National Journal: Baucus losing top staffers in ‘exodus’

According to the National Journal’s “Influence Alley” blog, Montana U.S. Sen. Max Baucus, 70, is “losing his top tax staffers by the day.”

Baucus, chairman of the powerful Senate Finance Committee and architect of the new federal health care law, has set his sights on rewriting U.S. tax code, a task Politico called “a once-in-a-generation undertaking certain to spark an all-out lobbying war on Capitol Hill and at the White House.”

Pundits expect Baucus, architect of the controversial Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. “Obamacare,” to face a tough reelection battle in 2014. 

Three high-ranking Baucus staffers, including his chief of staff, have left Baucus’ office in recent weeks.

An exodus is occurring among committee staff and in Baucus’ personal office, leading tax lobbyists and congressional staffers to wonder about the effect this will have on any potential overhaul of the tax code in 2013, as well as Baucus’ own legislative agenda.

According to the National Journal, Russ Sullivan, Baucus’ “long-time right hand man” and the Democratic staff director of the Senate Finance Committee, on Thursday became the most recent staff member to move on to a new carrier after working 18 years in the Senate.

Baucus chief of staff , Jon Selib, announced earlier this month he was leaving Baucus’ staff to take a job in the private sector with a British strategic intelligence firm called Hakluyt.

According to Politico’s “Influence” blog, K Street “heavyweights in the tax arena” were scheduled to throw a happy hour in Selib’s name today:

Sen. Max Baucus's (D-Mont.) chief of staff Jon Selib is going out in style with more than a dozen downtowners, many heavyweights in the tax arena, throwing a happy hour in his honor Thursday.

Robert Glennon, Nick Giordanob, Jeff Forbes, David Castagnetti, Greg Mastel and Patrick Heck are all on the invite list for the event at 201 Bar. Peter Scher, Tim Punke, Judy Miller, Liz Flower Fowler and Jim Messina are also on the host committee.

A third Baucus staffer, corporate tax expert David Hughes is leaving Baucus’ staff to join the IRS, the National Journal reports.

The Journal said the departure of the three high-level staffers from the Senate’s top tax-writing committee comes at a curious time when “Congress is mired in fights over the future of tax policy, with no immediate compromise in sight or commitment to do tax reform.”

The committee's spokesman said these departures would have no bearing on committee business next year. “Senator Baucus has every intention of taking tax reform up in the next Congress and working to create jobs and boost the economy," said Sean Neary, communications director. "He has been laying the groundwork for tax reform for well over a year, meeting regularly with Finance Committee members as well as Ways and Means Chairman, Dave Camp.   He is prepared and confident that the Committee can get something done. And he is confident it will get done with his new staff director Amber Cottle at the helm."

The Journal said such high-level departures means a significant loss of expertise for the Senate Finance Committee:

…both in terms of the policy and politics of the best way to move legislation forward. That’s a blow for Baucus, who's intent on doing tax reform next year.

The Lowdown : News and notes from the Montana capital. http://www.mtlowdown.com http://www.greatfallstribune.com

Election Day still gives me goose bumps

One of my earliest memories is of Election Day, 1984.

I was a five-year-old future voter, and my Dad took me along to the polls when got home from work. My dad is a retired social studies teacher, so it’s no wonder he instilled in me a sense of civic duty early on by dragging me to polls on Election Day.

I remember my dad chatting with the election judges, most of whom were familiar faces after years of voting in the same place. I remember following him into the tiny little booth with the blue curtain. I remember back then the ballots were punch cards, and you slipped the yellow card into a box that held it in place, then you used these little metal punch things to punch the hole next to the candidate of your choosing. To me the whole process seemed so important, even then.

Elections Day has always felt sacred to me, from those early days of watching my dad punch his ballot, to my first vote for president in 2000, to today.

So much hinges on this one day of the year. From the future of a local school to the future of our country, Election Day is the day we as citizens get to play a critical role in the outcome.

My hope is that voters still feel at least some sense of civic pride on Election Day, even after all the millions of dollars spent on TV attack ads, all the thousands of campaign fliers which filled up our mailboxes, and the dozens (or more) phone calls from campaigns, pollsters and activists.

Our politics are far from perfect and there are plenty of reasons for people across the political spectrum to complain these days. No matter what the outcome, a large portion of our state and our country are not going to be pleased with the result. We are a polarized electorate, perhaps more so than at any other time in our recent history. But my hope is that when the dust settles tomorrow, we can move forward as community, a state and a country with the goal of trying to do more to understand the other side. My hope is that regardless of who our president, or governor, or senator or next county commissioner is on Jan. 1, that we as a citizenry will vow to work harder to be more civil, to focus more on solving problems that affect us all, and to care more deeply for each other. Because regardless of who our elected officials are, at the end of the day we’re all still in this together.

Greatfallstribune.com is the place to be on Election Night

To say it's been a long campaign season is an understatement, with campaign spending at record rates and neck-and-neck races from the national to local level.

The Great Falls Tribune is your source for live campaign results Tuesday, at www.gftribune.com and on mobile devices and tablets with the Great Falls Tribune app.

Watch our interactive graphics, with results as soon as the polls on the East Coast close, which is 6 p.m. Mountain Standard Time.

Tribune Capital Bureau Chief John S. Adams will host a live, online chat from 7 to 8 p.m., the hour before Montana's polls close, answering election night questions from you, discussing campaigns, and delivering the latest news about this year's election.

When those shut down at 8 p.m., we will have results posted immediately as they become available.

In the presidential race, we'll keep you abreast of the latest vote tallies, electoral votes, congressional balance in both the U.S. Senate and House, as well as Montana's race for the governor's and other Land Board seats, lone Congressional seat and, of course, the race between Jon Tester and Denny Rehberg for the Senate.

The majority for both houses in Montana's 2013 Legislature is potentially up for grabs, and there are significant races for local seats this year, too.

Great Falls Tribune reporters will be across the state, from Helena to Billings, providing up-to-the-minute results, candidates' and party officials' reactions and interviews.

You can find results and reactions from across the state on the live Twitter feed at www.gftribune.com. Follow us @GFTribune.

Wednesday's print edition will include local election results from across northcentral Montana, from the North Dakota border to Glacier County, as well as those from statewide and national race.

But as recent elections have proved, sometimes final results aren't decided until after the sun rises Wednesday. Continue to watch www.gftribune.com throughout the day for late results, as well as analysis of what those results could mean both nationally and at the state level.

[Reprinted from the 11/4/12 Great Falls Tribune Viewpoints ]

Money in politics, then and now

While rummaging around in the archives at the Montana Historical Society yesterday I came across a Nov. 1978 headline in the Great Falls Tribune that caught my attention:

The 1978 headline juxtaposed with what I watched last night on Montana PBS was a stark reminder of money’s dramatic influence our politics today .

If you didn’t watch the Frontline/Marketplace special “Big Sky, Big Money,” do yourself a favor and do it now. You can see first hand how third party groups, SuperPACs, and shadowy tax-exempt 501(c)(4) “dark money” groups are trying to influence the outcomes our elections here in Montana while hiding from public view the identity of those trying to influence us. It’s a sobering exposé of  post-Citizens United Montana and the group whose lawsuit reaffirmed the controversial Supreme Court decision and tossed out our 100-year-old Corrupt Practices Act in the process.  Watch it here or go to Frontline’s excellent website for more interactive features about money in politics:

Watch Big Sky, Big Money on PBS. See more from FRONTLINE.

Montana State University political science professor David Parker is featured in the program. Parker says outside groups spent $6.8 million on the Montana Senate race through June alone.

According to Great Falls Tribune Washington bureau reporter Malia Rulon, during the first three weeks of October, Montanans were subjected to 25,211 political ads about the race between Democratic Sen. Jon Tester and his Republican challenger, Rep. Denny Rehberg. During that three-week period, groups spent $3.27 million.

So in 1978 Democrat Max Baucus’ and Republican Larry Williams’ campaigns combined spent less than $1 million on the Senate race and in 2012 the campaigns and third-party groups, many of whom are funded by secret donors and corporations, spent more than three times as much in a three-week period alone.

“2012 will go down as a record-pulverizing year for political advertising,” said Erika Franklin Fowler, co-director of the Wesleyan Media Project.

The future of American politics post-Citizens United is here folks. Like what you see?

What everyone’s talking about: Big Sky, Big Money

In case you haven’t seen it yet, this ProPublica/Frontline report investigating the shadowy “dark money” group American Tradition Partnership is causing quite a stir in Big Sky Country this morning (emphases mine):

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"”:

Watch Big Sky, Big Money, an investigation with Marketplace on PBS. See more from FRONTLINE.

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.

All of this reporting is coming out in the two weeks before the Nov. 6 election, and tomorrow’s Frontline exposé is exactly one week from election day.

How will “dark money” impact our elections?

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.

Dems slam Fox’s role in SME bankruptcy

The Montana Democratic Party is criticizing Republican Attorney General Candidate Tim Fox's role in the ongoing Southern Montana Electrical Cooperative bankruptcy proceeding. 

Earlier this month the Democrats accused Fox of "playing a central role in a legal scheme that could put millions (of dollars) in the pockets of out-of-state predatory lenders."

At issue is Fox's role in representing lenders who gave money to embattled SME to build the Highwood Generating Station.

First some background: Critics of the beleaguered power venture say the giant finance companies knew, or should have known, that loaning SME the capital to build Highwood Generating Station was a risky venture.

Public Service Commission chairman Travis Kavulla, a Republican, said in an interview with the Tribune last month that the loan Prudential Capital Group of Dallas gave to SME was "totally well-above the market rates" given to similar power plants.

Prudential, the largest lender to loan SME money, loaned the company $75 million at 8 percent interest which the company used along with along with a $10 million loan from another lender at 7.25 percent interest, “to pay for a plant that should have cost more like half that," Kavulla said, adding that the the loans were "risky and predatory."

The Democrats jumped on an recent Associated Press story, in which Kavulla said he he is "concerned the individual members of the electricity cooperative may end up paying the price for the bad decisions by Southern managers and lenders."

The cost to run the plant currently exceeds the open-market price of electricity, Kavulla said.

So where does Tim Fox come into play in all this?

Fox is representing Prudential Capital Group, the largest lender, in the ongoing bankruptcy saga. According to federal court records, lawyer and trustee fees related to the bankruptcy proceedings have already eclipsed $1 million.

"If Fox and his clients have their way in court, SME customers — both ratepayers and taxpayers — could be on the hook to pay back millions, including over a million in attorney fees. This will amount to tens of thousands of dollars each for a loan that Fox's clients likely knew was 'risky and predatory," the Democratic Party said in its Oct. 1 release.

Fox's attorney fees account for a just a tiny fraction of the overall fees paid in the case. According to court records Fox, who is charging an hourly rate of $250, filed reimbursement requests totaling $12,500 since getting involved in November, 2011.

That's chump change compared to many other lawyers involved in the case, some of whom charge up to $845 per hour for their time.

For his part Fox declined to comment on his role in representing Prudential in the SME bankruptcy.

"I don't talk about my clients' business in pending cases," Fox said in an interview. "I can't do that, ethically. It's public record that I have appeared on behalf of a creditor in a bankruptcy case, but that's all I can say about that."

Fox's opponent in the attorney general race, Helena Democrat Pam Bucy, said in a statement that she believes everyone deserves legal representation, but she is troubled that Fox took Prudential on as a client in a case that opposes Montana ratepayers and taxpayers.

"The attorney general is Montana's chief consumer protection advocate," Bucy, a former assistant attorney general under Democrat Mike McGrath. "We established the Office of Consumer Protection at the Department of Justice so that Montanans would have legal recourse in cases like this, where out-of-state lenders have made risky and predatory loans to Montana consumers. Since we are both running to be Montana's chief legal representative, it is alarming to see my opponent put the profits of risky, predatory out-of-state lenders before the well-being of Montanans."

Since electric coops are not regulated by the PSC, the SME case would fall to the next attorney general and the Office of Consumer Protection if consumers file a complaint of unfair debt collection practices, the Democrats claim.

According to the latest Public Policy Polling survey, Fox has 45-35 lead over Bucy with a whopping 20 percent still undecided.