Posted: October 24, 2012 at 11:03 pm

State Judge Shoves $500,000 Up Candidate’s Ass

As you know, there was a period of six days during which Montana had no campaign finance laws on the books, because they were invalidated by a right-wing federal judge and then reinstated a week or so later by a federal appeals court.

During the window, the GOP worked hard raise and spend unlimited money, its favorite activity.  Less than 24 hours after the ruling, Rick Hill had already reeled in a $500,000 contribution to his campaign.  It was probably the biggest donation to any campaign in America in 2012.   When our laws were reinstated by the federal appeals court, Hill claimed that since he’d raised the money when the laws were suspended, he need not return it.

A state judge now thinks otherwise.  Yesterday, Judge Katherine Seeley stopped Hill in his tracks, issuing a restraining order [PDF] against him which requires him to cease spending the money and to recover whatever funds he has already spent.  Judge Seeley even directed TV stations in Montana not to air Hill’s campaign ads with the tainted money.

Hill tried telling Seeley that he’s already spent the money, and thus there’s nothing that can be done.  He pulled his pockets out of his pants, and said, “See?”

That didn’t seem to work, at least not for now.  There is a full hearing on the matter scheduled for October 29.

In the meantime, this is a devastating state of affairs for Hill.  It could finish him off, in fact.  For starters, there’s going to be a photo of Hill’s mug on the front of every newspaper in Montana tomorrow, with a story about a restraining order against him. Not what a candidate wants two weeks before election day.

Second, Hill will not be able to play any of his wonderful TV ads, talking about “less spending” and “less regulation,” or whatever other high intellectual content we usually see from him.  Meanwhile, there are some devastating negative ads running against him, mostly about the fact that he supports a sales tax, a fact he’s been trying to hide.  He will be unable to respond.

Worse, attorney’s for Hill’s opponent, Steve Bullock, said yesterday that if Hill wins the election by breaking campaign finance laws, he could be subject to a recall.

Montana’s donation limits were passed by a citizens initiative many years ago and are a source of pride for all Montanans who appreciate the meaning of the word Democracy.   So Rick Hill thumbed his nose at Montanans by rushing to gulp down $500,000 in one dose, based on a crackpot ruling by a right-wing federal judge which Hill probably knew would be overturned in short order.

Hungry Hill acted like a dog whose owners leave the house and forget to lock the cupboard where the food is kept.  Now he’s in the dog house.

44 comments

  2. Hi-Liner

    This applies only to Rick Hill, if Skees, Welch, and Fox or legislative candidates have taken illegal donations, that crime will show up the reports should show up today and lawsuits must be filed against those candidates.

    • Larry Kralj, Environmental Rangers

      Sandy welch……..BHWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA! Man, that’s funny! Where DO the Pubbies find’em? A caribou Barbie clone!

      • Grandma Jeanie

        I too doubt anyone was going to cough up big money for Sandy Welch. That campaign is an obvious loser.

        • Jan Thomas

          Still, the Montana Democratic Party needs to be getting these lawsuits filed today. Let’s not drop the ball on this folks!

  4. Larry Kralj, Environmental Rangers

    WHERE’S LIBEL MAN?! (craigy mooreon) Or any good Pubbie out there? THIS is your party, dudes! EMBRACE them! DeFEND them! JUSTIFY them! (if you can) They have become the biggest farce in the history of America! LOOK at this moron! He’s the best example you got! (a legitimate prez candidate, whom the teatards luved!)

    Now, for your challenge. Just WHERE is the Dem equivalent of this moron? You dudes have gone off the rails, the REALITY rails! And it’s very entertaining to watch!

    http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/10/25/colbert-offers-a-million-to-charity-if-trump-will-teabag-him-by-halloween/

  5. Jan Thomas

    Go Steve Bullock! Thank you for not breaking the law like Hill and letting out of state corporations buy your campaign.

  7. Larry Kralj, Environmental Rangers

    Oh Sweet JAYsus! It’s contagious! Dixie Chick Fever! Quick, alert Flush Blimpaugh and the redneck brigade! We gotta get us a steamroller and ROLL over her records! Boycott! Alert the Faith Family Freedom crowd! The devil is on the loose! bhwhwhwhahahahhahahahahaaa!

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/25/katy-perry-ballot-dress_n_2015371.html

    And for the record, I call it the Faith, Family, Freedom and BUTTplug crowd! For you see, any time you hear someone use these three, you just KNOW you’re gonna get hosed! bwhahahahahahahaaa! Bend over for JAYsus!

    Faith, Family, Freedom, BUTTplug!

    • Larry Kralj, Environmental Rangers

      IT’S CONTAGIOUS! Another one! But hey, not to worry. The Pubbies still have annie the fanny COULTER!……bhwhahahahahahahaa!
      And sarah palin!

      Pubbies, STILL dumb as dog shit! And proud of it!

        • Larry Kralj, Environmental Rangers

          Wonder if they got one for dudes who pork MERMAIDS???? Jus curious. Maybe there IS redemption for Mermaid Munchkin Man! bwahahahhahahahahaa! All’s he needs is a leetle EXorcise!

          And a new Buybull story is born ’bout the Mermaid that SWALLOWED a munchkin man, but then spit him back out!

          bwhahahahhahahahahahahahaaa!

          Faith, Family, Freedumb, BUTT PLUG!

            • Larry Kralj, Environmental Rangers

              HOIST BY ONE’S OWN TEATARD!
              bwhahahahahahahahaaaa!
              He’s Akin to be little jonny TROCHman! Talk about a major WARDrobe malfunction! Every day now the Pubbies are being exposed for being the big boobs they are! Is THIS really what we want for America? Have we REALLY become a nation of inbred racist morons? I think not. The Pubbies have been found out!

              http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/todd-akins-militia-past-exposes-his

              EMBRACE YOUR PEOPLE, MOOREON! This mooreon is your little “gift from god”! And you deserve him!

              • Larry Kralj, Environmental Rangers

                Wait, what? You mean, DOPEY Reeburp is a certified moron too? We already KNEW that though! Come ON, ladies. Do your duty! Do NOT let Dopey near D.C. again! Do you REALLY want a dipshit like Dopey Reeburp making your reproductive choices for you? NO ONE is that stoopid, are they?

                “The political action committee Republican National Coalition for Life submits questionnaires to GOP candidates about their positions on choice issues and then endorses candidates who advocate a strict anti-abortion platform. Selected candidates must be “unconditionally pro-life” and “recognize the inherent right to life of every innocent human being, from conception until natural death, without discrimination.”

                So far, the group has endorsed 10 such Republican Senate candidates: Akin and Mourdock, as well as George Allen (Va.), Rep. Rick Berg (N.D.), Ted Cruz (Texas), Deb Fischer (Neb.), Sen. Dean Heller (Nev.), Rep. Pete Hoekstra (Mich.), Josh Mandel (R-Ohio) and Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-Mont.)”

                    • Rob Kailey

                      Larry, I make this suggestion in all good faith, no insult intended.

                      Any message you are attempting to convey you dilute so much that it’s meaningless. You do so 3 ways.

                      1) Being wildly off topic of the post. The Cons are successful because they focus so much on something inconsequential that they turn it into “An Issue”. You point out things of concern by saying “Look over there!” while wildly waving your hand in the air. This fight get’s won by focus. Though that outcome wouldn’t be as much fun for you, I have to ask, Do you wanna win this fight?

                      2) Semi-auto fire is really good if you need the additional impact, but mostly it’s just a waste of shells, and increases the chances of hitting your compadres. You gain nothing by having half the comments to any given post. The eleven comments above this one are all from you, about nothing in specific. Slow it down a little.

                      3) As I’ve indicated before, nesting replies to your own comments means they won’t be read, and neither will any other reply. It just takes up space on the screen, and makes the whole damned thing harder for anyone to deal with. That’s kind of that ‘friendly-fire’ thing I alluded to above.

                      To you, it appears the important thing is the fight itself. To most of us, it’s actually more important to get a favorable resolution. Luv ya’ man, but you aren’t helping.

                    • Larry Kralj, Environmental Rangers

                      No insult taken, amigo. I work a lot, looong hours. So, when I do get a chance to hit the ol’ computer, I go a leetle crazy sometimes. But I’m DAMN scared of what’s happening to our country. And the wackiness that is affecting Montana comes from the national level. That’s why I point this out. That’s all. It’s all related now.

  8. Kenneth Kailey

    Let us not forget the illegal donations that Fox received as well. As a candidate for Attorney General, he should have at least known better. Moreover, if he wins the election, his election could be subject to a recall effort as well.

  9. larry kurtz

    We here at Esquire World Blogging HQ have been keeping a close eye on Montana politics, not least because outgoing governor Brian Schweitzer is one of my favorite humans, and because Montana fought the good fight to maintain the campaign-finance laws it put in place the last time we had a corporate oligarchy trying to sublease democracy, and because Republican senatorial candidate Denny Rehberg is just such a damn hoot.

    But, as this upcoming Frontline episode proves, there’s a lot going in Montana that makes the state a perfect test case for the new world of weaponized corporate money.

    http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/dark-money-montana-14091334

  10. Dave Skinner

    Oh, so what’s the big deal? Hill pulls the money back in, gives it back to the GOP, and THEY flog on Bullock. Trust me, the money WILL be spent on behalf of Republican causes.

    • Kenneth Kailey

      I realise this will escape you, Dave, but the “big deal” is the utter lack of good character or morality on the part of Hill. Even if he does get forced to return the money (something he is fighting strongly), he has proven his utter lack of good sense or “doing the right thing”. I wouldn’t vote for Hill for dog catcher at this point.

      • Dave Skinner

        Right, Genius Ken,
        Let’s not worry about the million plus or so the DGA has dumped into the pit on behalf of Bullock. That’s OKAY money. Never mind that the main client, Great American Media, is some kind of under-the-radar slash house in DC (no Montana jobs there) with not even a web site. Or that Harper Lawson, the “treasurer,” was Schweitzer’s campaign manager, then McCulloch’s COS, then rotated into this deal. Maybe he still works for McCulloch? I’ll need to czech.
        Seems like pot calling the kettle black here.

    • Brigham

      With Rick Hill’s campaign being able to buy ad time at a fraction of the cost as independent expenditures, the illegal $500K is actually worth millions more than if it were legally spent as an I.E.

      Millions. Easily north of $3 million, could be more than $5 million.

      This was a MAJOR crime.

      • Havre Voter

        Good point, I hadn’t even considered this at all. I did know that candidates receive a massive discount on ads that groups like political parties do not get.

  11. Richard Miller

    For the gentleman with the new tat…..perhaps you should remember what the wife of the commander of Buchenwald did with the tats from some of the Jewish prisoners….good thing you have such hairy legs to cover it. I wouldn’t be that proud of it.

  12. Rebecca Norton

    Glad to hear about the recall if he doesn’t return the money. Thanks to everyone who is tracking the legalities of this election cycle, I really appreciate you all for keeping our democracy what it’s intended to be in our state.

  14. Lynn

    AM PT: MT-Gov: A state judge in Montana has temporarily ordered Republican Rick Hill to stop spending a questionable $500,000 campaign donation and to cancel any ad buys that were paid for with this money. So what’s the backstory here? How the heck could Hill land such an enormous contribution? The Missoulian explains:

    [Democrat Steve] Bullock has argued that the $500,000 donation received by Hill’s campaign illegally exceeds the $22,600 maximum aggregate limit that a political party can give to a candidate for governor.
    Hill disagreed. He said he legally received the donation Oct. 4 during a six-day window when state contribution limits, including the aggregate one, were struck down by a federal judge and before they were reinstated by an appeals court.

    But Bullock’s lawyer contended that the $22,600 aggregate limit for party donations applies for the entire campaign.

    We mentioned that weird, six-day gap in an earlier digest—and evidently, Hill was eager to exploit it, with the Montana Republican Party plowing that half a mil directly into his coffers. (Why couldn’t the MT GOP just spend it themselves? They could, but Hill, as a candidate, is entitled to cheaper ad rates.) As I noted, this is not a permanent injunction, but the judge won’t hear oral arguments until Monday, scarcely a week before election day. So even if Hill gets a favorable final ruling, he’ll have limited time to make use of all that extra cash. And either way, he’s taken a bad p.r. hit, since the ongoing abrogation of Montana’s strict campaign finance laws doesn’t tend to play well in a state that, until very recently, could proudly point to its efforts to keep money out of politics.

    http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/10/25/1149830/-Daily-Kos-Elections-Live-Digest-10-25-morning-edition

  15. Drifter

    Seems to me that Hill had said that he didn’t care what Bullock thought about the donation and that he would let a judge decide. Now, he’s screaming about the “injusice” of the decision by the appeals court. He doesn’t think that elections should be decided by the judicial branch, while he apparently thinks that it’s alright to buy elections with big money! Maybe he should tell the next tribunal that he had polio when he was a kid….