
Jones: I withdraw my question.
Walker: Sen. Essmann.
President Jeff Essmann: Mr. Chairman, members of the body I think we should confine our discussion on the floor to the bill that’s before us and when we stray I would remind any member of this body they have the right to stand up and call the chair to bring any member that strays off the topic of the bill to order. That should be the procedure that we follow here if we stray.
The landing page features a pastoral scene of a freshly cut hayfield, complete with round bales, grain bins in the background and clouds billowing over distant mountain tops.
“Thank you for visiting Lew Jones for Montana” the banner on the page proclaims.
“Please check in soon for more updates.”
What updates might one expect to find on what is presumably a campaign website for Conrad Republican Sen. llew Jones?
Jones doesn’t know, but he’s pretty sure it won’t be good.
“I can only postulate, but it would seem that with the timing, mid-session, and the anonymous nature, that is is most likely of ill-intent,” Jones said. “If I were to hazard a guess, I believe it is the beginning of dark money's intent to message against me. After all, the owner, at this point is hidden.”
According to a domain registration search, llewjonesformontana.com was registered on March 28 using at GoDaddy.com. The owner of the domain has opted to keep their identity secret.
March 28 is the a day after the Senate passed Senate Bill 375, the bi-partisan anti-dark money campaign finance reform bill sponsored by Sen. Jim Peterson, R-Buffalo, and back by Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock.
A handful of Republicans joined nearly all Senate Democrats in voting to bring SB375 out of committee, where it had stalled, and onto the floor for a debate. During the floor debate Jones was one of the most outspoken critics of dark money spending in political campaigns.
Jones described dark money this way on the Senate floor:
“The most despicable person in westerns is the bushwhacker, the person who sits in the bushes and shoots someone in the back. And that is dark money,” said state Sen. Llew Jones, R-Conrad. “Dark money is the most destructive thing happening to politics today.”
Jones, who was alerted to the existence of the website by an anonymous emails, said he suspects the website is a message designed to “intimidate” him into “stand down” on his crusade against dark money.
“I am not a popular guy with those that prefer to operate from the dark,” Jones said. “It seems that those who operate independently, and who make their votes based upon their conscience and then their constituents are not obedient enough. Darkness seems particularly opposed to any bipartisan activity.”
Jones said if the website was aimed at intimidating him, it will actually have the opposite effect.
“I plan to work even harder to shine light on dark money,” Jones said.
Jones said he plans to blast House Bill 254, by Rep. Rob Cook, R-Conrad, onto the Senate floor. That blast motion could come today.
Cook’s bill would require election materials, including anonymous websites and mailings, to contain the following disclaimer if the material was paid for by anonymous political action committee dollars:
“This communication is funded by anonymous sources. The voter should determine the veracity of its content.”
Cook’s bill was tabled in the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Jones said bills like SB375 and HB254 “help turn the lights” on anonymous campaign activity.
“The voter needs to be informed when the sources of materials are dark,” Jones said. “I strongly support the right of free speech, but those that wish to speak freely should step into the light and identify themselves when doing so.”
A search of the IP address used to register llewjonesformontana.com found the same IP address was used to register at least 50 other domain names, including montanagrwothfoundation.org.
According to Federal Election Commission records, Sen. Jason Priest, R-Red Lodge, is the treasurer for the Montana Growth Foundation. Priest runs a political issue advocacy group called Montana Growth Network, which this session has sent out mailers critical of Medicaid expansion.
Priest was a vocal opponent of SB375 and voted against it in the Senate.
Priest said he does not own the domain for montanagrowthfoundation.org and has done no work on the website.
Priest said he had no knowledge of llewjonesformontana.com. Priest said he first learned of llewjonesformontana.com when questioned by the Lowdown.
“The first thing I did was see how I registered the (Montana Growth) Foundation,” Priest said. “When I looked at my accounts I saw that I didn’t register the domain for the foundation.”
Priest said that doesn’t mean someone associated with the Montana Growth Network or the Montana Growth Foundation didn’t register the domain and start the website.
The “dark money” campaign finance issue reemerged in the hallways of the Capitol this week with shots fired at both Republicans and Democrats.
On Monday Garrett Lenderman of the conservative Media Trackers blog reported that Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock’s campaign “held several conference calls” with Hilltop Public Solutions during his 2012 election bid.
Hilltop is a Democrat-friendly consulting firm that uses donations from prominent left-leaning organizations to fund ads promoting Democratic candidates for office. Barrett Kaiser, a former aide to Sen. Max Baucus, is a partner at Hilltop and runs it’s the Billings office.
As Kim Barker of ProPublica reported earlier this year:
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.
Lenderman reported that Bullock’s campaign listed expenditures for conference calls on June 20, July 25, and October 20, 2012, as well as payment for travel expenses on February 16 and October 20, 2012, towards S&B Public Solutions, which according to business registration records with the District of Columbia, is the official registered name for Hilltop Public Solutions.
Shortly after those conference calls too place outside groups paid Hilltop to help them run ads supporting Bullock, the report claims:
Six days after Bullock’s October conference call with Hilltop, Planned Parenthood Advocates of Montana (PPAMT) , which received funding from a (George) Soros-affiliated super PAC, paid Hilltop to manage an independent expenditure campaign in support of then-candidate Bullock.
PPAMT’s payments to Hilltop after the call, listed between October 26 and November 7, included $13,736 in salaries for paid canvassers and $6,000 in “management fees.”
The report doesn’t make any specific allegations of campaign finance violations, but Lenderman pointed out that Bullock criticized the role of dark money in Montana elections during his State of the State Address in late January.
“We have seen the rise of so-called ‘dark money’ groups that target candidates, yet refuse to tell the voting public who they really are and what they really represent,” Bullock said. “They hide behind made-up-names and made-up newspapers. They operate out of P.O. boxes or Washington, D.C. office buildings.”
Kevin O’Brien, who ran Bullock’s 2012 campaign and now serves as Bullock’s deputy chief of staff, issued the following statement when asked about the Media Trackers report:
“We don’t comment every time a dark-money group, masquerading as a media outlet, levels unsubstantiated and misleading accusations.”
According to the Center for Media and Democracy, Media Trackers is tied to the Tea Party-backed group American Majority and is itself funded by anonymous conservative donors. On its website Media Trackers touts itself as a "conservative nonprofit, nonpartisan investigative watchdog dedicated to promoting accountability in the media and government across Montana through cutting-edge research and communications initiatives."
‘Wanted’ posters and websites
Things got even more interesting on Wednesday when flyers began showing up around the Capitol featuring a mock “WANTED” poster for Christian LeFer, a “key player” in the infamous dark money group American Tradition Partnership.
The flyers directed readers to “see if your legislator is implicated” in alleged “illegal campaign coordination” by visiting www.ATPexposed.org.
The only problem is the anonymous creators printed the wrong URL on the bottom of their flyer. The leafleters apparently meant to print www.ATPexposed.COM.
“…the apparently false information included misrepresentations made to the IRS by WRP in urging expedited approval of its application and misrepresentations in its application to the IRS, asserting that it would not participate or intervene in elections.”
According to Democracy 21 President Fred Wertheimer:
“This is yet another case where a group apparently has claimed status as a section 501(c)(4) “social welfare” organization in order to keep secret from the American people the donors financing its campaign activities. According to news reports published by ProPublica and Frontline, American Tradition Partnership (ATP) appears to have knowingly misled the IRS about its campaign activities and knowingly submitted false information to the IRS to obtain its tax-exempt status on an expedited basis.”
The groups are calling on the IRS to investigate and “take appropriate action against ATP.”
According to the letter submitted to the IRS Tuesday, WTP submitted its Form 1024, Application for Recognition of Exemption under Section 501(a), to the IRS on July 21, 2008.
A report by ProPublica and Frontline found that WTP submitted a letter to the IRS on September 29, 2008, while their IRS application was still pending, requesting that the IRS expedite processing of its application. According to the report, the request for expedition stated that Jacob Jabs, who was described as the organization’s “primary donor,” had promised to make a $300,000 donation to the group but only if WTP received recognition from the IRS for tax-exempt status by September 29, 2008. Id.
The letter from the watchdog groups continued:
The letter further said, however, that Jabs had extended his deadline, and said he “will give us the grant if we receive our tax exempt status by October 15, 2008. If we have not received our tax exempt status by this date, Mr. Jabs has assured us that he will no longer contribute said amount and instead will direct his donation to other organizations.”
According to the ProPublica/Frontline report, the IRS responded to WTP the next day, Sept. 30, 2008, and said that the request for expedited consideration would be granted. Tax-exempt status as a section 501(c)(4) “social welfare” organization was granted to WTP two days later on Oct. 2, 2008.
A subsequent ProPublica and Frontline report on Oct. 30 2012, said Jabs later said “he had never pledged money to the group, and never even been in contract with them until press stories appeared naming him.”
A subsequent release of WTP’s bank records as a result of state court litigation in Montana “show[ed] no money came in from the man WTP claimed as its primary donor when it asked the IRS to expedite the approval of its application,” ProPublica/Frontline reported.
According to the letter:
Assuming the ProPublica/Frontline reports are correct, the IRS agreed to expedited processing of WTP’s application for tax-exempt status that resulted in its approval, based on apparent material fraudulent information that WTP provided to the IRS and that WTP had to know was false.
On these grounds alone, the section 501(c)(4) tax-exempt status of WTP should be revoked and the IRS should consider what, if any, other actions it should take against WTP. The IRS should also forward any relevant information in this case to the Department of Justice so the Department can determine what, if any, action it should take against WTP for apparently submitting material false information to a federal agency in order to obtain action by the agency.
You can read the entire press release and the letter here.
Sen. Jon Tester, right, and Rep. Denny Rehberg greet each other during their debate on Monday, Oct. 8, 2012 in Billings, Mont. (AP Photo/Billings Gazette, Casey Page)
Editor’s note: The following article, about the role dark money played in Montana’s 2012 U.S. Senate, race is published in its entirety by permission of ProPublica.
by Kim Barker ProPublica
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 DanCox, 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 former governor of Montana who left office Monday. "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 u2014 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 after Rehberg 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 July2011 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 u2014 a party committee that reports its donors u2014 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 u2014 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 u2014 House bill 1505 u2014 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 u2014 not politics u2014 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 u2014 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 Boonecriticizing 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 u2014 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.
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 u2014 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 u2014 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 u2014 largely symbolic in light of recent court decisions u2014 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 u2014 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.
The boxes landed in the office of Montana investigators in March 2011.
Found in a meth house in Colorado, they were somewhat of a mystery, holding files on 23 conservative candidates in state races in Montana. They were filled with candidate surveys and mailers that said they were paid for by campaigns, and fliers and bank records from outside spending groups. One folder was labeled "Montana $ Bomb."
The documents pointed to one outside group pulling the candidates' strings: a social welfare nonprofit called Western Tradition Partnership, or WTP.
Altogether, the records added up to possible illegal "coordination" between the nonprofit and candidates for office in 2008 and 2010, said a Montana investigator and a former Federal Election Commission chairman who reviewed the material. Outside groups are allowed to spend money on political campaigns, but not to coordinate with candidates.
"My opinion, for what it's worth, is that WTP was running a lot of these campaigns," said investigator Julie Steab of the Montana Commissioner of Political Practices, who initially received the boxes from Colorado.
It’s a long read, but well worth it.
This Oct. 29 ProPublica/Frontline report is just the tip of the iceberg. A series of investigative reports by ProPublica, Frontline and The Center for Public Integrity dig deep into the question: “who is funding attacks on Montana’s election laws?”
The reportage will continue on PBS tomorrow, Oct. 30, when Frontline airs what former Montana Public Radio capital bureau reporter Emilie Ritter referred to on her facebook page as “a big ol’ journalism bomb"”:
The program airs at 8:30 p.m. on Montana PBS, but cick here to check your local listings. It will also be available online beginning Oct. 30.
In this Oct. 22 report, journalists Kim Barker, of ProPublica, and Emma Schwartz, of Frontline, uncover evidence that Western Tradition Partnership “misled the IRS when it applied for the tax-exempt status that shields its donors from being publicly disclosed.”
Documents obtained by ProPublica and Frontline show that Western Tradition Partnership, now known as American Tradition Partnership, said it would not attempt to sway elections when it asked the IRS to recognize it as a tax-exempt social welfare organization in late 2008.
Shortly before submitting the application, however, Western Tradition Partnership, which bills itself as a "grassroots lobbying" organization dedicated to fighting radical environmentalists, and a related political committee sent out fliers weighing in on candidates for Montana state office. The mailers blitzed districts in Montana days before the Republican primary.
Also last Monday The Center For Public Integrity published this report showing that a millionaire furniture store mogul from Colorado dumped $300,000 to get ATP “on its feet”:
In its 2008 application for tax-exempt status as a 501(c)(4) “social welfare” organization, ATP listed its “primary donor” as Jacob Jabs, Colorado’s largest furniture retailer and a donor to Republican candidates and causes. Jabs pledged a $300,000 contribution to get ATP on its feet, according to IRS records obtained by the Center for Public Integrity.
Jabs, through a spokesman, on Monday said he did not make a donation and has "never heard of" ATP or the group's previous incarnation.
"He did not commit to the funds indicated by Athena Dalton in the filing so clearly he did not give them funds," wrote Charlie Shaulis, director of communications for American Furniture Warehouse, Jabs' company, in an email to I-News Network in Colorado.
Dalton wrote a letter to the IRS asking the agency to speed up the process for awarding it nonprofit status. The letter states that the approval was needed quickly, otherwise Jabs would not make a contribution. The agency gave it the thumbs up four days later.
We might not know for months, or even years what the full effect has been or will be. But I for one am glad the rest of the country is taking an interest in Montana’s elections and examining how Big Sky Country has become a petri dish for experiments in “dark money” manipulation of politics.
Sen. Alan Olson, R-Roundup, is the sponsor of the two proposed legislative referendums on voting that last week sent the Senate into a tail spin as Democrats erupted on the floor in an attempt block their passage. 
“I can only postulate, but it would seem that with the timing, mid-session, and the anonymous nature, that is is most likely of ill-intent,” Jones said. “If I were to hazard a guess, I believe it is the beginning of dark money's intent to message against me. After all, the owner, at this point is hidden.”
“The first thing I did was see how I registered the (Montana Growth) Foundation,” Priest said. “When I looked at my accounts I saw that I didn’t register the domain for the foundation.” 
Two campaign finance watchdog groups 
Barrett Kaiser
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