Tagged: john sinrud

Posted: October 17, 2010 at 12:38 pm

Meet the Backers of CI-105

In spite of the phony claims, barrage of folksy mailers and advertising, and guest editorials confusing the issue, CI-105 is backed by none other than John Sinrud and the Chicago-based National Association Realtors. An outstanding letter to the editor in the Missoulian gets to the heart of the matter on CI-105, an initiative driven by the Chicago-based National Association of Realtors which is attempting to carve out tax breaks for moneyed special interests:

In Montana, various legislators, from both sides of the aisle, have explored transfer tax possibilities to help fund higher education, land conservation, or even ways to decrease property taxes. All failed for lack of broad-based legislative support. That’s the way our state’s constitutional system is set up, with such matters debated and decided by elected representatives. But winning at that level hasn’t been good enough for the big-moneyed proponents of CI-105. They want to re-write the Constitution itself.

Have you received any of the expensive, glossy mailers with small town houses and families sitting around the table? Here’s what’s really rich, as the letter writer explains:

Who are these citizen-advocates? By the end of May of this year, “The Coalition to Prevent Double Taxation” had spent more than any other group promoting or opposing Montana ballot initiatives. It had raised more than $606,000 – virtually all coming from the Chicago-based National Association of Realtors.

It’s also a pet project of John Sinrud, the man involved in other shadow groups and behaviors that have recently come under fire. Complaints of fraud and misrepresentation are already piling up.

Posted: October 13, 2010 at 6:23 am

Montana, Led by AG Bullock, is Sole State to Fight Corporate Election Influence

As Matt Singer at Left in the West wrote about yesterday, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that after the Supreme Court OK-ed corporate influence in elections, no other state but Montana had the backbone to stand up for our own laws against it.

And Montana’s Attorney General Steve Bullock, a rising star in the political scene both within the state and nationally, is leading the fight. As the Wall Street Journal reports:

Mr. Bullock says some of the Supreme Court’s reasons for overruling the federal campaign-finance law don’t apply to his state, arguing that its Corrupt Practices Act of 1912 remains constitutional.

Montana’s opponents are some of the most pernicious influences on state, regional, and national politics we’ve seen in recent years. First, there is the militia affiliated Montana Shooting Sports Association:

Gary Marbut, president of the Montana Shooting Sports Association (MSSA), is a frequent contributor to the Militia of Montana’s e-mail list. In an April 2000 message to his e-mail list, he wrote “WTO, GATT, and NAFTA are all moves towards the New World Order and the coveted global government.”

He also contributes to the patriot Internet publication The Sierra Times. One of his columns was later carried in the Christian Identity tabloid The Jubilee. Christian Identity, based on a racist interpretation of the Bible, holds that Jews are the literal children of Satan, and people of color are subhuman “mud people.” Another Marbut column in The Sierra Times attacked the federal government for wanting its citizens to remain “Îstabable’, Îshootable’, Îbeatable’, Îrobable’, and, of course, Îrapeable.’” His dislike for the federal government also surfaced in 1994 when Marbut wanted Montana to secede from the union.

Also opposing Montana is the embattled Western Traditions Partnership, a groups with legal problems in Colorado and whose leadership appears to have acted illegally in Montana. But that’s not all. As Singer relates, the Billings Gazette is reporting that a Montana Commissioner of Political Practices investigator

has found evidence that Western Tradition Partnership intends to or has tried to solicit donations from officers of several foreign corporations or their affiliations, including some based in Canada, South Africa and the United Kingdom.

Hardly the “Western Tradition” they claim to espouse. A third opponent of Montana’s case is a TEA Party leader worried about United Nations conspiracies.

He says he wants to spend his company’s money to oust city officials who joined an international organization of local governments seeking to meet sustainability goals backed by the United Nations.

This is a battle worth watching, and whatever the outcome of this particular fight, it is also worth watching the future of Montana’s Attorney General Steve Bullock.

Posted: September 20, 2010 at 12:41 pm

In Tune with Montana Values?

Hardly. John Sinrud’s Western Traditions Partnership is so out of touch with Montana that they sent a Montana candidate their survey for the Colorado state legislature. That’s embarrassing. If they don’t even know what western state is which, they’re probably not the go-to group for western policy.

Posted: August 31, 2010 at 8:34 pm

Republicans Cut Taxes–By Encouraging People Who Owe Them Not To Pay Them

Even though they love trillion-dollar wars, abolishing all income taxes and the IRS is a favorite mission of the mountain-men and militia-types who seem to constitute about 80% of the Republican party nowadays. There is a central and long-held belief among Republicans, most likely held by Bowen Greenwood and Will Deschamps as well, that the federal income tax is unconstitutional, because supposedly it was not properly ratified by one of the state legislatures back a century ago when it was amended to the Constitution.

Kudos to Schweitzer and the Democrats for cracking down on out of state tax cheats. The Administration announced this week that there is cash to be gotten from national travel companies that have been booking rooms without paying the 7% hotel tax.

Needless to say, Republicans have never supported the Democrats on any efforts to collect taxes from deadbeat corporations who don’t pay what they owe. In fact, the Rs have often tried to put up road blocks to the Revenue Department’s efforts to collect taxes that are due. During several legislative sessions when Democrats and the Adminsitration tried to get important legislation passed to help them in this effort (like this bill, in 2007), Republicans, lead by visionary statesmen such as Scott Sales, Mike Lange and John Sinrud, did everything they could to kill it. It’s really bizarre in fact, that Republicans are so averse to any taxes at all that they believe a person should simply nullify the law by disregarding it. Or, the Rs simply go out of their way to take all the teeth out of the enforcement powers of the MT Department of Revenue.

Funny, because Republicans like Hannity, Beck and company, and no doubt their numerous brown-shirt followers in Montana, delighted in uttering the refrain “Democrats like raising taxes, they just don’t like paying them” during Obama’s transition when it was shown that a few of Obama’s cabinet nominees owed back taxes. Unfortunately, in Montana there can now be uttered a similar slogan: “Republicans believe in cutting taxes, by allowing people to break the law and not pay them.”

Posted: August 17, 2010 at 7:25 am

Sinrud Appears to Have Committed Crime, Lobbied Illegally

1994 called, they want John Sinrud's tie back. Someone sent me a tip the other day, that John Sinrud broke the law in late 2009 because he appeared as a lobbyist to lobby on behalf of the Northwest Montana Realtors.

It appears that the tipster was correct. Mr. Sinrud left the State Legislature on December 31, 2008. By law, a member of the legislature must wait exactly two years before becoming a lobbyist. This law was passed overwhelming by voters in 2006 as a ballot measure, as part of a comprehensive ethics reform initiative by the Governor. It is an important legal prohibition, as it prevents public servants from making personal business-use of the relationships and connections they establish while serving the public. It also makes it less likely that legislators or other government officers will cut shady deals in their last days in office and get rewarded, with a job, by the corporate beneficiary, immediately upon leaving office…

The Montana Code, Section 5-7-310, says a person can’t lobby or even get a license if “during the 24 months prior to applying for a license, that individual served as a state legislator”.

And yet, on December 4, 2009 only a year after leaving office, Sinrud showed up at the state legislature to lobby for the Northwest Montana Association of Realtors at an interim committee, and declared that he was, in fact, appearing before the committee to advocate for that group. He has also, I am told, lobbied in front of the Whitefish City Council and Flathead County Commission prior to December 31, 2009. I believe, but am not certain, that those activities, too, are against the rules.

This stuff seems pretty cut and dried. If there is a loophole here, I don’t see it, but if there is, I hope Sinrud will take this opportunity to explain himself in the comments.

Sinrud should be held accountable if his actions contravened the ethics statute. Assume they do, NWMR will be required to make a decision as to whether they want him representing them. Right now he is a major force behind shady campaign tactics and shadow groups, as he has been for the last several election cycles in the Flathead and elsewhere. Western Tradition Partnership should also be held accountable for having a scofflaw as its head.

Actually, that was already the case. This is not the first transgression by Sinrud. He was busted for practicing architecture without a license in 2007. He blamed Schweitzer for that.

Maybe he feels that he is now getting some revenge by breaking a law that Schweitzer created.

Posted: August 14, 2010 at 10:01 am

Republican org nails its portrayal of Sinrud

In a guest opinion in the Billings Gazette today, John Sinrud’s “Western Traditions Partnership” is called out for what they do:

The group, which favors high-density development over traditional rural landscapes, also has an odd definition of what constitutes “western.” It has weighed in on development issues in the western suburbs of Washington, D.C., and been politically active in Kentucky.

and who they are

brawlers who specialize in blitzing voters with last-minute hit pieces that falsely paint their targets as undesirables.

Posted: July 23, 2010 at 12:08 pm

Shadow Group connected to Sinrud fined in CO, Leaves CO taxpayers on the hook for improper activity fines

Embattled former Montana legislator John Sinrud’s Western Tradition Partnership has been targeting pro-conservation candidates in both parties for the last few years, and specializes in nasty (and potentially illegal) campaign tactics. Sinrud, a former Belgrade legislator, has been previously identified in connection with the shadow group in the Montana press. Correction: I had earlier written that former Speaker of the House Scott Sales was someone behind this group. That was incorrect. Sales was among those endorsed/backed by the group. Now, the shadow group is making headlines in other states for their tactics. The Colorado Independent has the story, including how the group was

formed by Montana political activists but registered to GOP operative Scott Shires in Aurora, Colo. That group denies advocating for any particular candidate in any particular race, insisting its campaign surveys legally gauge for the voters where candidates stand on the issues.

Shires has been fined and censured by Colorado officials in past elections, including the 2008 Garfield County commissioners’ races, which saw Democrats targeted by the oil and gas industry. Shires’ Colorado League of Taxpayers was fined $7,150 for spending $2,400 on mailers in that race without filing proper electioneering reports with the Colorado Secretary of State.

Nearly two years later, Shires still hasn’t paid his fine. “At this point, collections hasn’t been able to get that money yet,” Secretary of State spokesman Rich Coolidge said.